A player making sports bets (illustration).

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PFG / SIPA

No need to go to the police station: since Tuesday, the management of the file of prohibited games passes from the hands of the Ministry of the Interior to those of the National Games Authority (ANJ).

The latter will offer a modernized and simplified approach.

Previously, people wishing to be included in this file had to make an appointment at a police station and go there in order to finalize their registration.

They thus found themselves under a ban, for a period of three years, from playing in casinos and gaming clubs, on betting or poker websites approved by the ANJ and at the games of the Française des jeux. and PMU with a player account.

The voluntary ban on gambling by the ANJ is a simplified course with registration that can be done entirely online.

pic.twitter.com/IB25AGrfHO

- National Games Authority (@ANJ_FR) January 12, 2021

" One step forward "

A tedious and dissuasive process for some players who will now simply have to fill out an online form on the ANJ website.

“It really is a step forward.

There is no longer this difficulty that players had to take the step of physically going to a police department to validate their ban, ”said Armelle Achour, director of SOS players.

"To fight against addictions, I often say that there should not be more than two steps to be taken for it to be effective", agrees Mario Blaise, head of department at the Marmottan hospital in Paris, specialized in addictive practices.

This simplification is all the more important as “the motivation [to stop playing] can be a little fleeting and ambivalent, so it is important that [the procedure] facilitate it,” he adds.

“When a player asks for his ban, we already know that he is out of breath.

He's been doing the most stupid things lately, ”adds Armelle Achour.

36,500 people banned from gambling

Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, president of the ANJ, is pleased to see the regulator of gambling positioning itself as "a service provider to the population of players and not simply as the cop or gendarme" of the sector.

"We want to help the players to have control of their playing practice and to support them", she adds.

Despite this procedure, players who are banned will still be able to play at a point of sale.

The file of voluntary gambling bans currently numbers 36,500 people, while the number of problem gamblers in terms of addiction is estimated at 1.3 million people by the Games Observatory.

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