In France, more and more young people addicted to sports betting are voluntarily banning themselves from gambling websites in a desperate attempt to regain control.
A Wake-Up Call on TikTok
Wearing sunglasses pushed up on his head and staring directly into the camera with sad music playing in the background, 24-year-old Quentin Houët makes a solemn announcement to his TikTok followers: he’s just made “one of the best decisions of [his] life.”
The second half of the video shows a screenshot of an email from the French National Gambling Authority (Autorité nationale des jeux, ANJ): “Starting from March 15, 2024, you will be prohibited from logging into gambling websites legally operating in France, for a minimum duration of three years.”
Quentin, a school supervisor and football coach in the Seine-et-Marne region, is also a die-hard Olympique Lyonnais fan. But more importantly, he’s a compulsive sports bettor. He voluntarily applied for a national ban from French betting sites.
In the video’s caption, he adds a brutally honest confession: “It’s a decision I already regret — which proves I needed to make it.”
His video quickly went viral, racking up more than 1.6 million views and drawing hundreds of comments.
“I’m with you, bro. March 15 — ban starts for me too,” writes one user in solidarity.
Quentin is far from alone. Since 2021, more than 60,000 people in France have initiated a voluntary gambling ban, according to data from ANJ. Many are young and battling their addiction in silence, without professional support. For them, the ban is a last-ditch effort to break the cycle.
Voluntary Exclusion: A Flawed Lifeline?
Before committing to the national exclusion list, gamblers can choose to self-exclude from individual gambling sites, one by one, for up to 12 months. But in a digital landscape flooded with platforms, that’s often not enough. “You want to block yourself in the moment, but an hour later, you don’t anymore,” says Quentin.
Even worse, some sites don’t actually honor these self-exclusions. “Once, I asked to be excluded from a betting site for 12 months. Two weeks later, I could still place bets,” he recalls.
The ANJ has received at least five reports of such failed self-exclusions. The system designed to help people can, ironically, enable their downfall.
