France has reported record-breaking betting volumes driven by an expanded tournament format and the momentum of online sports betting.

Over €1.3 billion in stakes and €157 million in Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) were recorded—more than double the figures from the 2022 edition (€597 million in stakes and €70 million in GGR).

This growth is attributable to two main factors: the expansion of the tournament to 48 teams and 104 matches, and the structural momentum of online sports betting, further boosted by the French national team’s performance.

3.1 million players (3.8 million active accounts—including 1 million opened during the tournament) placed nearly 113 million bets during the competition, compared to 2.2 million players (2.6 million accounts) and 54 million bets in 2022; this represents a more than 40% increase in the pool of bettors and a doubling of the number of bets placed.

With €63 million in stakes recorded, the France vs. Spain semi-final on July 14 became the most-bet-on match since 2010, surpassing the 2022 France vs. Argentina final (€51 million). The tournament’s five most-bet-on matches all exceeded €30 million in stakes and now rank among the top 10 most-bet-on matches of all time:

France vs. Morocco (€46 million), the Spain vs. Argentina final (€38 million), Paraguay vs. France (€35 million), and France vs. Sweden (€33 million). These record figures reflect an underlying trend in online sports betting, where annual stakes rose from €8.5 billion in 2023 to €10.3 billion in 2024 (+21%) and then to €11.5 billion in 2025 (+12%)—even though the latter year featured no major international competitions.

“Match winner” bets account for only 28% of the competition’s total wagers—compared to over 45% during the rest of the football season—giving way to more specific bets (such as goalscorers or exact scores) or accumulator bets. Live betting lags behind as well (25% of wagers, versus 40% for football overall), partly due to the late kick-off times.

While 44% of players placed fewer than 10 bets on the competition, around 15,000 placed more than 500. Overall, 471,000 players lost more than €100, whereas only 217,000 won at least that amount. Only about a quarter of players finished the competition without a loss, despite the French team’s performance. In the coming months, the ANJ will monitor the competition’s impact on the prevalence of excessive gambling.

To the extent that this competition constitutes an important recruitment lever for the sector, the operators had anticipated this major sporting event by increasing their advertising and promotional budgets (marketing and bonuses) by +25% for the year 2026. In their forward-looking declarations of promotional strategies for 2026, they declared that they wanted to concentrate nearly 150 million euros of marketing and bonus expenses over the June-July period. Unsurprisingly, the largest advertising investments were made in TV.