July 26, 2010 (CAP News Wire) – Just over a month old now, the newly opened market in France allowing online gambling and betting is already posting huge revenue gains, reports Reuters.
That’s the good news for French online gambling authorities. The bad news? Despite the new laws, many online gamblers are still using foreign, non-regulating online betting sites to place their Internet bets.
“According to the French authority for online gambling and betting, operators garnered revenue of 107 million euros ($138 million) during the World Cup, including 70 percent on soccer, with an average stake of 10 euros,” Reuters reports.
The report adds that, pre-regulation, “the online gambling market was generating 3-3.5 billion euros of annual gross revenue,” and that even now, “half of [the online gamblers] are still choosing illegal operators.”
The bright side: “According to Global Betting & Gaming Consultants, the gross gambling yield — gross turnover less the amount paid out to players as winnings — is set to double in France from 2009 to 2011 to 665 million euros.”
Can other nations like the United States — already the world’s largest iGaming market, by far — look forward to the same kind of upward surge when online gambling is finally regulated there?