Sports betting made up the majority of French igaming revenue for the year, at €880m, despite the lack of a major international football tournament, and compared to a prior year that included the Fifa World Cup. ARJEL noted that this did lead to sports betting revenue growth slowing after a 56% increase in revenue for 2018.
This figure came on a record €5.06bn worth of stakes on sports bets, up 30% year-on-year. Almost all of these stakes came on fixed-odds bets, with €14m staked on pool bets.
There were a total of 3.4m active sports betting accounts in France in 2019, up 6.7% 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.
Over the year, operators paid gambling taxes of €701m, with the majority coming from sportsbook licensees. Sports betting accounted for €470m of the total, followed by €145m from horse racing, and €86m from poker.
The strong full year figures followed a successful fourth quarter, in which revenue grew 9.1% to €378m.
France’s government has initiated plans to replace ARJEL with a new gambling regulator, who will oversee not only online gambling but also land-based casinos and on-track horse race betting. This new regulator, L’autorité nationale des jeux (ANJ) is set to launch in spring 2020, according to Prime Minister Édouard Philippe.
Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, currently state councillor for France’s National Commission for Data Protection, will be ANJ’s first president.
In December 2019, France’s senate approved a budget bill for 2020, including an amendment to calculate gambling tax based on gross gaming revenue (GGR) rather than turnover.
The Senate said that the change allows operators and the state to “share the luck” by ensuring that tax bills will adjust for fluctuations in the success of punters.
Also in December 2019, lottery and gambling giant FDJ was privatised by the French government, bringing in €1.89bn through the sale of 99,320,000 shares, of 52% of FDJ's share capital.
Source: GMB / iGaming Business
