ANJ reports French gambling GGR up 0.5% as online hits 5.85m active accounts

France's gambling gross gaming revenue (GGR), excluding casinos and gaming clubs, reached €5.66bn in the first half of 2026, up 0.5% on the same period a year earlier, according to the half-year analysis published by the Autorité Nationale du Jeu (ANJ) on 15 October. The regulator said the market had grown 4.1% in the first half of 2025. The ANJ has been chaired by Pascal Chevremont since July.

Online GGR rose 11% to €1.449bn and accounted for 25.6% of the market, 2.4 percentage points more than a year earlier, contributing 2.5 points of growth to the overall market. FDJ United and PMU subtracted 1.2 and 0.8 points respectively. Online sports betting generated €995m of GGR, up 11.6% and 68.6% of the online segment. Online poker GGR was €290m, up 13.4%, returning to growth after stalling in 2025, mainly on tournaments and Sit&Go. Online horse-racing betting GGR reached €164m, up 2.8%, while amounts staked rose 16% to €920m, the largest increase since 2021.

Sports betting growth was concentrated in June, when the football World Cup began. Amounts staked across the half-year rose 10.6% to €6.616bn, but grew 4% from January to May and rose 47% in June. Football accounted for 8.6 of those 10.6 points of growth; amounts staked on football rose 116% in June, and the sport now represents 56% of all sports stakes. Tennis fell 13.5% in June and its share dropped from 26% to 23%. Active sports-betting accounts rose 69% in June to 3.1m. Acquisition bonuses almost quadrupled against June 2025, to €9m from €2.4m. Amounts staked per account fell 14% over the half-year and the average stake went from €14.6 to €14.

Online gambling in France recorded 5.85m active accounts, up 24%, and 4.06m unique players, up 17%. Each player had an average of 1.44 accounts, against 1.37 a year earlier, and played in 1.45 segments. Poker had the largest increase in players, with 39% more active accounts, and its users now represent 44% of online unique players. Bonuses and promotions delivered to players totalled €199m, up 28%, growing two and a half times faster than online GGR and equal to 13.8% of that GGR, against 11.9% a year earlier.

FDJ United, the former state lottery operator that holds the exclusive rights to lottery and retail sports betting, saw GGR fall 2% to €3.429bn, still 61% of the market. The decline came almost entirely from lottery, down €64m, with draw games falling 7.6%. According to the company, the cause was fewer and smaller EuroMillions jackpots and lower footfall at points of sale during second-quarter heatwaves. PMU, which holds the exclusive rights to retail horse-racing betting, declined for a third consecutive year: amounts staked fell 3.8% to €3.1bn and GGR fell 5.8% to €782m, accelerating from the 2.6% decline in 2025. Its market share fell to 13.8%, 3.8 points below online sports betting.

The PMU's forecast for 2026 is to hand €725m to the horse-racing sector, down from €802m in 2025. The ANJ calls this a year of transition, marked by a change at the top of the operator and work on a "Pacto PMU 2030". The regulator expects the full-year outcome to hinge to a large degree on FDJ United, which wants to hold the GGR of its French network steady. Online gambling starts the second half with a record number of players, and whether it keeps growing will be decided by their behaviour once the World Cup final, held on 19 July, is over. The report also lands during a period of regulatory change in France: advertising oversight now covers influencers and games with digital assets, following the order to block Polymarket and the adjustments made to the FDJ and PMU offering.