Jake Pollard breaks that UKgiant’s entrance is set to boost marketing and increase competition in mature French market… just in time for the World Cup
Bet365 is expected to begin its debut in France very shortly following its licensing for online sports betting in the country. The decision followed a scheduled meeting held by the Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ) on Thursday last week and was announced yesterday morning.
News of Bet365’s arrival in France was exclusively revealed by SBC-Gaming&Co last October and the UK giant submitted its license application via its subsidiary Hillside (New Media Malta) Plc in January.
The news means Bet365 will be able to market its products to French players in the run up to the World Cup, which was the hard deadline it had set itself for launch in 2026. Its arrival is a major shake up for the French OSB industry as for the first time in many years, a new operator that has the financial firepower and brand recognition to compete with current leaders Betlclic, Winamax and Unibet enters the fray.
In addition, with PMU launching its new PMU Play app with a clear focus on cross-selling racing punters into OSB, competition within this key vertical is set to intensify. While OSB is not PMU’s core business, the group told G&Co that it wanted online poker and sports betting to become key pillars of its mobile and online ambitions.
Until now, Bet365 had decided against entering the French market, but as the group has expanded across Europe, Australia and, most recently, in the US, France gradually became a key target market. As SBC-G&Co wrote in October, the group’s “financial firepower also gives it time, a precious commodity, to promote its products and cope with losses, especially in the early years of activity. It did this when it started out in Australia and more recently in the US, where it is now active in 14 states”.
France refreshes Euro ambitions
At a corporate level, a launch in France would also extend Bet365’s growth narrative and its reach into another high profile regulated market, which could help lay the ground to a potential sale.
Bet365 recorded a 9% annual rise in revenues to £4bn in the 12 months period to the end of March 2025, driven by 5% growth in sports betting and 25% growth in online casino. However, pre-tax profits were down 41% to £349m in 2024/25 and operating profits were down 40% to £218m due to costs rising from £687m to £896.5m as a result of entering new locally regulated markets.
Its entry is expected to push up the price of media inventory and with affiliates ready to press the button on promotion campaigns, a flurry of marketing activity is expected in the next few weeks. As one of the leading betting brands in the world, the group’s brand recognition has always been strong among French bettors, despite it not operating in the market. In addition, its global sponsorship of the UEFA Champions League is set to run until 2027 and its licensing in France will enable it to promote its brand name in French stadiums during UCL matches, where up to now it advertised its Follow Scores brand.
France is a mature, well-established and heavily taxed market, with OSB acting as the key vertical that drives the market’s growth in the absence of regulated online casino. Following the news of its planned launch, industry executives told SBC-G&Co that they were not “over the moon” about the arrival of such a major brand, but that strong competition will always improve their operations and push them to produce better products and content.
Natives ready to battle
At the time, Nicolas Béraud, founder and president of Betclic (Banijay Group), told Les Echos that Bet365 was strong enough to impact all operators as it has a “powerful brand”, but its “historic English model, with fairly technical bets on which sophisticated players wager large sums of money” was different to Betclic’s, which he said “is better suited to the French market”.
In addition, one of Bet365’s strength is to offer many different bet types, but that will come up against France’s strictly “regulated and limited offer”, which will stifle its room for differentiation, noted the Betclic boss, who added that the country’s 85% RTP ratio means it will not be able to operate the ‘best price’-low margin model that it usually follows. But if the UK group invests “millions of euros in marketing campaigns – and they have the means to do so – there will obviously be an impact on legal French operators,” said Béraud.
