Sports betting sets new record in France

The French gaming regulator revealed that online sports betting set a new record during the first quarter of the year.

France.- ARJEL, the gaming regulator of the French market, released on Wednesday the numbers that show that online sports betting registered a 23 percent increase year-on-year during the first quarter of 2017 to US$708 million.

The new figure established a new record as the previous one had been reported during the second quarter of 2016 when the online market reached US$654 million, more than half a million less than the first three months of this year. Revenue from sports betting also set a new record of US$105 million, 16 percent more when compared to the same period of 2016, when the European market enjoyed both the Olympics from Rio and the Euro 2016.

ARJEL said that the exponential rise of the sports betting numbers are influenced by a weave of new registered bettors in the country. The three most important sports when it comes to betting are still football, basketball and tennis, with the first being the most popular. Moreover, the number of female sports betting players also increased 40 percent to 79.000, twice the percentage of male bettors, and it also became the favorite activity for women, with poker now being the second one.