French Online Poker Revenue Down 13% To €258m In 2013

France’s gambling regulator ARJEL has now released its financial report on the state of the French online poker market, revealing a troubling 13% dip in revenue to €258 million in 2013, compared to €297 million for the previous year. From total revenues, online cash games reported a decline of 18% to €5.5 billion, while tournament stakes actually rose by 5% to €1.4 billion.
However, the dire results were not unexpected, especially by the numerous licensed operators within the French market, most of whom have been calling for changes to the law which would allow France to share it player pool with other regulated European countries, such as Italy and Spain. As ex-president of ARJEL, Jean-François Vilotte, warned a few months ago:
“We have to pay attention to three things,” Vilotte told PokerNews in December. “First, that there is a sufficient number of games to be played, as the current regulation allows only Texas hold’em and Omaha. Second, that we carefully think about the liquidity aspect, especially if it refers to a single country. And third, taxation.”
Nevertheless, and in spite of sharp decline in French online poker revenues, the country’s National Assembly has repeatedly resisted any such amendments to the gambling laws, with one of its most ardent detractors arguing that in such a case online poker would soon become “an uncontrollable ogre eating one market after the other.”
Meanwhile, Winamax.fr continues to lead the French online poker industry with around a 1,700 seven-day average of cash game players, followed by PokerStars.fr with an average of 1,350. Other big operators in the country include PartyPoker.fr and iPoker.fr.
In related French gambling news, horse racing revenues improved by 0.4% to €264 million in 2013, while sports betting showed a healthy 20% increase to €848 million, with 39% of punters betting on football results, followed by basketball (36%), then tennis (25%) for the year.