France’s Gambling Regulator Warns All Esports Betting Is Illegal as the $75M Esports World Cup Opens in Paris

A Hard Line as the World’s Biggest Esports Event Arrives

Paris hosts the Esports World Cup from July 6 to August 23 – the Saudi-associated competitive gaming project’s crown had to be relocated from Riyadh due to geopolitical safety concerns. Over seven weeks, the tournament runs 25 competitions across 24 games – including Counter-Strike 2, League of Legends, Valorant, and Dota 2 – drawing more than 2,000 players associated with more than 200 different orgs, many of which receive a stipend for being part of the EWC’s umbrella program. The competition carries a prize pool of more than $75 million, the largest ever assembled in esports.

Licensed French operators such as Betclic, Winamax, PMU, and Unibet cannot offer a single market on any of those matches. France’s Autorité nationale des jeux (ANJ) has reiterated that betting on esports competitions is not permitted anywhere in the French market. “All sites offering bets on esports are illegal in France,” the regulator stated, warning consumers away from such platforms on the grounds that they carry heavy addiction risk, run no player-protection measures, and use game software that is neither checked nor certified by the authority – leaving no guarantee that outcomes are not rigged.

The tournament’s arrival has already drawn broader French institutional attention: France Télévisions is airing the Esports World Cup live daily on France 2 and france.tv from July 7, moving one of competitive gaming’s largest events onto national television for the first time. The scale reflects a sector in rapid expansion – global esports revenue is climbing toward $5.1 billion in 2026 against an audience topping 640 million.

The prohibition is not a new policy but a consequence of how French betting law is structured. Under the law of May 12, 2010, which opened online betting to competition, wagering is limited to the sporting disciplines the ANJ enters on its authorized list – and no video game competition appears on it. A later reform, the 2016 Digital Republic law, formally recognized esports as legitimate competition, but it did not extend betting rights to it. The result is that esports can be played, broadcast, and celebrated in France at the highest level, but not legally wagered on.

The concerns most often cited are competitive integrity and match-fixing risk on titles with fast player turnover, and the protection of minors, who are heavily represented in esports audiences. Rather than reopen the broader debate over expanding the perimeter of legal online gambling, French authorities have kept esports outside it while publicly backing the gaming sector: President Emmanuel Macron received the Esports World Cup’s organizers at the Élysée ahead of the event, signaling institutional support for hosting without any move toward legalizing bets.

With no legal domestic outlet, esports betting demand flows to offshore and unlicensed sites – and the typical esports bettor, described by French industry analysts as young, online, and familiar with cryptocurrencies, maps closely onto the demographic the regulatory framework is meant to protect. The ANJ, now led by Pascal Chèvremont following his appointment by presidential decree on June 22, has made combating the illegal offer and protecting vulnerable players central priorities, urging consumers to report unlawful sites so it can open investigations and pursue administrative blocking.

For the duration of the Esports World Cup, then, the position is unambiguous: hundreds of millions will watch, thousands will compete, and in France, none of it can legally be bet on.