Case Study: Paris Mutuel Urbain achieves real-time, high-volume betting reliability and successful mainframe modernization with TIBCO Software

PMU Bets and Wins on TIBCO Mainframe Modernization

Paris Mutuel Urbain (PMU), Europe’s leading horse-racing operator and the third‑largest pari‑mutuel company worldwide, faced a critical mainframe modernization challenge: reappropriate its information system to support new betting services (sports, poker, mobile, POS) while guaranteeing continuous, time‑sensitive operations. The platform had to handle extreme peak loads — about 1,800 transactions/second, 200,000 bets per hour and 30,000 account movements — where outages of minutes could cost millions of euros.

PMU implemented TIBCO ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks and Enterprise Message Service, gradually extracting functions from the mainframe, orchestrating bets and odds distribution, and integrating 20,000 point‑of‑sale devices. A controlled double run using TIBCO BusinessEvents and Spotfire caught subtle bugs, ensured reliable recording of bets and revenue, improved quality control and operational visibility, and completed a secure migration that both sustained daily volumes (≈€25M/day) and strengthened the team’s mastery of its IT systems.

Paris Mutuel Urbain

Paul Cohen Scali

CIO and COO