Sports betting made up the majority of French iGaming revenue for 2019—€880 million—despite the lack of a major international football tournament, and compared to a prior year that included the FIFA World Cup.
Even so, according to online gambling regulator L’Autorité nationale de régulation des jeux en ligne (ARJEL), sports betting revenue growth slowed after a 56 percent increase in revenue for 2018.
This figure came on a record €5.06 billion worth of stakes on sports bets, up 30 percent year-on-year. Almost all of these stakes came on fixed-odds bets, with €14 million staked on pool bets.
There were a total of 3.4 million active sports betting accounts in France in 2019, up 6.7 percent year-on-year.
Looking to other verticals, horse racing and online poker both posted year-on-year growth, though at slower rates than the dominant sports betting vertical, reported CDC Gaming Reports.
Horse racing revenue grew 5.9 percent to €271m, after player stakes grew 5.4 percent to €1.11 billion worth of bets, the highest amount staked since 2012. This was driven in part by increased player activity, with the number of active accounts up 1.9 percent to 599,000.
Online poker, meanwhile, saw revenue grow 5.4 percent to €272 million, of which €88 million came from cash games, and €184 million from poker tournaments. There were 1.2 million active poker players in the country in 2019, an increase of 5.5 percent.
