France Caps Gambling Ad Spend at €785M Ahead of World Cup: ANJ Issues First-Ever Budget Limits

France’s gambling regulator has taken an unprecedented step: for the first time ever, operators are prohibited from exceeding their declared advertising budgets. The trigger? A planned €785 million promotional blitz—up 25% year-over-year—timed around the 2026 FIFA World Cup and Winter Olympics. L’Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ) has already intervened with specific operators, requiring some to cut social media spend and one to “significantly reduce retention bonus expenses.”

The Budget Cap Precedent

This is genuinely new regulatory territory. The ANJ stated that “for the first time, it has required all operators not to exceed the total budget they have declared and to strictly limit any reallocation of funds within that budget.”

No other European regulator does this. The ANJ is the only gambling authority that systematically reviews each licensee’s advertising and promotional expenditure annually. The Netherlands, Spain, and Ireland are now examining similar supervisory approaches—France may be setting the template for post-World Cup regulatory tightening across Europe. The UK’s recent move to cap wagering requirements at 10x shows how European regulators are increasingly willing to impose hard limits on operator practices.

“To prevent any risk of advertising overexposure and the development of excessive gambling practices, the ANJ has issued strict guidelines to stakeholders.”
— L’Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ), January 2026

The €785 Million Breakdown

The ANJ examined submissions from 17 licensed online operators plus monopoly operators FDJ (lottery) and PMU (horse racing). The collective promotional budget breaks down into two main categories:

The World Cup alone accounts for 21% of the annual marketing budget, concentrated in June and July. Digital channels dominate at 44% of spend, while bonuses represent 60% of the total promotional investment.

Retention Bonuses: The Hidden Battleground

Most coverage of gambling advertising focuses on TV commercials and stadium sponsorships. But the real story is in the 60% of the €785 million going to “financial incentives”—bonuses, cross-selling offers, and retention campaigns.

The ANJ highlighted that these gratifications are “largely driven by retention strategies and cross-selling between sports betting, poker and gaming products.” Operators are focused on “consolidating” their player bases in an intensely competitive market.

One unnamed operator was specifically told to “significantly reduce its retention bonus expenses.” This is where the real regulatory friction is developing: not billboards, but the algorithmic targeting of existing players with bonus offers designed to increase play frequency and stake sizes.

The 15% Marketing Tax Effect

Context matters here. In 2025, operators actually underspent their projected budgets by 8%. The ANJ attributed this partly to the new 15% tax on marketing expenditure introduced in July 2025 as part of France’s Social Security Financing Act.

The tax was designed to curb promotional excess. Instead, operators absorbed the 2025 hit—and are now planning to spend through it in 2026. The 25% budget surge represents a sharp reversal, suggesting the tax delayed spending rather than reducing it. This mirrors the pattern seen in other markets—the UK’s 40% tax drove GG.Bet and others to exit entirely, while Brazil’s recent tax hike to 15% shows governments worldwide are treating gambling marketing as a revenue target.

FDJ, France’s state-owned lottery operator, estimated the tax changes would cost it an additional €90 million by July 2026. Operators are clearly betting that World Cup returns will justify the increased tax burden.

Specific Operator Interventions

The ANJ disclosed that it has already required specific operators to make changes—rare transparency from a regulator that typically keeps enforcement actions private. The interventions include:

Proposed Regulatory Reforms

The ANJ has reiterated proposals it wants French lawmakers to consider—measures that would go beyond budget caps to fundamentally reshape gambling advertising:

These proposals haven’t been enacted yet. The World Cup pressure may accelerate their consideration—or operators’ willingness to accept budget caps may be a trade-off to avoid stricter structural reforms.

The $35 Billion World Cup Context

France’s regulatory moves come as the global gambling industry prepares for what may be the largest betting event in history. The 2022 Qatar World Cup generated an estimated $35 billion in global sports betting turnover—a 65% increase over 2018. Analysts expect 2026 to exceed that figure.

Several factors are driving the surge:

Europe’s Strictest Regulator Sets Template

The ANJ’s approach is unique in Europe. While Italy banned gambling sponsorship in sport entirely (2018), Spain followed (2020), and Belgium announced a broader advertising ban (2022), no other regulator requires annual promotional strategy review from every licensee with enforceable budget caps.

The Netherlands, Spain, and Ireland are now examining similar frameworks. If France’s budget cap approach proves effective at curbing promotional excess without triggering an industry exodus, other European regulators may adopt it. Outside Europe, Turkey has taken an even more aggressive stance, weaponizing banks to cut off payment flows to unlicensed operators.

The stakes are high. France’s regulated online gambling market continues to grow, but so do concerns about problem gambling and youth exposure. The ANJ is trying to thread the needle: allowing operators to compete for World Cup attention while preventing the promotional arms race from spiraling out of control.