France’s newish gaming regulator, the National Gaming Authority (ANJ, for its French acronym), continues to settle into place. It took over from the Regulatory Authority of Online Games last year with the goal of creating unified oversight of all gaming in the country and has, since then, been putting together all the various pieces necessary to control a massive industry. One of its latest endeavors brings into the mix a well-known figure in the governmental policy framework arena through Christel Fiorina. She has been tapped to be the ANJ’s first-ever Market, Compliance and Player Protections Director.
ANJ Continues to Shape France’s Gaming Industry
The objective of the new position is to oversee and maintain market integrity as France’s gaming industry continues to expand. Fiorina will ensure that the ANJ is able to keep to its goals and directives while, at the same time, ensuring gaming operators are doing their part, as well. According to a statement released by the ANJ, she will oversee the “economic regulation of the gambling market, in particular the commercial policies and promotional strategies of operators and the prevention of excessive gambling.”
Fiorina comes with substantial experience with establishing and creating regulations. She has previously run in circles that include high-ranking government officials, particularly with the Ministries of Economy and Finance, Transport and the Environment. Fiorina is considered an ethics expert and was previously part of the leadership team for France’s General Directorate of Enterprises, where she was heavily involved in policy development for the ministries. Her experience in creating policies for activities such as eSports and artificial intelligence will be fundamental in her new role.
More Oversight Coming to France’s Gaming Space
The ANJ was formed through the need to create an all-encompassing solution to gaming regulations in France and it has been diligently working to achieve that goal since its inception last year. It has already made several changes to help provide better management of gaming policies and frameworks that can be applied to all activity and will implement several more changes in the next couple of years. Most recently, it introduced a self-exclusion registry, which it operates, to provide more protections. In addition, it has facilitated directives that force ISPs to ban non-licensed operators or face fines of as much as €10,000 ($11,892) per day.
In addition, the ANJ, led by President Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, is working closely with the country’s Observatory for Drugs and Drug Addiction. This collaborative effort was initiated last month with the goal of analyzing the gambling industry to deliver greater amounts of data that can be used by health and other agencies for the creation and continued development of gambling disorder treatment programs.