France Has Shown A Significant Increase In Online Betting
Online gambling has increased in popularity in France since 2010. This was when poker, horse race betting and sports betting became legal on the internet. The market has shown record growth for 2018. The French gambling regulator or ARJEL released the online gaming market quarterly review for 2018. The wagers handled by online sports betting operators increased 24 percent from the same time last year with wagers valued at €847 million. The gambling revenue increase 55 percent to €147 million. The first quarter for 2017 reached just €94 million.
The regulators have stated this growth is due to the much higher number of active accounts for the players. During the first quarter of 2017 there were approximately 1.5 million active accounts. This has grown to 1.9 million. Most punters and gamblers remain men but the number of ladies is rising. Women with online accounts has increased thirty percent. This is especially true in online sports betting. The number of men placing bets increased 42 percent while the number of women soared by 69 percent. The amount of women interested in horse racing and online poker is not nearly as high. Only 73,000 online accounts for poker are held by women. This is a seven percent increase. Horse racing is up five percent with 54,000 women placing wagers. The bonuses and promotions offered by the gambling operators and sportsbooks were a driving force for the increases. An additional 462,500 active betters were drawn each week for an increase of 36 percent.
The online gambling segment with the fastest growth in France is sports betting. The first quarter of 2018 brought in €847 million with an increase of 34 percent. The online accounts engaging in sports betting increased from 120,000 to 462,500. During this period 1.3 million player accounts remained active on sites for sports betting. This segment increased to 900,000 with an increase of forty percent from 2017. Football event wagers increased to €465 million with a rise of 34 percent. This makes football France’s most popular market for sports betting. This is 55 percent of all wagers placed during 2018.
Tennis is also popular with wagers increasing to €163 million at a 26 percent increase. Basketball follows with €125 million at an increase of 53 percent. The 2018 Winter Olympics brought in €4.4 million but just under half were live bets. The French online gamblers obviously prefer sports betting to the other two segments. Horse racing events for 2018’s first quarter brought in roughly €270 million. When compared to the same period in 2017 this was a nine percent increase. The weekly active accounts increased to 148 million. This is an increase of six percent. €8.1 million resulted from the bonus offers. Horse racing revenue from bets increase to €65 million, an increase of eight percent.
The report from the ARJEL showed very interesting online trends in poker. The betting placed on cash games increased by eighteen percent to €1.1 billion. During this period there was a decrease in the weekly active accounts of one percent. This was partially responsible for the cash game revenue decline of two percent to €24.1 million. The tournament players active each week increased to 252,000. This was an increase of five percent. The total for online poker tournament fees was up fourteen percent at €594 million.
