World Cup surge lifts France's H1 betting market to 0.5% growth

France's regulated gambling market, excluding casinos, generated total gross gaming revenue of €5.66bn between January and June 2026, up just 0.5% year-on-year, according to SBC News.

The figure marks a sharp slowdown from the same period in 2025, when the market grew 4.1% year-on-year, and suggests the 2026 FIFA World Cup was the factor that kept the sector from stalling altogether.

Online activity was the clearest driver of growth. Total online GGR reached €1.45bn, up 11% year-on-year, with online sports betting contributing €995m, an increase of 11.6%.

The World Cup kick-off produced a visible jump in activity during June, when stakes rose 47% year-on-year, compared with modest growth of 4% across the January-to-May period. Total stakes for the full six-month reporting period reached €6.6bn.

Online poker also outperformed, with GGR up 13.4% year-on-year to €290m after a near-flat first half. Active Player Accounts for poker climbed 38.5% to 2.3 million over H1.

Sports betting Active Player Accounts rose 69% year-on-year in June, compared with 11% growth in May, indicating that poker operators expanded their player base at a faster underlying rate even as sports betting volumes spiked around the tournament.

Offline operators fared worse. FDJ United's lottery and retail sports GGR fell to €3.43bn, a 2% decline, with lottery draw games dragging the figure down by 7.6%. SBC News reported that the drop reflected fewer and lower Euromillions jackpots alongside weaker retail footfall in the second quarter, linked to higher-than-average temperatures.

FDJ United accounts for 61% of total French market GGR. The operator has told French gambling regulator ANJ that it intends to stabilise its domestic activities by the end of the 2026 financial year.

PMU, the pari-mutuel horse racing betting operator, recorded its third consecutive year of declining GGR, down 5.8% to €782m. The rate of decline has accelerated from the 2.6% drop recorded in H1 2025.

PMU is currently restructuring under the state-backed Pacte PMU 2030 plan, aimed at modernising the French horse racing sector. As part of the changes, PMU's financial contributions to racing will fall to €725m in 2026, down from €802m the previous year.

The transformation is being overseen by Cyrille Giraudat, who was appointed PMU's chief executive at the end of 2025.