While the betting turnover growth was the smallest year-on-year percentage gain in nearly four years, Q2 2016 featured the Euro 2016 football tournament, which ran from June 10 to July 10. Notably, turnover gains in April and May were up 28% year-on-year.
As a result of those early gains, sports betting revenue hit €111 million in Q2, up 22% year-on-year. With the Euro 2016 customer acquisition frenzy a distant memory, bonus offers were down one-third year-on-year, pushing actual margins 3% higher year-on-year.
France’s online horserace betting market showed signs of life in Q2, as turnover rose 9% year-on-year to €239 million, the first such gains the sector has recorded in four years. The gains were largely due to race betting operators increasing their return to players by 1.1 points and weekly active race bettors improving by around 1%. Racing revenue improved 5% to €58 million.
Online poker also registered positive figures, as revenue rose 5% year-on-year to €58.6 million. As ever, poker tournaments performed better than cash games, but the gap narrowed in Q2. Tournament stakes were up 2% to €459 million while cash game stakes fell 0.4% to €850 million.
ARJEL announced this month that it hoped to begin sharing online poker liquidity with the regulated markets in Italy,
