A bigger football calendar and steady tennis growth lifted French stakes in 2025, while excessive players accounted for more than 80% of stakes on the Brazilian, Saudi, Japanese, and Australian leagues and 80% to 89% on bets covering a single period of play.
Online sports betting stakes in France rose 12.0% to €11.5 billion in 2025, and gross gaming revenue (GGR) grew 10.4% to €1.77 billion, in a year without a major international tournament. A per-sport analysis published on 12 October 2026 by France’s Autorité nationale des jeux (ANJ) identifies two main drivers: a bigger football calendar and steady demand for tennis. It also finds that the share of stakes placed by excessive players is much higher on low-profile competitions than on major ones.
More matches drove football growth
Football took 54.9% of all stakes in 2025, or €6.32 billion, up 10.2% on 2024. The ANJ’s note says that figure understates the sport’s momentum, because 2024 included Euro 2024 and its €438 million in stakes. Without the Euros, football growth would reach 19% at most, so the ANJ puts the real rate between 10% and 19%. The new Club World Cup brought in €248 million, filling just over half of the summer gap the Euros left. Excluding both tournaments, football grew 14.6%.
The Champions League became the most-bet football competition, at €829 million. That was 13.1% of football stakes, up 48.6%. Over the calendar year, the new format took the competition from 137 to 189 matches, an increase of 38%. Average stakes per match rose only 8%, to about €4.4 million. The ANJ attributes three-quarters of the competition’s growth to the higher number of matches. The Europa League and Conference League went through the same format change but grew only slightly.
The Club World Cup averaged €3.9 million per match across its 63 games in its first edition, close to the Champions League level. The two most-bet matches of the year both involved Paris Saint-Germain.
| Match | Competition | Stakes |
| PSG v Inter Milan | Champions League final | €38.2 million |
| Chelsea v PSG | Club World Cup final | €26.7 million |
| Spain v France | Nations League semi-final | €19.7 million |
Tennis keeps growing
Tennis stakes rose 16.0% to €2.65 billion, a similar pace to 2024, giving the sport 23.0% of the market. Grand Slam main draws took 26.6% of tennis stakes, and ATP Masters 1000 events took 16.6%.
Women’s competitions accounted for about 40% of tennis betting. In football, the equivalent figure is 2%. The most bet tennis match of the year was Jannik Sinner v Carlos Alcaraz in the Roland-Garros final, at €14.0 million.
| Sport | Stakes (€m) | Share | Stakes growth | GGR (€m) | GGR growth | Implied RTP |
| Football | 6,320 | 54.9% | +10.2% | 1,052 | +11.8% | 83.4% |
| Tennis | 2,652 | 23.0% | +16.0% | 353 | +8.6% | 86.7% |
| Basketball | 1,018 | 8.8% | +10.0% | 155 | +9.2% | 84.8% |
| Volleyball | 216 | 1.9% | +20.9% | 32 | +47.2% | 85.2% |
| Rugby union | 199 | 1.7% | +11.4% | 20 | +3.4% | 90.1% |
| Other sports | 1,109 | 9.6% | +13.8% | 153 | +2.6% | 86.2% |
| Total | 11,517 | 100% | +12.0% | 1,766 | +10.4% | 84.67% |
Across all sports, online sports betting had 5.27 million active player accounts (+7.9%) and 3.65 million unique players (+8.6%) in 2025.
The average annual stake per bettor reached €3,159, up from €2,512 in 2020, which the ANJ said may point to more intensive play.
Operators paid €180 million in bonuses to sports bettors, equal to 1.6% of stakes. Of that, 80% went to retaining existing customers.
How operators manage RTP
French rules cap return to player (RTP) at 85%, as an annual average for each operator. The market rate reached 84.67% in 2025, up from 84.45% in 2024.
| Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
| Monthly RTP | 81.8% | 94.5% | 82.3% | 74.2% | 85.2% |
| Cumulative RTP | 84.7% | 85.9% | 85.5% | 84.6% | 84.67% |
In September, results that favoured bettors pushed the cumulative rate above the cap. Lower monthly rates in October and November brought it back to 84.6%. The ANJ said this pattern appears to reflect odds being adjusted towards the end of the financial year. It added that the market figure does not show whether each operator stayed under the cap, which it checks separately.
The ANJ treats stakes, rather than GGR, as the better measure of demand. The ANJ said (translated from French):
‘Only stakes reflect changes in bettors’ activity and a sport’s momentum, with GGR revealing more about the operator’s pricing policy and the results.’
The regulator attributes the gap between stakes and GGR in some sports to changes in margin, not in bettor behaviour.
- Tennis stakes grew 16.0%, but GGR only 8.6%.
- In volleyball, GGR rose 47.2% on stakes growth of 20.9%, mainly because operator margin increased from 12.3% to 14.8%.
The smaller sports showed wider swings. Implied RTP was 78.7% in ice hockey and 90.1% in cycling, while MMA posted negative GGR of €9 million, concentrated in the month of UFC Paris. The ANJ also flagged table tennis, where French stakes rose 47.3% to €152 million while the sport faces closer integrity scrutiny internationally.
Niche leagues and period-of-play bets rely on excessive players
The ANJ defines secondary football competitions as those that each take less than 2% of the sport’s stakes. Together, 93 of them took 37% of football stakes, or €2.3 billion. In-play betting accounts for 48% of stakes on these competitions, against 34% on the major ones, and for 50% to 58% on European second divisions and unlisted leagues. Because South American leagues play overnight in France and Asian and Oceanian leagues in the morning, in-play football is available around the clock.
The ANJ’s detection algorithm sorts players into four risk profiles: recreational, moderate risk, excessive, and manifestly excessive. Applied to football stakes from the first half of 2026, it showed:
- Recreational players accounted for about 35% of stakes on the 2026 World Cup, or 50% including moderate-risk players.
- Excessive or manifestly excessive players accounted for more than 80% of stakes on the leagues of Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and Australia.
The ANJ said (translated from French):
‘This result does not mean that these competitions in themselves carry a higher addictive potential. They account for only a small share of these players’ stakes, and probably reflect above all a lack of interest from recreational bettors.’
The regulator ran the same analysis by bet type on stakes from the second quarter of 2026:
- Outright bets, such as a tournament winner, had the highest recreational share: 33% in football and 36% in tennis.
- Bets on a single period of play, such as a half, quarter, set, or game, came 80% to 89% from excessive or manifestly excessive players, depending on the sport. Recreational players accounted for only 5% to 11%.
- In football, excessive or manifestly excessive players accounted for 69% to 70% of stakes on score and player-performance bets, compared with 57% on match-winner bets.
The ANJ said the betting offer grows in two ways: organisers add matches to existing competitions, and the ANJ’s board adds new competitions and bet types to the list operators can offer. When the board adds niche competitions or period-of-play bets, the main beneficiaries appear to be excessive players. ‘This finding could argue for better integration of player protection into the regulation of authorised betting markets,’ the ANJ said (translated from French).
The note does not propose specific changes to the list of authorised competitions or bet types.
