France Licensed Casinos Online

ARJEL – or the Autorité de Régulation des Jeux en Ligne – is the online gambling regulatory body of France. The ARJEL representatives have the legal power to grant online gambling licenses, administer online gambling standards, and fiercely protect players from fraudulent online gaming platforms.

Below, you can familiarize yourself with the mission of the ARJEL regulatory body:

• to issue licenses and make sure the licensees abide by the Commission’s rules
• to ensure player protection and prevent addiction
• to guarantee safety to the license holders
• to legally confront dishonest operators
• to take a stand against fraud and money laundering

Even though France’s online gambling market has literally skyrocketed this year, the government is not ready to open the door for online casino legalization yet. Therefore, so far, you won’t find online casino sites that are licensed in France, only the ones that offer online poker games, horse betting, and sports betting activities are available.

How the Commission Works

While the online casino gambling license from ARJEL is a non-existent notion so far, the offline casino licenses are possible to acquire. The procedure is very time-consuming and complex. A casino facility must sort this issue with the city where it will be based and must be approved by the Ministry of Home Affairs. Only after that, the casino is allowed to begin operating.

The approval is temporary and is followed by the constant supervision of a variety of control services. Following the ‘major’ operator’s land-based casino license, the facility’s employees and providers must also apply for a license. If the authorities do not reply within several months of applying, chances are high the operator will be denied their French license.

The French legislative framework doesn’t provide any specifications as to the period during which the French casino license is valid. The law only states that the offline casino licenses duration period is determined by the regulatory body upon issuing the license. When it comes to the online gambling license issued by ARJEL, it is valid for 5 years.

Application Requirements & Compliance Highlights<>/h3

To qualify for a France online gambling license, the online gambling facility must be based in the EU. The application process starts with filling out an application form and submitting it to ARJEL. When completing this form, the operator will answer questions regarding the legal, financial, technical, and personal information that forms their operation, as well as its ownership framework.

During the application procedure, the future licensees must:

• provide all the necessary information about their identities and ownership structure of their business
• prove that they have no criminal convictions
• demonstrate their willingness and ability to fulfill their financial obligations in respect of their operation

During the license application evaluation stage, the operator may be requested for some extra details and/or documents. Upon acquiring the France casino license, the operator must pay a license fee, which varies from 5,000 Euros to 10,000 Euros based on the number of applications. Since 2010, France has granted dozens of gambling licenses to offshore operators. Their services are now available for French players.

Since online casinos with ARJEL license do not function so far, the types of licenses issued by the ARJEL regulatory authority concern other gambling categories. Because such commonplace casino games as slot machines, roulette, and some table games are excluded from the French-licensed gaming platforms, a rather limited amount of license types is available.

So, the following licenses are issued by the ARJEL supervisory body:

• online poker license
• sports betting license
• horse betting license

When applying for any of these licenses, the operator must provide the following details:

• personal info: name, address, business names, and so on
• financial information: to prove the operator is capable of managing the operation
• online gambling platform: a comprehensive description of a website with a .fr extension should be added
• types of gambling services they are going to provide
• IS architecture
• information on the operator’s readiness and proficiency in the player protection field

When it comes to the brand names of gambling sites registered under the French online gambling jurisdiction, they are PartyPoker, PokerStars, Unibet, and Everest Poker. When it comes to the French online gambling facilities that operate without a license, they face some insignificant fines. As for gambling enthusiasts that prefer placing bets on foreign sites, they are not challenged by the government.

Some of these foreign gambling sites may be blocked by ISPs. In addition to this, not many international online casinos accept French punters. On the whole, licensing fees and gambling taxes are too high for the French operators to prosper. Because of this, as well as due to the restricted player pool, and oppressive regulations, the online gambling market in France is slow in its expansion and development.

Although ARJEL does not regulate casino gambling – online casinos licensed and regulated in France is a yet-to-appear phenomenon – the regulatory authority does have a lot of responsibilities to fulfill. Players register with operator’s online platforms, entrusting them their personal and financial data, as well as their funds. They place bets while playing against other gambling enthusiasts and hoping to win. The ARJEL regulatory authority is on a mission to ensure that its licensees are reliable enough to earn their players’ trust.

The Commission plays the role of a third party a gambler gets the possibility to call on whenever they come across any problematic situations while playing at the licensed French online casinos – or, to be more precise, when playing at poker rooms or when engaging in sports/horse betting online. So, let’s dig into the issue of the ARJEL regulatory authority reputation, as well as its responsibilities regarding such aspects as player protection and fair gaming. It’s true, online casinos regulated by the ARJEL are nowhere to be found, but the information below can become handy if you decide to indulge in a little poker game or, say, horse betting.

Players Protection

First and foremost, in accordance with the ARJEL guidelines, underage players are strictly banned from accessing all types of online and land-based gambling activities. Therefore, online gambling operators must do everything they can to prevent minors from registering with their services and taking advantage of them.

Furthermore, offline casinos with ARJEL license, as well as France-regulated online gambling facilities, must ensure that they prevent people who are on the list of problem gamblers from accessing their websites. If a licensed operator identifies a problem gambler after they register with their service, their customer support – or any other customer-related department – must terminate their registration immediately.

In addition to this, licensed ARJEL casinos, sports betting sites and poker rooms must offer their players effective self-exclusion mechanisms. By making the most of these mechanisms, players can temporarily or permanently exclude themselves from accessing the most addictive games. After the permanent exclusion, the players’ account gets terminated for a very long time. As a result, pathological gamblers are unable to access their accounts during the next 3 years after the termination.

Fair Gaming

One of the missions of the ARJEL supervisory authority is to make sure that its license holders provide transparent gaming possibilities to their clients. There’s not much information on how exactly the jurisdiction deals with licensees that break its rules in terms of the fair gaming aspect. However, based on this list of ARJEL decisions published at their official site, we can clearly see that the Commission does work on investigating its license holders who have chosen not to conform to the organization’s legal framework.

Funds Protection

First of all, the ARJEL authorities only issue licenses to online operators that have persuasive financial capacity to fulfill the responsibilities related to the operation. That way, the authorities make the first solid step in terms of protecting players’ funds.

In addition to this, both land-based casinos and online betting companies regulated by the ARJEL Commission must follow its anti-money laundering legislation. In other words, operators are obliged to identify all their players, and assign an independent expert responsible for monitoring all suspicious financial operations.

Operator Responsibilities

One of the major operator responsibilities, aside from the ones we’ve already touched upon, is protecting their players’ sensitive data. The information players share upon registering with online gambling facilities is extremely sensitive. It discloses their personal info, reveals their financial details, and generally, contains everything a fraud needs if they decide to take advantage of the person’s identity or money. Therefore, one of the ARJEL ultimate tasks is preventing that from happening.

You already have a general idea of the way France looks at online gambling as a jurisdiction. You’ve read about the high taxes, restricted and oftentimes inadequate regulation of the sphere by the government. You already know that online gambling licenses in France are currently unavailable to online casinos. Have more questions concerning the overall reputation of the ARJEL supervisory organization? See the below FAQ section, you may find the right answers there.