Euro 2016 Boosts Online Sports Betting Industry Revenues in France

Online sports besting industry revenues have never been as high as in the second quarter of 2016. God bless Euro 2016.

Online gambling news in France keep reporting about the latest sports betting revenue statistics that have been released by French regulator ARJEL. According to these reports, a new record has been broken as no previous quarter has generated as much income as the last 3 months until 30 June.

Licensed gaming companies in France have recorded a total of €585 million ($658.3 million) during this period, which is much higher (by 73% to be more precise) than the numbers compared to the same quarter from the last year.

Euro 2016 and the Olympic Games take the blame for the online sports betting revenue boost

The main reason behind the successful quarter of online sports betting industry revenues in France is because of Euro 2016. The continental football tournament has been the most important factor as 17% of the entire sports betting revenues are coming from Euro 2016 betting. The fact that the tournament was held in the country was definitely of great help for online sportsbooks in France.

However, Euro 2016 was not the only major events that increased the interest in online sports betting in France. The third quarter is expected to show some similar numbers since betting on the Olympics was quite popular in August. In fact, betting on Rio 2016 Olympic Games generated much more sports betting revenues than betting on London 2012 Olympics. The London Olympic Games generated €19,2 million revenues for French sportsbooks, while these numbers for Rio 2016 are 33,9 million.

Betting on football is much more popular than horse-racing or online poker

Online poker rooms in France failed to make an impact on the total online gaming revenues. In fact, they showed a 2% decrease compared to the previous quarter. Betting on horse-racing was also less popular as it decreased by 12%. Football, on the other hand, has been in better form than ever: 57% of the total of €91 million sports betting revenues is coming from football betting.