If playing is now only a click on away, conventional shops, in native retail outlets, stay a strategic window for operators. They’re additionally vital assembly areas for the gamers themselves. As a result of gaming does not forestall at making a bet or scratch video games, it is a part of where and common sociality. Explanations.
Lotto is 50 years outdated! First advertised in Would possibly 1976 by way of the Nationwide Lottery (now FDJ United), Lotto marked the start of the revival of lottery video games in France.
Part a century later, at a time of accelerating digitization of practices in society, 27% of the worldwide gross fabricated from video games of likelihood and 18.5% of that completed in France is learned on-line. Now it’s imaginable to play in seconds, out of your telephone, with none particular restrictions of location or time.
On this context, how to give an explanation for the patience of bodily shops within the group of the playing marketplace in France? Why does FDJ United nonetheless have the main business community in France, with virtually 29,000 spouse companies?
Advert visibility lever
The bodily community Francaise des jeux (FDJ) above all has a vital financial weight in the result of the gang, since in 2025 93% of the gross fabricated from video games of likelihood generated in France (calculation in line with the information proven within the monetary paperwork of FDJ United), will nonetheless go via those issues of sale. In spite of a much less dense community (round 14,000 shops), the statement is the same for the pony racing making a bet operator, Pari Mutuel Urbaine (PMU).
However this financial weight can’t be understood independently of the implementation methods performed by way of operators and the decisions of public government. Certainly, in a marketplace as regulated because the playing marketplace, they “should only exist where they are expressly permitted”.
The introduction and upkeep of a community of retailers subsequently does no longer derive from a easy common sense of uniform business distribution: it’s built in a focused means, relying on ceaselessly working-class and prone neighborhoods (Determine 1), inhabitants flows and high-traffic spaces.
Determine 1: The presence of PMU within the metropolitan space of Paris when it comes to the inhabitants residing beneath the poverty line. Nicholas Brun, 2022, equipped by way of the creator
From this point of view, the number of places is rarely with out penalties. This can be a true provide coverage, which targets to maximise the alternatives for touch between the objective target audience and the gross sales premises for gaming merchandise.
Image 1: Tabac-Presse proudly shows “HERE, winner of 200,000 euros”. Nicolas Brun, Besançon (Doubs), 8 Would possibly 2026, Equipped by way of the creator
The issues of sale additionally function showcases and reminders of what can also be received by way of enjoying (Determine 1). Established most commonly in native companies (bars-PMU, tobacconists), recreation operators attempt to be as regards to other folks and their behavior. On the identical time, the sport’s visibility is an increasing number of glaring at the streets and public delivery via promoting campaigns (Determine 2).
Determine 2: From left to proper, Winamak promoting in Paris, Unibet promoting in Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis), Parions Recreation web advertising in Stains (Seine-Saint-Denis). The Betclic commercial was once concurrently projected on two displays on the Toulouse-Matabiau (Haute-Garonne) station. Nicolas Brun, 2025, Equipped by way of the creator
As well as, the multiactivity of the gaming area in France encourages the coming of a various clientele, who then in finding themselves strongly inspired by way of messages and incentives to play. Seeing the quantity of the following jackpot and the winnings completed at this level of sale, passing in entrance of the scratch card show (Determine 3), including the Lotto grid in an effort to pay on your cigarettes with a credit card, those are all eventualities that facilitate the sport and inspire intake.
Play as a social beef up
Then again, so as to take a look at to grasp where of retailers within the follow of playing, we want to transcend a reductive studying that might include pondering that we’re handiest enjoying with the very hypothetical expectation of successful the “jackpot”.
Indubitably, the hope of monetary acquire stays the principle motive force of gamers. The myth of the jackpot, skillfully maintained by way of the “Big Gamble”, lets in us to dream of a higher lifestyles. However this promise, which is handiest remarkably fulfilled, can’t on its own be enough to give an explanation for the patience of practices, particularly in bodily puts.
Determine 3: Show of FDJ scratch video games on the level of sale. Nicolas Brun, Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis), Would possibly 20, 2022, Equipped by way of creator
Certainly, enjoying is “primarily a way of coping with existence.” Some way of escaping from “ordinary time”, keeping up a dating with the imaginable and projecting oneself past on a regular basis lifestyles.
A large number of works from the arts and social sciences additionally display us that play areas and sociability areas are the place communities shape and collect (gamers, pals, colleagues, and so on.). After all, that is very true for PMU enthusiasts who, of their follow, favor to stick throughout the enjoying space. However that does not imply enthusiasts of the lottery, sports activities making a bet or scratch video games steer clear of this socialization on the level of sale.
We play whilst going to shop for cigarettes, newspapers, whilst taking a espresso spoil, and even if we go away paintings. Play isn’t essentially central, however is built-in into on a regular basis practices involving micro-interactions. Companies know the way to skillfully articulate those routines.
Materiality that counts
We do not simply play a recreation: we play someplace… and (for now) this someplace is in most cases the promoting level of FDJ or PMU. The gaming enjoy is important with where the place it takes position.
Trade environment, posters, displays, discussions or behavior of attendance absolutely take part within the follow. The internal area of retailers subsequently constitutes a recreation device, understood right here as a suite of subject matter, spatial and social preparations that lend a hand information conduct and follow. In those areas, not anything is left to likelihood, from the site of the scratch price ticket, at all times positioned in order that it’s visual from the doorway to the trade, to the microspaces structured round every enjoy in keeping with his favourite video games (image 2).
Determine 2: Simplified illustration of the interior group of the PMU/FDJ bar in Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis). Nicholas Brun, 2023, equipped by way of the creator
This materiality of position and play is vital. This introduces a type of alternate. In those on a regular basis areas, play opens a bracket, playtime in brief postponing the standard glide of items. The psychological area of play, an idea put ahead by way of Winnicott, “contributes to the construction of a temporality” particular to play and its practices within the particular puts produced for it. On this sense, play areas ceaselessly serve as as heterotopias: separate areas inside on a regular basis lifestyles, the place unusual temporalities are momentarily suspended and the place a type of collective phantasm is built, the appearance that, confronted with likelihood, we’re all equivalent within the probabilities of luck.
This suspension of time may be explicitly used within the verbal exchange methods of the operators themselves. In a up to date FDJ United advert marketing campaign for its Parions Recreation emblem on the level of sale, the gaming operator options Eric Cantona within the position of a service provider. In any such promotional clips, the previous footballer and actor seeks bodily touch with the participant by way of shaking his hand for lengthy seconds, which appear to be suspended out of doors of time. This series puts much less emphasis at the result of the wager than at the depth of the instant skilled on the position of playing itself. The socialized area of the sport seems right here as a spot that in brief modifies the unusual dating to time.
When area comes into play
The issues of sale aren’t easy relays for the distribution of tickets or the Lotto community. They lend a hand to arrange the very stipulations of follow, putting play in acquainted and every so often fantasized puts, inside routines and commonplace associations, that advertise the upkeep of hope for vital acquire.
Additionally, their inclusion within the city area does no longer derive from the impartial common sense of proximity. Certainly, it’s actually a method orchestrated by way of the gaming operators, which is in line with focused on a phase of the inhabitants, shooting the glide of people and lengthening the collection of requests for the video games (promoting drive, boulevard visibility, and so on.). On this method, the gross sales issues serve as as everlasting exhibition surfaces for the sport.
The status quo of gaming areas in companies visited for more than one causes, the place (alcohol) intake, sociability and flow overlap, additionally encourages the follow of gaming and trivializes its use.
It’s exactly this arranged manufacturing of recreation visibility and availability that permits us to grasp the patience of retailers in a sector this is an increasing number of digitized.
