French Gambling Operator Reveals Strong Results in a Weak Market

Pari Mutuel Urbain is no longer a monopolistic operator under the current French gambling laws, but its recent financial figures reveal a nice increase in profits across the board.

The half-year results for PMU saw a whopping 76 percent increase in sports betting along with a highly surprising 47 percent hike in online poker. The company explains the latter with brand new customer acquisitions and growing popularity of tournaments held at online poker sites in France.

PMU results were also attributed to new apps created for smartphones and tablets, which showed a 102 percent growth in the first half of the year.

Here are the key indicators for Pari Mutuel Urbain:

• Overall activity resulted in stakes growing by 3.9 percent leading to a EUR 5.3 billion yield
• Gross gaming revenue grew 2.8 percent, making up EUR 1.275 billion
• Horse racing increased 1.7 percent to EUR 4.962 billion
• International activities up 57 percent representing 60 percent of overall horse racing sector
• Online, sports betting and poker growth combined brought PMU to the second place on the French sports betting market
• Sports betting grew by 76 percent to EUR 80.6 million, out of which EUR 10 million generated by Euro 2012
• 20 percent of all sports betting came as the result of mobile and tablet channels
• Online poker equaled to EUR 251.3 million, growing 47 percent
• Overall stakes via online and mobile grew 28.4 percent to amount to EUR 821 million.

France gambling news learned that diversification strategy, realized by PMU over the past two years, which saw the company venture into online poker, sports betting, multichannel offerings and International expansion is currently paying off. An overall 58 percent growth with gross gaming revenue hike of 33 percent speaks for itself.

PMU carried out investments amounting to EUR 60 million, optimizing its IT systems, making its network of retail outlets better as well as developing a modern and innovative company image. The investment made it possible for the company to employ around 100 additional staff.