Q&A with Bookmakers France: Paysafe’s Rory Howard on the French market and payment trends

With transacting a crucial part of the online gambling experience, French online sports-betting news site Bookmakers France recently sat down with Rory Howard, our GM for the EMEA iGaming market, to talk about how the French like to pay when they play. The Q&A was originally published here on Bookmakers France.

Bookmakers France (BF): Rory, can you tell us about Paysafe and its payment solutions for French online bettors?

Rory Howard (RH): Paysafe traces its roots back to Montreal, Canada, in the late 1990s, when the company’s founders developed a payment gateway for processing players’ credit and debit card transactions with online gambling brands. We’ve since expanded our suite of payment solutions to include the Skrill and NETELLER digital wallets and the PaysafeCard online cash solution, among other products.

Today Paysafe is headquartered in London, UK, and we’re publicly listed on the New York Stock Exchange. We offer bettors a wide range of payment options in 90+ regulated gambling jurisdictions, including France, where PaysafeCard, Skrill and NETELLER are particularly popular.

BF: You recently released your 2025 ‘All the Ways Players Pay’ payments research. How do French players like to pay?

RH: There’s no standard French bettor when it comes to payments. Overall, credit cards and then debit cards are most popular, though some players prefer digital wallets like Skrill and NETELLER, and others bank transfers.

Above all, we’re seeing growing appetite from French bettors for online cash solutions like PaysafeCard.

As payment preferences are very diverse, sportsbooks and poker brands need to offer as many different options as possible, so no bettor is disappointed. If a player doesn’t see their favourite digital wallet or eCash brand when they visit a gambling brand, they’ll likely go elsewhere.

BF: You mention digital wallets. Can you explain how they work and their advantages for French players wagering with online gambling brands?

RH: Digital wallets like Skrill and NETELLER are basically virtual online or mobile accounts that players use to transact with online sportsbooks and poker brands. First the player funds the wallet using a bank card, bank transfer or even PaysafeCard. They can then use the wallet balance to place bets with gambling brands that offer the digital wallet as a payment method. They can also withdraw their winnings with wallets like Skrill.

Digital wallets have many advantages, with speed and security the main benefits. When using Skrill or NETELLER, bettors don’t share any of their financial information with the gambling brand. Once a wallet has been funded, it enables a player to transact very quickly with not just one gambling brand but across many.

Our digital wallets NETELLER, launched in 1999, and Skrill, unveiled in 2001, have been around a long time. Their widespread availability with French online sportsbooks and poker sites is yet another of their benefits.

BF: Likewise, you mentioned online cash. Tell us more about eCash and why these products may appeal to certain French players?

RH: eCash products enable a bettor to use cash to fund an online bet. As an example, PaysafeCard is a voucher in multiple euro denominations that players buy from tabacs, newsagents and supermarkets. Each PaysafeCard voucher has a 16-digit PIN and players simply input this at sportsbooks and poker sites’ cashiers to fund their bet.

While cash usage has declined in France, it’s still the go-to payment preference for an important minority of consumers. eCash products like PaysafeCard have particular appeal to these players as well as bettors who prefer not to use their credit cards or bank cards for wagering.

BF: What does your research tell us about how French bettors want to transact in the future?

RH: There will always be a place for cards, but we expect to see players using digital wallets, online cash and other alternative payment methods (APMs) even more in the future. Our research found that 57% of French players expect to increase their betting with APMs by the end of 2026.

There’s also strong appetite for real-time payments, with 64% of players wanting this to be widely available within two years. They also have interest in open banking products, which allow bettors to log-in to their online bank accounts to transact directly at sportsbooks and poker brands’ cashiers. Half of bettors (49%) expect open-banking products to be a standard option by end-2026.

The best French online gambling brands already offer a wide selection of payment options. Going forward, they’ll need to continue to increase these options to meet players’ increasingly sophisticated preferences at the cashier.

Perhaps the broader question about the future is whether the government will legalize online casinos. What is without question is that if and when regulation does happen, payments will continue to be essential for French bettors.