France’s online sports betting vertical continued to carry the rest of the country’s igaming sector during the second quarter of 2014 as betting stakes and gross profits rose 44% and 64% respectively during the period, regulator ARJEL’s latest figures revealed on Thursday.
The 2014 World Cup was the main engine behind the strong betting activity, bets on football were up 76% on the same period last year, but other sports also saw strong rises in betting volumes: basketball was up 30%, rugby 14% and volleyball 75% compared with the equivalent period in 2013.
French operators recorded second quarter stakes of €286m in 2014 compared with €198m in 2013 and gross profits of €59m, compared with €36m in the same period last year.
For the six month period of 2014, stakes totalled €540m, up 34% on the €402m generated in the first six months of 2013.
ARJEL added that stakes on online betting were higher than those on horse racing pari mutuel, €286m against €255m on horses during the period, which was the first time this had happened since France’s regulated igaming market came into being in 2010 and the football World Cup that summer.
The 2014 World Cup generated €109m in stakes, just over a quarter, 26%, through live betting and €31.2m gross profits for ARJEL-licensed bookmakers, for a payout ratio of just 71% during the event.
France’s online betting operators confirmed that the event in Brazil had been a major success, with mobile and in-running betting coming into their own during the tournament.
National lottery Française des jeux, which operates ParionsSport for retail and ParionsWeb online, said the €190m it had recorded in stakes during the event were a 30% rise on the 2010 World Cup, with over 45% of its pre-match and live bets placed over mobile platforms.
Market leader Betclic said it had nearly doubled its initial recruitment target as it saw 76,000 new client accounts opening and 180,000 active players during the event in Brazil.
The group recorded €38.5m in World Cup stakes, 53% of its volume came from mobile phones and 25% was generated by live betting.
Marc Guigo, director for Betclic France, commented: “These results are very positive and are confirmation of Betclic’s expectations on such a major event and of the dynamism of the sports betting market (in France).
The 76,000 new clients we have recruited lead us to hope a strong start to the 2104-2015 football season.”
PMU also enjoyed a strong World Cup, the event contributing to the group recording a 31,2% rise in gross profits to €24.9m during the first six months of the year and the recruitment of 60,000 new betting clients.
Smaller operators such as France Pari were also very pleased with the event as it generated an extra €1.2m in stakes, with 30% coming from mobile platforms.
Chief executive Hervé Schlosser added that his company had recorded a 108% rise in stakes for the first six months of the year.
Online horse racing and poker struggle on
Stakes for online horse racing pari mutuel were down 7% to €255m during the quarter and 9% over the six month period.
Quarterly gross profits were down 2% to €64m and dropped 5% to €130m for January to June 2014 compared with the same period on 2013.
The vertical has been badly affected online as well as offline by the tough economic climate in France of the past few years.
Stakes on online poker cash games were down 17% to €1.08bn during the quarter and down 18% to €2.2bn on the six month period, continuing the downward trend experienced by the vertical for the past two years.
Tournament fees rose 6% to €363m for the quarter and 7% to €770m over the first six months of 2014.
Online poker in France is continuing to struggle as in other European markets, a trend that was not helped by the French government’s refusal to share player pools with Italy and Spain at the end of last year.
source : www.igamingbusiness.com
