January 29. While the PMU had successfully negotiated the opening of the online betting market in 2010 in the areas of sports betting and poker by positioning itself among the operators that matter, a few years later it drastically cut its investments in these areas. However, three days after the Prix d’Amérique 2025, the PMU communicated on the launch of its new poker platform with a new partner, Playtech. Growth was expected for this sector in 2025.
February 13. It’s historic, the Constitutional Council gives the green light to horse racing to change their scope in terms of taking bets. In the future, gaming operators will be able to offer both games based on past events and live, the famous live betting. For the moment, no game of this type has been released.
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4 mars. It was in a Parisian point of sale, Brazza (17th arrondissement), that the PMU presented to the media its brand new terminals which are “thirty times more powerful than the old ones”says the operator’s Director of Information Systems, Stéphane Boulanger. The deployment, which is spread over a period of two years, is still in progress, knowing that each year, 65% of transactions carried out in the physical network are recorded via this medium.
2 avril. A special monthly “Games” page is back in ParisTurf after several years of interruption. The first personality to speak in this section was the President of the ANJ (National Gaming Authority), Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin. In parallel, ParisTurf develops a monthly section on its site updated daily to share with you all the promotions that affect horse racing betting whether on Zeturf, Genybet, PMU, Unibet and Betclic.
June 8 and December 7. This is not a game that you will find when you open the door of your favorite PMU point of sale, but rather a commercial operation that can bring big profits. In 2025, the operator offered two Gold Jackpots allowing a lucky winner to multiply the dividend of a Single Game by 10,000. A winner at Paris-Longchamp pocketed 14,000 euros on June 8 and another €17,000 on December 7 at Paris-Vincennes.
July 1. Since that date, PMU has decided to increase its player return rate (TRJ) to e-Simple. It stands at €87.5 for winning (+2.1 points) and 88.2% for placing (+3.9 points). On October 6, it will be the turn of single bets in the physical network with one TRJ point better. If these measures are “very beneficial” for the players and the recycling rate, this has a cost in terms of Gross Gaming Product (GRP) and ultimately the royalty to the horse racing industry.
July 1. After the takeover of ZEturf by Française des jeux, a new step has been taken, namely the merger between the player accounts of Zeturf (and formerly Zebet for sports betting) and Parions Sport. From now on, Parions Sport customers are asked to go and play races on ZEturf.
October 23. The least we can say is that it has been a long time coming… Since this date, punters holding a PMU+ account and a pmu.fr account can benefit from the instant transfer of any winnings directly to their bank account. This technical innovation came a year after it was available from ZEturf.
October 31. Just like Betclic, ZEturf in turn decides to highlight jockeys and drivers when it comes to taking bets. “We wanted to make betting simpler, especially for those new to racing”indicated Marion Hugé, General Manager of ZEturf. In one click, you can now follow a jockey and bet without getting into overly technical analyses.”
November 24. ZEturf puts the CombiTurf into orbit, allowing punters to carry over their winnings between several races in several meetings, thus responding to a request from some of the golfers. The base bet is set at 1 euro.
What should we expect from 2026?
With the arrival of a new experienced General Director in the person of Cyrille Giraudat, the PMU will have to aim for a recovery whether in the physical network but also on the internet where it has been facing competition from alternative operators for many months. In addition to the major sporting events that we find on the calendar each year such as the Ligue 1 championship, the Champions League, the Tour de France or even Roland Garros which will compete with the races, bettors will also be able to bet on the Football World Cup in America or to a lesser extent on the Winter Olympic Games. Without embarking on a frantic race for promotions, the PMU will have to be present so as not to see its customers leave to play elsewhere. This is the purpose of the project called “One Love”. After poker, we logically imagine that during the first half of the year, sports betting will be integrated into the pmu.fr application in order to reposition PMU as an omnichannel operator. The other important product concerning the historic operator in the second half should revolve around a Super Pick 5. This game which will target a broader target than the Pick 5 was validated by the ANJ on November 20. At this stage, we do not know the mechanics on which this new game will be based. Will 2026 also mark the year of the launch of new forms of gaming with betting on past and live races now permitted by law? This doesn’t seem impossible at all. If, due to competition, as a general rule the operators are not very forthcoming about future innovations, while at PMU, we are particularly eyeing the subject of past races, on the Betclic side, the teams are working to be able to offer live bets on the races by the end of the year…
