The French gambling regulator, L’Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ), has published its ‘Trimestre Deux’ financial update, revealing it has recorded a record turnover of €617m.
Owing to the spike in sales during the summer sporting tournaments, Roland Garros and UEFA Euro 2020, the turnover results represent the ‘highest level of activity’ recorded by the French online gambling sector since the ‘opening of the French marketplace in 2010’.
ANJ revealed that 3.3m online gambling player accounts were active from April 1 to June 30, an increase of around 260,000 on the previous quarter.
Market growth was attributed to French sportsbooks maintaining their ‘peak performance’ with period wagering amounting to €2.15bn, as the Euro 2020 football tournament and Roland Garros tennis tournament excited bettors.
French sportsbooks registered a combined turnover of €420m catering for total player accounts of 2.8m, up 12% on previous quarter comparatives in a phenomenon labelled the market accelerator.
France’s gambling regulator highlighted that sports betting turnover had nearly doubled against 2019 ‘normalised pre-COVID results’ of €214m.
“The particularly attractive calendar of the quarter, in particular the Euro football and the Grand Slam of Roland Garros, had an undeniable impact on the practice and on the recruitment of new players. In fact, bets on these competitions represented 22% of the quarter’s activity,” it said in a statement.
Meanwhile, online poker recorded a 27% decrease in turnover to €103m, which ANJ attributed to France easing its ‘intense Winter lockdown restrictions’.
Yet, in maintaining 900,000 accounts French poker retains player participation well above its pre-COVID results. Additionally, no metrics for online casinos were reported as the vertical remains banned under France’s federal online gambling laws.
ANJ concluded its report by underlining that it had begun its review of French gambling advertising standards, in which licensed online operators must submit their activity reports for the remainder of 2021 trading.
“The Euros boosted the segment of sports betting whose turnover reached another record this quarter. This growth testifies to the fact that the French model, although very supervised, is not a brake,” commented ANJ President Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin.
“However, it asks us about the societal issues that these new uses come to question. This is particularly the case with advertising, a subject on which the ANJ is currently consulting all stakeholders to promote a rebalancing of operator practices. Finally, under the leadership of the ANJ and in collaboration with other administrative or judicial institutions, the toxic offers of tipsters have been severely hampered in recent months.”