ARJEL reports gains in online poker

French Regulator ARJEL reported a gain in revenues with the France online poker market since 2011.

France.- Recent reports released by French Regulator ARJEL revealed the first gain in revenues with the France online poker market since 2011. This gain comes from operators raising their tournament fees.

The market as a whole experienced a significant gain, but poker earned a rare increase of 2% amounting to €62 million (US$ 70.84 million.) Tournament fees seen a 17 percent increase. Cash game stakes took a hit, dropping by 7 percent. Active weekly players rose by 4.4 percent to 257k despite the amount of bonus offers operators have been offering their players.

The revenues reported included online sports betting as well. Online sports betting climbed 47 percent to €516 million (US$ 589.60 million.) These are the first three months of this year’s results. Revenues earned by French licensed operators rose by 30 percent. ARJEL reported that the gains seen by the sports betting market is due to betting returns to players being increased by 2.1 points.

More than half of sports bets were placed via mobile. Poker will continue to express gains now that French licensed sites were approved to share liquidity with other licensed operators in the European Union regulated markets.