French bettors stake record €1.3bn on World Cup

• French bettors staked more than €1.3bn during the 2026 FIFA World Cup, according to the Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ).
• Gross gaming revenue reached €157m, more than double the €70m recorded during the 2022 tournament.
• The France-Spain semi-final generated €63m in stakes, the most bet-on match in France since online betting was legalised in 2010.

France’s online sports betting market posted its biggest-ever World Cup, with the Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ) confirming that punters staked more than €1.3bn during the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

The regulator’s review, published on 23 July, found that gross gaming revenue reached €157m, more than double the amounts recorded during the 2022 edition in Qatar.

Record numbers

The 2026 World Cup was the first to feature 48 teams and 104 matches, up from 32 teams previously, a format the ANJ said helped drive the surge in activity. France’s run to the semi-finals, where they were beaten by eventual champions Spain, added further momentum.

Around 3.1 million bettors placed close to 113 million bets during the competition, up more than 40 per cent on the 2.2 million bettors and 54 million bets recorded in 2022. Roughly a million of them were betting for the first time.

The France-Spain semi-final on 14 July generated €63m in stakes, making it the most bet-on football match in France since online sports betting was legalised in 2010, surpassing the €51m wagered on the France-Argentina final in 2022.

The regulator noted the growth builds on a broader trend, with annual online betting stakes rising from €8.5bn in 2023 to €11.5bn in 2025 without a major international tournament in between.

The tournament’s scale echoed warnings from global operators earlier in the competition, with Flutter Entertainment flagging a widening illegal market as a threat to the regulated model worldwide.

Betting habits shift

Wagering patterns during the tournament differed from the regular football season. Match-winner bets accounted for just 28 per cent of stakes, compared with more than 45 per cent across a typical season, as bettors turned to goalscorer, exact-score and combination markets.

Live betting made up 25 per cent of activity, down from a usual 40 per cent, which the ANJ partly attributed to late kick-off times for matches played in North America.

Marketing ramps up

Operators had pre-announced a 25 per cent rise in advertising and promotional budgets for 2026, concentrating close to €150m in marketing and player incentives in the June to July period, with television taking the largest share of spend.

The ANJ’s review found that operators had broadly followed its guidelines on both marketing and financial incentives, and noted that eight operators ran their own campaigns to prevent excessive gambling.

In coordination with the regulator, broadcasters M6 and beIN Sports declined to sell cooling-break ad slots to gambling operators during the tournament, a measure aimed at containing advertising pressure around matches.

A regulator survey found 42 per cent of respondents considered the move necessary and 35 per cent judged it effective, with support higher among those intending to bet.

Advertising ban evaded

The ANJ is now studying an update to the advertising commitment charter it signed with publishers and ad networks in 2022, and separately voiced disappointment that a proposed “whistle-to-whistle” advertising ban, prohibiting gambling adverts around kick-off, was not adopted.

Behind the record figures, the ANJ flagged a starker picture for individual punters. It found 471,000 bettors lost more than €100 during the competition, against 217,000 who won at least that amount, with the regulator noting that only around a quarter of players finished the tournament without a loss.

The regulator said it will track the World Cup’s impact on excessive gambling in the coming months, a signal that scrutiny of operator marketing and player protection is likely to continue well beyond the final whistle.