The proportion of French poker players using mobile and tablet devices has increased nearly fourfold in a year, according to the latest market data from French regulator ARJEL.
According to data supplied by operators active in the regulated dot.fr market, 15% of French poker players used mobile and tablet devices to access French poker sites in the first quarter of 2012, up from 4% a year ago, with tablets being used by 3% of players. Winamax and bwin launched real-money apps for Android, iPhone and iPad during the course of last year, with the former adding multi-tabling last October. Mobile and tablet use among sports bettors also doubled year-on-year to 15%.
French punters embraced the mobile channel as they wagered 1.1% more overall in the quarter than they did the previous year. Turnover from the three regulated online products in France - sports betting, horse race betting and poker - increased from €2.732bn to €2.563bn, with the latter figure including an adjustment for cash poker to take account of several operators “changing their calculation method for accounting for cash game bets”, according to ARJEL. Operators’ total gross gaming revenue from the market was up 5.6% to €189m from €179m.
Revenue from online poker, the French market’s largest segment - generating close to 44% of GGR from the market in Q1 2012 - however contracted 3% to €86m from €83m, due to turnover from cash games falling 5% year-on-year from € 2,029m to €1,930m, the latter figure representing an adjustment on the actual figure of €1,698m to take account of the aforementioned accounting change. The overall drop in cash game turnover was however partially offset by a 26% rise in tournament fees to €367m from €292m.
ARJEL commented: “This decrease was primarily due to the slowing of activity cash game, with 9% of players less active in one period to another”, with the drop-off most emphasised in the 18-24 age group, which saw the number of active player accounts contract by 20%, to account for 21% of the French poker playing constituency compared to 24% a year earlier.
In sports, French bettors wagered 14% more online in the three months to the end of March than they did a year earlier, as turnover increased to €175m from €154m. Licensed operators’ total gross gaming revenue was up 7% to €37m from €35m, with ARJEL saying the differential percentage increases were due to “a lower level of pay-out ratio” - 81% compared to 83% - in 2012. Football acccounted the majority of betting activity, 59%, ahead of tennis with 19%. Horse race wagering, dominated by former monopoly PMU, increased 13% to €291m from €257 m, with revenue up 20% to €69m from €58m.
As in poker, the skewing of gambling activity away from the younger age group was a feature of the French online market as a whole in the first quarter, as the number of active accounts belonging to players under 35 contracted to 55% from 61% of the market a year earlier. The demographic shift was most apparent in sports betting, where this age group also accounted for a loss of over 60,000 active accounts between Q1 2011 and Q1 2012, seeing this age group contract from 39% of sports bettors to 23%. Active accounts across all products and age groups fell marginally year-on-year to 1.426 million from 1.436 million a year earlier, however the Q1 total was 1.9% up on the 1.399 million actives in Q4 2011.
Marketing spend also contracted 44% year-on-year to €48m from €86m,as operators continued their retreat from costly marketing land-grabs aimed at securing market share in the recently regulated territory. Expenditure on the print, TV, radio, film, internet, and online media all fell away, with bonusing correspondingly increasing its share of overall spend from 37% in Q1 2011 to 55% in Q1 2012.
