France's regulator links football betting growth to more matches

More matches, not just bigger stakes per match, drove the growth of French online sports betting in 2025, according to the French gambling regulator. The Autorité nationale des jeux (ANJ) published an analysis on 12 October 2026 of what powered the segment’s growth and how operators manage it.

Stakes were €11,517m, up 12.0%, in a year without a major international tournament, the ANJ said.

By the numbers

• Football: 54.9% of stakes. It supplied nearly half of stakes growth and two-thirds of GGR growth.
• Champions League: matches rose from 137 to 189 (up 38%) and stakes rose 48.6%. Three-quarters of the increase comes from the extra matches, the ANJ says.
• Club World Cup: a new 63-match competition, with average stakes of €3.9m per match in its first edition, against €4.4m for the Champions League.
• Tennis: 23.0% of stakes, up 16.0% with no exceptional event.
• Return to player: 84.67% in 2025, against a legal cap of 85% as an annual average for each operator.

The details

Football’s own growth of 10.2% understates its momentum, the ANJ says, because 2024 included the Euro, which drew €438m in stakes. Depending on the base used, it puts football growth between 10% and 19%. The Europa League and Conference League, which had the same format change, grew only slightly.

The two most-bet matches of the year were Paris Saint-Germain finals, at €38.2m and €26.7m. The regulator reads this as a premium for matches involving a French team or athlete.

Betting is concentrated differently by sport. The NBA takes 54% of basketball stakes. Seven categories of tennis tournament cover 94% of tennis stakes. Football needs 35 of the 103 competitions open for betting to reach 90%.

On return to player, September 2025 results favoured bettors. The monthly rate hit 94.5% and the cumulative rate rose to 85.9%, above the cap. October and November rates of 82.3% and 74.2% brought the cumulative figure back to 84.67%. The ANJ says this appears to reflect odds adjustments late in the financial year. It adds that the aggregate view says nothing about any single operator’s position, which is checked separately.

The ANJ’s detection algorithm sorts players into four risk profiles, from recreational to manifestly excessive. In football stakes in the first half of 2026, those flagged as excessive or manifestly excessive placed more than 80% of stakes on the Brazilian, Saudi Arabian, Japanese and Australian championships. The regulator says this does not mean those leagues are more addictive: they weigh little in these players’ stakes and probably reflect a lack of interest among recreational bettors.

The ANJ says its second-quarter 2026 finding on bet types could eventually support building player protection into the rules on permitted bet types.

Why it matters

Live betting is where two of the findings meet. It makes up 48% of stakes on secondary football competitions and 50% to 58% on European second divisions and unlisted championships.

In the second quarter of 2026, bets on the result of a half, quarter, set or game, which suit live betting, drew 80% to 89% of their stakes from excessive or manifestly excessive players, depending on the sport. Bets on a competition’s final result drew the highest share from recreational players.