French online gambling GGR rises 10% year-on-year
Sports betting revenue increases 16% while horseracing sees a 9% slump compared with Q3 2020
The online gambling sector in France experienced a sharp uptick in year-on-year (YoY) gross gaming revenue (GGR) to €444m (£378m), the regulator, ANJ, has said.
It was revealed that online GGR reached €444m (£378m), up from €405m in Q3 2020. However, this figure was down on the €617m reported in Q2 2021.
Active players were also down 33% from 3.3 million in Q2 to 2.2 million the following quarter, which was blamed on the “dynamics of European football”.
Meanwhile, sports betting turnover fell YoY and 26% lower than Q2 at €1.6bn. The number of users saw a slight increase YoY from 2.18 million to 2.24 million.
The historically slow sporting quarter was boosted slightly by the tail-end of the European Championships as well as the Tokyo Olympics, which generated €520m alone.
The decrease in YoY wagering can, however, be attributed to Roland Garros and the final stages of the Champions League having been postponed to Q3 2020 due to Covid-19, both events that traditionally take place during Q2.
Despite this, sports betting GGR was up 16% YoY from €228m to €264m.
Horseracing betting saw a decrease of 9% YoY in the amount of bets placed and also a 17% decrease on Q2 2021. In total €332m was wagered on the sport during Q3.
Finally, poker turnover climbed 10% on Q3 2020 from €90m to €99m, although player numbers were down from 880,000 to 823,000, a 7% dip.
The data for the results was generated using information from French authorised gaming and betting operators.