France’s National Gaming Authority, Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ), has published figures related to requests received by the gaming mediator for disputes between players and operators. 

During the course of 2023, the gaming mediator received 1,523 requests, which was an increase of 11% when compared to 2022, with sports betting representing the vast majority of these at 91%. 

The ANJ has stated that the requests “overwhelmingly relate to difficulties encountered by sports betting players concerning disputes relating to the result or cancellation of bets or the management of their accounts (blocking, closure, difficulty withdrawal of funds, etc).” 

In total, 752 requests were declared inadmissible, with the absence of a prior written complaint to the operators being the main reason requests were deemed inadmissible at 89%. 

When it came to processing these requests, the average time was 31 days, which is said to be below the maximum amount of time for processing of 90 days, which is set in the Consumer Code. Around a third of requests received partial or total satisfaction. 

The mediator has set out four recommendations to operators on the back of this report. This includes justifying a decision when closing a player’s account with facts, to be vigilant and immediately remove restrictive clauses from their gaming regulations, inform players in the event of closure of a player account due to inactivity, and to take steps to prevent excessive gambling. 

For this year, the mediator and those of the ANJ’s mission will look to respond to each other to better inform and protect players, especially those players who are at risk. 

In related news at the start of the year, the college of the ANJ elected to re-evaluate its lists of eligible sports bets, with 179 competitions being removed and this updated sports list coming into effect back on 1 March.