The latest nationwide public health survey in France has revealed interesting details. The survey shows that overall gambling participation in the country has significantly reduced, but there is a noticeable increase in the problem gambling area. The survey was compared with the result of the 2014 survey.
This is the third such survey after 2010 and 2014. The sampling size was 10000 with all participants were more than 18 years of age and polled in 2019. The responses were captured by the Observatoire des jeux (ODJ), Santé Publique France, and the Observatoire Français des drogues et des toxicomanes and estimated for overall gambling spending and addiction in the country.
The survey shows that in 2019, an estimated 47.2% of people have gambled. Men were ahead of women when it comes to gambling as they gambled 50.4% with respect to women who claimed to gamble 44.2%. This is a sharp decline of 10% when the overall figure is compared with 2014 data.
Regular gambling however is not so prevalent as per the survey. Only 28.6% of people claimed that they gamble once a week and a mere 1.2% claimed to gamble daily.
The most popular form of gamble is the lottery.
Almost 65% of the gamblers said that they bought draw-based game tickets. This is also declined, in 2014, it was 72.3%.
Next to the lottery was Instant Win Games with 56.9% of gamblers used this form of gambling.
Only 2.9% of gamblers have claimed to gamble through online poker, 7.7% on betting on horse races. Both of the percentages fell as compared to the figure of 2014. However, the sports betting participation has increased from 6.6% to 11% of gamblers. Overall this is a 66.7% increase in participation.
The survey established that the annual median gambling expenditure is around €72.0 for the French Gamblers. It has been revealed that only one player in ten has spent more than €1000 per year.
However, the concentration of the players spending on gambling is quite different. It has been revealed that just 10% of the gamblers are accounted for 82.8% of gambling expenditure. The figure becomes even worse when it is revealed that only 1% of the gamblers are accounted for 49% of the expenditure. The increased spending has been recorded in the verticals of horse racing, betting, and poker and sports betting.
However, the most worrying figure is that there is a rise in problem gamblers. The survey was conducted on the Canadian Problem Gambling Index or CPGI with a set of questions. This shows that at least 4.4% of gamblers are at risk of developing gambling-related problems up from 3.8% in 2014.
The survey marked 1.6% of gamblers as problem gamblers, almost doubled from 2014. As per the survey, 1mn gamblers can be termed as moderate-risk gamblers and 370,000 can be identified as the problem gamblers. However, the most worrying figure is that these gamblers are generating 40% of the gambling turnover.
The at-risk gamblers are more likely to be younger and from modest social backgrounds, the survey revealed. It also added that lower levels of education and income are the factors for the problem gamblers. It said that these gamblers are frequently unemployed. The problem gamblers are also more likely to be a sports bettor. Moderate gamblers are three times more likely to play the sports betting and six times by the problem gamblers.
Future research has been planned as well by the end of 2020 by Observatoire Français des drogues et des toxicomanes. This will focus more on iGaming users and the risk of online gaming.
This comes after French regulation went through a change and Authorité nationale des jeux is now the single regulatory authority in the country.
Source: https://www.igamingbusiness.com/news/survey-french-problem-gamblers-account-40-spend