France online GGR hits €1.45bn in H1 2026; bonuses up 28%

France's Autorité nationale des jeux (ANJ) says online gross gaming revenue — produit brut des jeux, or PBJ — reached €1.45bn in the first half of 2026, up 11% on a year earlier. The regulator's H1 2026 market analysis, published with a press note dated 15 October 2026, puts online at 25.6% of the market excluding casinos and gaming clubs, up 2.4 percentage points. Online was the only growth driver. That online market, open to licensed operators, covers sports betting, horse racing and poker. Online lottery is part of FDJ United's exclusive rights, and online casino games are not legal in France.

The wider market excluding casinos and clubs grew just 0.5% to €5.66bn of PBJ, after +4.1% in H1 2025. Exclusive-rights activities at FDJ United and PMU weighed on the total.

Bonuses outpaced online revenue

Gratifications paid to players — ANJ's term for bonuses and similar credits — reached €199m, up 28%. That is about 2.5 times the growth rate of online PBJ, and lifts bonuses to 13.8% of online PBJ from 11.9% a year earlier.

Sports betting took most of the spend: €129m (+35%), including €35.5m in June alone. In sports betting, acquisition bonuses fell 6% from January to May, then rose to €9.0m in June from €2.4m a year earlier, almost four times as high, as the men's football World Cup began.

Sports, poker and online horse racing

Sports betting stakes rose 10.6% to €6.6bn. Growth was uneven: about +4% from January to May, then +47% in June with the World Cup. Sports PBJ reached €995m (+11.6%).

Poker PBJ rose 13.4% to €290m. Active player accounts (comptes joueurs actifs, CJA) in poker were up about 39%. Sit&Go formats made up 70% of poker PBJ.

Online horse-racing stakes rose 16% to €920m — the strongest half-year rise since 2021, and without a June World Cup spike. Online horse-racing PBJ was €164m (+2.8%).

Across the online market, CJA reached 5.85 million (+24%) and unique players (joueurs uniques, JU) 4.06 million (+17%).

FDJ United and PMU under exclusive rights

FDJ United's exclusive-rights PBJ in France fell 2% to €3.43bn. PMU exclusive-rights PBJ fell 5.8% to €782m, with stakes down 3.8% to €3.1bn. The ANJ says PMU's exclusive-rights business declined for the third year in a row.

Related coverage: Entain's Q3 2026 NGR update, Spain's payment-method ownership checks for online gambling withdrawals, and Denmark's L37 gambling ad rules and affiliate revenue-share ban.

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