France: online gambling revenues up 22%

Online gambling revenues in France increased 22 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter despite the Covid-19 pandemic.

France.- The national gaming regulator ARJEL has released figures that show gross gaming revenue (GGR) of €435million for the first quarter of 2020. 

The total revenue for the three months ending March 31 represents a 22 per cent rise year-on-year compared to the same period in 2019. 

Online poker drove much of the growth with revenue increasing 44 per cent to €98million, accounting for 23 per cent of total GGR for the quarter.

Poker activity rose by 180 per cent in the last two weeks of the quarter following the cancellation of live sports events, and its share of GGR for the quarter as a whole was up four percentage points against 2019. 

The report shows that online gambling revenue from sports betting in France also increased, reaching €263million (up by 18 per cent), but wagers fell by 4 per cent to €1.22billion owing to the cancellation of events from March 13.

Sports betting accounted for 60 per cent of total GGR, down by 2 percentage points.

GGR from horse racing climbed by 10 per cent, as did GGR from handball, which brought in €300million, its highest revenue for seven years.

The full effect of the pandemic on online sports betting will be seen in figures from the current quarter, with sports events cancelled for all of April and the football league definitively called off.

French Horse racing resumed in May.