【game stake】ANJ fines Unibet €800,000 over self

The issue, which first surfaced in 2021, stemmed from a malfunction affecting Unibet’s iOS application and website, which allowed thousands of self-excluded players to resume gambling despite their requests to opt out.

Due to a system error, self-exclusion periods set by players — ranging from several weeks to months — were incorrectly converted into significantly shorter durations.

For instance, a player requesting a 12-month exclusion was only blocked from gambling for 12 days.

Under French law, online gambling operators must provide a mechanism allowing users to voluntarily exclude themselves for periods of time ranging from 24 hours to 12 months.

The Unibet glitch, however, meant that from 2 March 2021 to 11 December 2022, self-excluded players could regain access within days.

A later update inadvertently reintroduced the problem, affecting iOS users between 29 December 2022 and 2 February 2023.

In total, the system failure persisted for nearly 22 months before it was fully resolved.

Dispute over number of affected players

It is unclear how many players were affected by the malfunction. The ANJ estimated that 6,754 players were unable to benefit from the self-exclusion period they had requested

However SPS Betting, the company that operates Unibet’s French site, disputed the ANJ’s estimate and argued that the number of accounts potentially affected should be reduced to between 4,035 and a maximum of 4,888.

The company also claimed that only 157 players had contacted customer service within 30 days of the malfunction regarding issues related to “responsible gaming,” “account-related queries,” or “viability and related operations.”

SPS further maintained that the number of players who actually suffered damage could not exceed 100​.

Unibet to publish sanction on homepage

The ANJ’s sanctions committee, however, confirmed the violations and imposed multiple penalties, citing the severity and duration of the breaches — particularly given their impact on problem gambling prevention.

In addition to paying the €800,000 fine, Unibet must also publish a notice of the sanction on the homepage of Unibet.frand its mobile apps, linking to the ANJ’s official statement, between 17 and 31 March.

Unibet has the option to appeal the ruling before the French Council of State within two months of notification.