MDespite the numerous debates sparked by the organization of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar and the calls for a boycott, the expected disavowal did not take place: the audiences for the matches are excellent, and the volume of bets placed on the various encounters promises to be exceptional.
The success of sports betting is well established. Since the opening of the online gaming market in France in 2010, the amount of bets has continued to grow, and the presence of betting operators in the media environment has become familiar to us, especially during ritual football competitions, like the World Cup. According to the 2021 activity report of the National Gaming Authority (ANJ), online games represented in 2011 only 7% of the market; this share reached 17% in 2020 and is driven by particularly strong growth in sports betting (+717% across all channels between 2011 and 2020).
In twelve years, the sector has therefore experienced exceptional development, benefiting the dozen operators who have chosen year after year to comply with the legal and fiscal rules imposed by the government to legally access French players from 2010.
Regulatory objective under threat
But it is also a “contested market”, in the sense that the marketing of gambling raises ethical debates. Historically perceived as a moral weakness causing ruin and social disaffiliation, excessive gambling is now considered a disease. Since the end of the 1990s, health experts have regularly warned of the risks run by psychologically fragile people, but also by the youngest, who can be victims of this « addiction sans substance ».
At the time of the debates on the opening to competition of the online gaming market, these risks of addiction were taken into account: the legislator opted in 2010 for a framework supposed to guarantee the “control of the market”announced in the preamble to the law of May 12, 2010. To do this, it has defined an arsenal of devices responsible for limiting the appetites of operators just as much (through taxation and the definition of a limited perimeter of games) as those players (through gaming caps, prevention campaigns, etc.).
Was the bet held? In view of the sector’s growth curves, it is clear that the objective of regulating the market is constantly threatened by the marketing thrusts of the operators. Despite a call for moderation, advertising campaigns are frequent and target young, urban, working-class men and sports fans, promoting imagery designed to appeal to these populations (like the Winamax campaign “Everything for the daronne”eventually banned, or references to manga).
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