French Gambling Market Rises on Sports Betting Success

2015 was a very good year for the French gambling with major revenue gains driven by a solid performance from the sports betting sector.
According to a report on CalvinAyre.com, the Franco online gambling that translates into €756 million Euro ($819.2 million USD).
As mentioned, the key driver behind the solid earnings report was a very good year for French bookmakers. Their turnover of €1.44 billion ($1.56 billion USD) was up a full 30% over the previous year.
On the revenue end of the numbers, things looked pretty rosy as well. All sources report that revenue from sports betting topped the €54 million ($58.52 million USD) mark for the fourth quarter alone. For the year, sports betting revenue hit the €270 million mark ($292 million USD), which is 19% bump over the 2014.
French punters not only wagered more cash last year than have in previous years, they did a tremendous amount of that wagering from their mobile devices. Approximately 56% of legal French sports bets were placed from mobile devices. That a leap of 11% from 2014.
Of course not all the news coming out of the French online gambling market was good.
Reports indicate that the dive in online poker revenue that’s been going in since 2013 shows no signs of abating. Both revenue and the number of active of players were down by 4% from 2014.
While 2015 was a good year for French operators, it was also a good year for French tax collectors. The revenue gains the industry saw in 2015 put them in a higher tax bracket, which means the French government grabbed about 34% of that 40% revenue leap.