- French market consolidates with only 16 operators still active in the French market.
- Revenues down 5% year on year, compared to 19% increase across all online gambling.
- Active poker player numbers are up 2%.
French regulator ARJEL has released its year end report for 2012. Overall, total gaming revenues are up 19%. Revenues from poker are down 5%.
Cash game poker suffered the most as high taxes encouraged players to switch to tournaments. Cash game activity fell 5% while tournament registrations increased by 21%.
The number of licensed operators serving the French market poker market has declined from 23 to 16, as smaller players are edged out by the financial muscle needed to maintain market share in a market with very thin profit margins.
Europoker and PKR were the only two operators granted new French licenses during 2012.
Overall, the number of online poker players at regulated sites increased by 2% during the year to just over 1.7m. According to industry figures, worldwide traffic declined during 2012, implying that poker’s popularity has remained strong in France.
French poker has had a good year on the live tournament circuit with PokerStars Team Pro, Bertrand “ElkY” Grosspellier coming third in the Global Poker Index (GPI) Player of the Year rankings. His consistent performances have seen his total tournament earnings break the $10m barrier.
Roger Hairabedian, Philippe Ktorza, David Benyamine and Fabrice Soulier have all made the GPI top fifty meaning that fully 10% of the top 50 tournament players in the world in 2012 were French.
The French media has not been slow to exploit the success of French players on the global scene and the resulting exposure has helped to sustain popular interest in poker. If hopes of shared liquidity player pools raised by the Italy, France, Spain and Portugal meeting last June come to fruition, that interest could create a very substantial market despite the tax burden.