Saint Martin, in the sense used in this guide, is the French Collectivité de Saint-Martin: the northern part of an island in the north-eastern Caribbean that is shared with Sint Maarten, a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Since 2007 the French side has been an overseas collectivity with its own powers over taxation, tourism and several other matters. Gambling is not one of them. French national gambling law therefore applies, and under that law there are no casinos on the French side, online casino games are prohibited, and lawful gambling is limited to the products of La Française des Jeux (FDJ) sold locally and to the sports betting, horse-race betting and poker sites licensed by France’s national regulator, the Autorité nationale des jeux (ANJ). The Dutch side, across an open land border, follows different rules and hosts some fifteen casinos; this guide notes the contrast where relevant.
Key points
- Saint-Martin has been an overseas collectivity under Article 74 of the French Constitution since Organic Law No. 2007-223 of 21 February 2007; the new institutions took office on 15 July 2007.
- The Collectivité legislates on taxes, tourism, road transport and some other listed matters. Gambling is not on that list, and criminal law remains with the State, so the national Internal Security Code and the Online Gambling Act of 12 May 2010 apply.
- No casino operates on the French side. A 2018 parliamentary amendment to allow one was rejected, and a Senate bill filed in June 2026 would not, on its wording, reach Saint-Martin.
- FDJ’s lottery games are sold in Saint-Martin under a convention signed with the Collectivité on 28 June 2013. Online casino games are prohibited throughout France, and the ANJ blocks illegal sites.
- Sint Maarten, the Dutch side, licenses casinos under its own rules: 15 were operating in 2025, and a gaming authority and new gambling law were still being prepared.
Last reviewed: 13 October 2026.
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Historical development
The French part of the island was for most of its modern history a commune attached to Guadeloupe. The Collectivité’s own historical timeline records Marigot among the first five municipalities created in Guadeloupe in 1823, and the opening of a sub-prefecture for Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy in 1963. As part of an overseas department, it was subject to national legislation, including the national rules on gambling.
On 7 December 2003 voters approved a change of status in a local referendum, according to the Collectivité’s timeline. Parliament then adopted Organic Law No. 2007-223 of 21 February 2007, which the Conseil constitutionnel reviewed in Decision No. 2007-547 DC of 15 February 2007. According to the Institut d’émission des départements d’outre-mer (IEDOM), the French central bank’s overseas arm, the new framework took effect at the first sitting of the 23-member territorial council on 15 July 2007. Saint-Martin thereby left Guadeloupe and became a separate overseas collectivity (collectivité d’outre-mer, COM).
The change of status did not alter gambling law; it mainly changed the tax system. A 2013 Senate committee opinion noted that the island’s 93 km² are divided between France and the Netherlands by a land border that cannot be effectively controlled, and that Sint Maarten itself gained autonomy within the Dutch Kingdom in 2010.
Legal framework
Constitutional status and the division of powers
Under Article 74 of the Constitution, each overseas collectivity has a status defined by its own organic law. For Saint-Martin, those provisions are codified in Articles LO 6311-1 and following of the General Code of Local Authorities (Code général des collectivités territoriales, CGCT). Two of them matter here.
First, Saint-Martin is governed by the principle of legislative identity: according to IEDOM, it remains the rule in most fields, so national laws and regulations on matters outside the Collectivité’s competence apply directly, the exception being the rules on the entry and stay of foreigners, which apply only where expressly stated. The Conseil constitutionnel’s 2007 decision confirms that Article LO 6313-1 makes immigration and asylum rules apply in Saint-Martin only on express mention.
Second, Article LO 6314-3 lists the matters in which the Collectivité fixes the rules; the Conseil d’État quoted its opening words (“the Collectivité fixes the rules applicable in the following matters: 1° taxes, duties and levies”) in a 2015 decision. IEDOM summarises the Collectivité’s powers as taxation, road transport, maritime ports, roads, public property, foreign workers’ access to employment, tourism and the organisation of its own public services, with a power to adapt rules on environment, urban planning, construction, housing and energy. It adds that the State remains competent for criminal law, commercial law and monetary, banking and financial law. Gambling does not appear among the Collectivité’s powers. (The consolidated text on Légifrance could not be retrieved for this review.)
Gambling in Saint-Martin is therefore governed by national law. The Collectivité can shape the tax and tourism environment, but it cannot itself authorise a casino or an online gambling site.
The national gambling statutes
- Internal Security Code (Code de la sécurité intérieure, CSI), Book III, Title II. Article L. 320-1 states that “games of money and chance are prohibited”; the following articles create exceptions for casinos, lotteries, horse-race betting and certain other activities. As explained in a 2023 Senate committee report, Article L. 321-1 lists the limited categories of communes, mainly classified seaside, spa and climatic resorts and certain tourist cities, in which a casino may be authorised; under Article L. 321-2, the municipal council must give its binding approval and authorisation is granted by the Minister of the Interior.
- Law No. 2010-476 of 12 May 2010 on the opening to competition and regulation of the online gambling sector, which created a licensing system for online sports betting, horse-race betting and poker, and left online casino games prohibited.
- Ordinance No. 2019-1015 of 2 October 2019 and Decree No. 2019-1061 of 17 October 2019, adopted following Article 137 of Law No. 2019-486 of 22 May 2019 (the PACTE law). As cited in ANJ decisions, they govern FDJ’s exclusive rights and the regulator’s approval of its game rules.
The ANJ’s 2024 decision approving the Loto rules, which are applied in Saint-Martin, cites the CSI, the 2010 law and the 2019 decree as its legal basis, and the approved rules cite the 2019 ordinance, consistent with their application there. We found no provision excluding Saint-Martin from them; the consolidated texts on Légifrance remain the reference.
Regulator and licensing model
France uses a mixed model. A monopoly, meaning an exclusive right held by a single operator, applies to lotteries and to land-based sports betting (FDJ) and to land-based horse-race betting (PMU). A licensing system, open to competing operators, applies to online sports betting, online horse-race betting and online poker. Casinos are authorised individually by the Minister of the Interior. The ANJ, established under the 2019 ordinance, supervises the online market and the exclusive-rights operators, and keeps the official list of licensed operators.
Casinos. There is no casino on the French side of the island. A June 2026 report by the overseas news service Outremers 360 counted ten casinos in France’s overseas territories (two in Guadeloupe, two in Martinique, three in Réunion and three in New Caledonia), with one due to open in French Guiana in September 2026, and noted that on Saint-Martin “the casinos are located in the Dutch part of the island”. The obstacle is legal. In September 2018 three deputies tabled Amendment No. 2050 to the PACTE bill, which would have added “the Collectivité de Saint-Martin” to Article L. 321-1 of the CSI. Its stated purpose was to help post-Hurricane Irma reconstruction by allowing a casino under French law, noting that “the Dutch part of the island already has 14 casinos”. The amendment was rejected. The fact that an amendment was considered necessary indicates that Saint-Martin does not currently fall within any of the categories in Article L. 321-1.
Lotteries. FDJ’s draw games are sold in Saint-Martin. The ANJ’s Decision No. 2024-PR-109 of 25 July 2024, approves the rules of the Loto game; those rules list Saint-Martin among the territories in which the game is offered through FDJ’s approved points of sale, and cite “the convention signed by the Collectivité de Saint-Martin and La Française des Jeux on 28 June 2013”. The terms of that convention are not published in the sources we reviewed.
Horse-race betting. We could not verify whether PMU betting is offered through physical outlets in Saint-Martin.
The contrast with Sint Maarten
Sint Maarten has its own legislation on games of chance. In a 2018 reply to Dutch MPs, reported by St. Maarten News, the Dutch State Secretary for Kingdom Relations stated that gambling legislation is an autonomous responsibility of Sint Maarten, Aruba and Curaçao and that the Kingdom has no authority over the issue and extension of permits for offshore games of chance. The Government of St. Maarten’s policy document Casino Policy: Rules of the Game 2011 set a ceiling of ten stand-alone casinos (five in the Philipsburg area and five in Simpson Bay), limited hotel casinos to hotels with at least 200 rooms, required background checks on owners and the source of capital, and set a minimum entry age of 18.
In April 2025 the Minister of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport and Telecommunication told Parliament that 15 casinos were operating, four in hotels and eleven stand-alone, under a moratorium on new stand-alone licences. Casinos pay a fixed annual fee, and the minister said that casinos together owed approximately 17 million Caribbean guilders to the government, the Tax Office and the social insurance agency SZV, while the fiscal framework was under review and a St. Maarten Gaming Authority was planned (The Daily Herald, 3 April 2025).
Online gambling: what is permitted and how it is enforced
Because national law applies, the online position in Saint-Martin is the same as in mainland France. Lawful online gambling consists of sports betting, horse-race betting and poker offered by operators holding an ANJ licence, together with FDJ’s online lottery games under its exclusive rights. Online casino games, including slots, roulette, blackjack, baccarat and video poker, are not licensable. The ANJ states that these games are “all prohibited online in France” (ANJ, fight against the illegal offer).
Enforcement is aimed at operators and intermediaries, not at players. The main tools are:
- Administrative blocking. A law of 2 March 2022 gave the ANJ’s president power to order internet service providers to block, and search engines to delist, sites offering or advertising illegal gambling, replacing a slower court procedure that took about six to nine months. In 2024 the ANJ issued 232 blocking and delisting orders covering 1,337 URLs, of which 910 were “mirror” sites set up to evade earlier blocks. The ANJ publishes a non-exhaustive blacklist of blocked sites.
- Payments. The ANJ expects payment service providers to stop providing their services to illegal operators.
- Advertising. The blocking power also covers sites that advertise illegal games, and the ANJ has raised concern about influencers promoting illegal sites on social networks used by minors.
The scale of illegal play is significant. A 2023 study by PwC for the ANJ, cited on the regulator’s site, estimated that three to four million people in France had played on illegal online offers in the previous twelve months.
On the Dutch side, a reform of “the physical and online gambling sector” forms part of the country package agreed with the Netherlands. In November 2023 a first draft of the new law had been completed, while the organisational structure of the proposed gaming authority was still awaited (St. Maarten News, 7 November 2023).
Position of players
For someone in Saint-Martin, the following forms of gambling are lawful:
- buying FDJ lottery games from an approved retailer on the French side;
- betting or playing poker with an operator on the ANJ’s list of licensed operators;
- visiting a lawfully licensed casino in Sint Maarten, which is regulated by Sint Maarten rather than French law.
Online casino play falls outside these channels. The ANJ’s materials describe enforcement against operators, hosts, search engines, payment providers and advertisers. They do not state that a player commits an offence by using an unlicensed site, and we found no record of a player in Saint-Martin being prosecuted or fined for doing so. That is not the same as approval. The ANJ warns that unlicensed sites expose players to “multiple risks”, including non-payment of winnings, scams, theft of personal data, payment fraud and the absence of legal protection in a dispute (ANJ blacklist page). It also notes that a site’s absence from the blacklist does not mean that it is authorised.
A voluntary exclusion registered with the ANJ (see below) covers French casinos and licensed French sites only; it does not extend to casinos in Sint Maarten.
Taxation
The Collectivité’s own tax system
Taxation is the main power Saint-Martin gained in 2007. According to IEDOM, the State continued to administer taxes in 2008, local tax autonomy took effect in 2009, and on 4 June 2009 the territorial council adopted the part of its new tax code covering income tax, corporate tax and other transferred direct taxes. A general turnover tax (taxe générale sur le chiffre d’affaires, TGCA) was introduced in August 2010 and its 4% rate was generalised to retail sales and services in October 2014. A tax agreement with the State, signed in December 2010, deals with information exchange to prevent evasion. The Collectivité publishes its Code général des impôts (version at 1 January 2023) and explains on its guidance for individuals a “five-year rule” governing when a person becomes tax-resident in Saint-Martin.
Operators
With no casinos and no locally licensed operators, Saint-Martin has no casino levy of the kind collected in French resort communes. FDJ’s presence rests on the 2013 convention with the Collectivité. We could not verify whether the Collectivité’s tax code contains any gambling-specific provision, or how revenue from FDJ sales in Saint-Martin is shared. In Sint Maarten, by contrast, casinos pay a fixed annual licence fee, which the government said in 2025 it was reviewing so that contributions better reflect the sector’s revenue.
Players
Residents’ personal income tax is governed by the Collectivité’s code rather than by the national code. We did not find a published provision of the Saint-Martin tax code dealing specifically with gambling winnings. Readers with a specific question should consult the Collectivité’s tax service.
Anti-money laundering
Monetary, banking and financial law, which includes the anti-money laundering (AML) rules of the Monetary and Financial Code, remains a State competence in Saint-Martin (IEDOM). The national AML framework therefore applies to FDJ and to ANJ-licensed operators serving the territory.
Across the border, the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) carried out an on-site assessment of Sint Maarten in September 2024. Its 2025 mutual evaluation ratings, endorsed by the FATF, rate nine of eleven effectiveness outcomes as low and the other two as moderate, and the regulation and supervision of designated non-financial businesses and professions, a category that under FATF standards includes casinos, as only partially compliant (Recommendation 28).
Consumer protection and responsible gambling
The main protection tool on the French side is the national voluntary gambling exclusion (interdiction volontaire de jeux), managed by the ANJ through its online portal. A registration lasts at least three years. It bars the person from entering casinos and gaming clubs, from playing on ANJ-licensed websites, and from playing FDJ and PMU games through a player account. Applications are made online with an identity document, or by registered post.
The national helpline is Joueurs Info Service, reachable on 09 74 75 13 13 and by online chat. Calls are anonymous and charged at the cost of a local call from a fixed line in France; the service has announced changes to its hours, so callers should check the current times. We did not find a gambling-specific treatment service on the French side of the island. Our responsible gambling guide gives general advice.
Evidence on gambling harm on the island comes from the Dutch side. A study by Ipsos I&O and RE-Quest, commissioned through the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations and handed to Sint Maarten’s government in June 2025, was the first of its kind there since 1996. It found that 36% of adult residents had gambled in the previous year, that about 4% of the population were at moderate risk and 2% at high risk of problem gambling, and that 70% of residents saw gambling as a serious problem on the island. Sixty-one per cent said there was not enough help available.
Recent and upcoming developments
- Senate casino bill (France, 2026). Senate bill No. 725 (2025-2026), filed on 10 June 2026, would extend the list of communes eligible for a casino. Its overseas paragraph is limited to departments and regions governed by Article 73 of the Constitution, which does not include Saint-Martin, and it does not mention the island (bill text). The legislative file, last updated on 24 July 2026, shows no first reading yet.
- Sint Maarten casino sector (2025). In April 2025 the government reported 15 casinos, around 17 million guilders in arrears, a review of the fee system and plans for a St. Maarten Gaming Authority.
- Sint Maarten gambling study and reform (2025-2026). The Ipsos prevalence study was delivered in June 2025. The broader reform, including a new gambling law drafted by late 2023, sits within the country package agreed with the Netherlands. We found no record of the new law having been enacted as of October 2026.
Casino listings for players in Saint Martin
The listings below are generated automatically from our casino database. They do not show that an operator is licensed in France or authorised to serve players in Saint-Martin. Online casino games are prohibited under French law, which applies on the French side of the island, so the listings must not be read as an indication that playing them is lawful there. Only operators on the ANJ’s list of licensed operators may offer online betting or poker, and the ANJ’s blacklist shows sites that have been blocked.
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Related country guides
- Anguilla gambling guide
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- British Virgin Islands gambling guide
- Montserrat gambling guide
- Antigua and Barbuda gambling guide
Sources and further reading
- Institut d’émission des départements d’outre-mer (IEDOM), Saint-Martin: rapport annuel 2020, cadre institutionnel (accessed 13 October 2026).
- IEDOM, Saint-Martin: rapport annuel 2020, compétences de la Collectivité (accessed 13 October 2026).
- IEDOM, Saint-Martin: rapport annuel 2020, fiscalité (accessed 13 October 2026).
- Conseil constitutionnel, Décision n° 2007-547 DC du 15 février 2007, Loi organique portant dispositions statutaires et institutionnelles relatives à l’outre-mer (2007).
- Conseil d’État, Décision n° 388299 du 30 novembre 2015 (2015).
- Sénat, Commission des lois (Cointat, C.), Avis n° 162 (2013-2014), tome III: Collectivités d’outre-mer, Saint-Martin (2013).
- Collectivité de Saint-Martin, Histoire de la Collectivité (accessed 13 October 2026).
- Collectivité de Saint-Martin, Codes et règlements (accessed 13 October 2026).
- Collectivité de Saint-Martin, Fiscalité pour les particuliers (accessed 13 October 2026).
- Sénat, Commission des lois (Bonhomme, F.), Rapport n° 584 (2022-2023) sur la proposition de loi visant à réduire les inégalités territoriales pour les ouvertures de casinos (2023).
- Assemblée nationale, Projet de loi relatif à la croissance et la transformation des entreprises (n° 1237), amendement n° 2050 (2018).
- Sénat, Proposition de loi n° 725 (2025-2026) portant extension du régime des casinos aux communes métropolitaines et ultramarines à vocation culturelle ou touristique (2026).
- Sénat, Dossier législatif: proposition de loi n° 725 (2025-2026) (accessed 13 October 2026).
- Outremers 360, Sénat: une proposition de loi vise notamment à étendre le régime des casinos aux communes ultramarines à vocation culturelle ou touristique (2026).
- Autorité nationale des jeux, Décision n° 2024-PR-109 portant homologation du règlement particulier du jeu Loto (2024).
- Autorité nationale des jeux, Lutter contre l’offre illégale (accessed 13 October 2026).
- Autorité nationale des jeux, Liste noire des sites de jeux d’argent et de hasard interdits en France (accessed 13 October 2026).
- Autorité nationale des jeux, Opérateurs agréés (accessed 13 October 2026).
- Autorité nationale des jeux, Interdiction volontaire de jeux (accessed 13 October 2026).
- Joueurs Info Service, Joueurs Info Service (accessed 13 October 2026).
- Government of St. Maarten, Casino Policy: Rules of the Game 2011 (2011).
- The Daily Herald, Casinos owe combined total approx. 17m in unpaid fees (2025).
- Ipsos I&O, Op Sint Maarten is gokken wijdverbreid en genormaliseerd (2025).
- St. Maarten News, New gambling legislation is a work in progress (2023).
- St. Maarten News, Knops: Kingdom not responsible for offshore games of chance in Caribbean (2018).
- FATF / CFATF, Sint Maarten’s measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing (mutual evaluation) (2025).
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