€14 billion: a record for gambling in France
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20 Apr 2026 •
Reading time: 4 minutes
The ANJ has just published its 2025 report on the gambling market. The French gambling market has reached a historic milestone with a record Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) of €14.1 billion, up 3% in 2025.
With an overall increase of 3%, France confirms its place among Europe’s most robust markets, alongside the United Kingdom and Italy. This organic growth is particularly evident in the digital segment, which now accounts for 18.5% of the total market, compared with just 12.8% before the health crisis.
Gross Gaming Revenue from online gaming stands at €2.6 billion, demonstrating that players’ habits have shifted permanently towards mobile and betting apps. This vitality is underpinned by a base of 4.2 million unique players, a figure up by 7.7%.
A major behavioural shift is evident with the explosion of ‘multi-activity’: punters are no longer confined to a single sector. The number of players active across three segments simultaneously (sports, horse racing and poker) has risen by 25%, radically altering operators’ marketing strategies, as they must now offer cross-platform, ultra-smooth experiences.
Online sports betting as a key driver of growth
Football remains the industry’s mainstay, with €6.3 billion in wagers. Despite the absence of a major international tournament in 2025, the new Champions League format has acted as a powerful catalyst, generating a 41% increase in wagers on the competition.
Tennis has confirmed its position as the second-largest driver with €2.65 billion in wagers, consolidating a sports segment that alone accounts for two-thirds of online gross betting turnover.
Poker also returned to sustained growth of 6.5%, whilst online horse racing managed to stay in the black with a modest increase of 2.4%.
This resilience of the digital sector stands in stark contrast to the difficulties faced by traditional physical distribution networks, illustrating a widening technological divide between generations of players.
The wide gap between the two historic giants, FDJ and PMU
La Française des Jeux (FDJ) continues to reign supreme across the country. Its activities under exclusive rights, led by the lottery, account for nearly half of the overall market with a gross betting turnover of €6.95 billion. The year 2025 also marks the group’s international shift with the integration of Kindred (Unibet), although performance in the British and Dutch markets is currently dragging down European results.
In contrast, the PMU is going through a period of severe turbulence. The long-established operator is seeing all its key indicators turn red: turnover is down by 3.3% and the player base has shrunk by nearly 6%. This decline is accelerating despite attempts to modernise its offering. The “PMU 2030 Pact”, announced for 2026, will be the final lever in an attempt to halt this structural decline, which threatens the direct contribution to the French horse racing industry.
A solid recovery for casinos but a setback for Parisian betting clubs
France’s 200 land-based casinos can finally breathe a sigh of relief. With 31.6 million visits and gross gaming revenue up by 3.4%, the establishments are returning to pre-pandemic levels. This renewed vitality is benefiting regional development, as casinos remain major tax contributors for local authorities.
The picture is far bleaker for Parisian gaming clubs. Hit by two months of enforced closure at the start of the year, these establishments have seen their gross gaming revenue plummet by 21%. The challenge for 2026 will be securing their long-term status after eight years of pilot schemes, with a possible expansion of their range of games to compete with traditional casinos.
Lessons for the Belgian market and the Gaming Commission
The French experience offers valuable lessons for Belgium. We see the same underlying trend: a massive shift towards digital and increased oversight by the regulator. However, whilst France is only just beginning to experiment with JONUM (Games with Monetisable Digital Objects) in 2026, Belgium remains extremely vigilant regarding anything that might resemble a grey area between video games and gambling.
The major difference lies in tax and advertising pressure. Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, president of the ANJ, is openly calling for “cooling down the gaming scene” by 2026, fearing that the World Cup could trigger an advertising frenzy. This desire to reduce the intensity of gambling aligns with the concerns of the Belgian Gaming Commission, which has already taken the lead with a near-total ban on advertising.