French online market secures a record year
In the wake of a particularly favourable sporting calendar with the Euro football tournament and the Paris Olympics, the French online market had a record year with a GGR of €2.6bn, up 12 per cent compared to 2023.
Spearheading this growth, online sports betting recorded a GGR of nearly €1.8bn, up 19 per cent compared to 2023. With a market share of more than 12 per cent of the total gambling market, online sports betting is the second largest contributor to the market’s growth, accounting for 43 per cent of it. Online horse betting, for its part, is up slightly by nearly one per cent and poker has posted a decline in its GGR of two per cent, after growing continuously between 2021 and 2023.
Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, President of the ANJ said: “The French market is growing at a pace comparable to the major European markets. While operators were particularly active in 2024 due to major sporting events, the first months of 2025 confirm this growth dynamic. In this context, the regulator highlights two major issues: the necessary reorientation of the sector’s economic model towards less intensive gambling and less focused on high-risk gamblers; the mobilization of all stakeholders to change the representations associated with gambling, leading to its trivialization in French society.”
As a sign of its vitality, the online gaming market recorded, after two years of decline, a significant growth in the number of Active Player Accounts (AWAs), with 5.7M AWCs (+11 per cent compared to 2023). This trend can be observed in all market segments (13 per cent growth for sports betting, 11 per cent for poker and four per cent for horse racing betting). Similarly, the number of unique players now stands at 3.9m players (up eight per cent compared to 2023, with a player with an average of 1.5 counts). The population of sports bettors has become younger (30 per cent of sports bettors are between 18 and 24 years old) and it has also become more feminized.
In addition to the favourable sporting calendar, the dynamics of the online market are the result of the offensive commercial policies put in place by operators, marked by an increase in budgets dedicated to commercial communications, the maintenance of a high level of financial rewards and the deployment of cross-selling strategies between the different segments.
Among the forty or so sports open to betting in France, four stand out in particular for the amount of bets involved: football (€5,630m in bets), tennis (€2,273m), basketball (€914m) and rugby (€186m). In 2024, these 4 sports alone represent 87.5 per cent of online sports betting bets. Sports such as volleyball, ice hockey, badminton, handball and cycling have also seen a significant increase in their bets (+31 per cent between 2023 and 2024).
With nearly 50 per cent of the market share, FDJ United is the leading contributor to the growth of the market, and is consolidating its position as the leader of the gambling market in France, with a GGR exceeding €7bn for the first time (up six per cent compared to 2023). This increase is mainly driven by the lottery (€5.8bn, +5% GGR).
The activity of the GIE PMU, which recorded €6.6bn in bets and €1.7bn in GGR in 2024, shows a two per cent drop compared to 2024. However, PMU achieved a stable net profit of €837m (compared to €835m in 2023), which allows it to maintain its financing for the horse racing industry. Despite a slight decline in PMU’s market share (12 per cent of the market’s GGR, supplanted for the first time by online sports betting), the PMU’s player pool is up six per cent in 2024 (3.5M players), thus returning to the level of 2019 before the health crisis.
The year 2024 seems to mark a consolidation for casinos with a GGR up slightly by 1.2 per cent to €2.7bn and a stable number of admissions at 31M. The GGR of gaming clubs slowed to €123m.
While the market shows no signs of slowing down, 2025 is shaping up to be a risky year from the point of view of the intensification of gaming practices that could result from maintaining high advertising pressure (promotional budgets increase by nearly 11 per cent even though there is no major competition) and the continuation of cross-selling actions on newly acquired players. In addition, the renewed competitive tensions between the major operators that dominate this market tend to accentuate these risks by increasing the demands of players.
However, the changes to the taxation of gambling decided as part of the PLFSS, which will come into force on 1 July, could have an impact on the online market’s activity in 2025. In particular, it will be necessary to know whether the new tax of 15% of the commercial communications expenses of online sports betting operators will have an impact on the real amount of investments made in the second half of the year.
In addition to the ongoing consolidation of the gambling sector, the opening of the monetizable digital object (JONUM) games market will have to be followed in 2025. Regarding this experiment set up by the SREN law of May 21, 2024, the ANJ will be particularly vigilant in strictly respecting the borders with gambling. The experiment is expected to begin in September 2025 after the publication of the various decrees.
