Although this statistic might take a hit as the US sports gambling market continues to expand, Europe still currently makes up almost half of the world’s sports gambling market, and its growth continues to be strong in many countries. France is a good illustration of this growth, with recent reports indicating that the French sports betting market has grown 21% year-on-year, its strongest period of expansion since the sports betting market opened in 2010.
The widespread belief in most countries is that the market is nowhere near saturation. However, there have been numerous recent cases of major firms being penalised for failings in customer care and responsibility, as well as an emergent sense of audience saturation, at least, with regard to gambling ads. We’ve seen the beginning of a domino effect in certain nations lately, as well, with countries either banning advertising altogether, as in Italy, or restricting it somewhat, as in Spain, Belgium and the UK.
France, nonetheless, has seen a healthy amount growth in online sports betting, as cited above. ARJEL, the nation’s gambling regulator, released figures this month showing summer quarter profits of €995 million, some of which can likely be attributed to action on the 2018 World Cup.
A chunky proportion of this figure was generated during the World Cup Final between France and Croatia, which saw over €38 million in wagers placed, making it by far the largest amount of action recorded for a single match in the market’s history.
Italy, whose market has been battered in recent months, suffered a fairly major bad month in October, with a 26% decline in sports betting revenue versus September. This downturn is not thought to be tied to the upcoming advertising ban in January; it appears instead to be tied to nothing more sinister than a lucky run of results for punters in football betting. Italy, it must be said, is still posting growth of over 20% year on year currently. It will be fascinating to see how growth falters – or fails to falter – after the total advertising ban goes into effect in early 2019.
