by Mario Alfonsi | Published on May 9, 2012 | Updated on May 9, 2012A new report out from France’s online gambling regulatory body shows a mixed bag for online poker in the country, as some segments of the market have done far better than others over the last year.The biggest news was in the realm of tournament play. A total of €367 million was wagered in tournaments on French poker sites during the first quarter of 2012, up from a total of €292 the year before. That was an impressive gain of 26%, which is certainly a promising sign for the market there.But overall, the news was far less rosy. Cash game play fell 5% year-over-year, with €1.93 billion wagered on cash tables over the first quarter. That may sound like a small decrease, but given how much money is wagered in cash games compared to tournaments, that was actually enough to make the overall trend down slightly for the poker rooms. Overall, gaming revenue for poker fell from €86 million in Q1 2011 to €83 million over the same period in 2012.That’s hardly a reason to panic for regulators, however. Overall, slightly more players were actively playing on the French poker sites this year, pushing the total number of active players to 327,000. The only negative in the player statistics was that the population seemed to be aging slightly, with more players 35 and older playing, while fewer in the 18-24 demographic were seen in the online poker rooms.Poker in France was regulated in 2010, when the government put a licensing scheme into place. This created a situation for online poker rooms and casinos in which special sites had to be created that were only accessible to French players – a situation similar to that in Italy. In France, Winamax.fr is the largest poker site in terms of traffic, narrowly beating out PokerStars.fr. Everest Poker and Party Poker also run large sites in the French market.
