FDJ UNITED: New name, new challenges
Growth clouded by tax hikes and regulation, Betclic anger, Entain, Netherlands &Co
Good morning, on Gaming&Co today:
FDJ present rebrand and results, G&Co report from Paris
Betclic enjoys record 2024 but ready to fight ‘unfair’ taxes
Entain interim CEO Stella David “focussed 100%” on recovery
Netherlands regulator analysis says match-fixing alerts doubled
News shorts: Gambling.com, YouTube updates gambling content policy
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CEO warns of challenges as FDJ talks up 2024 growth
Française des Jeux rebrands to FDJ UNITED; taxes and regulatory clampdowns cloud horizon
Reporting from Paris, France
United we stand: Française des Jeux unveiled its new corporate name FDJ UNITED on Thursday and congratulated itself on a strong 2024, but CEO Stéphane Pallez was clear about the impact the tax rises on online sports betting in France, and to a lesser extent in the Netherlands, would have on the group in the next two years.
€100m massive: Outlining FDJ’s outlook for 2025, Pallez told assembled journalists that the tax increases would lead to EBITDA losses of €90m in France and around €10m in the Dutch market, which she said were “absolutely massive”.
In that context, she said the group was being cautious in forecasting “stable” 2025 revenues of €3.8bn, that online betting and gaming would suffer “slight declines” and EBITDA margins would come in at 24% vs. nearly 26% this year. Still, the 2025 forecasts would represent a 26% rise on FY24’s €3bn revenues.
Future-proofing
100 club: To mitigate the tax hits, FDJ is planning €100m in savings and synergies by 2027. These will apply across IT, services, marketing and through projects like the integration and scaling up of Kindred’s internal sportsbook platform KSP across the whole of FDJ by 2027.
OSB under one brand: She also noted that FDJ’s ParionsSport betting brand will operate under the Unibet brand along the same timelines.
Dear prudence: Pallez added that the group was being “prudent with regard to the consequences of hardening regulations in the Netherlands and the UK” and, with FDJ still adapting to these new environments, “this could translate into lower shares” of market.
Nearly forgot: France's 2025 Budget contains an “exceptional tax” on the profits of companies generating over €1bn in revenue, which will cost FDJ an extra €25m.
New beginnings: Moving back to the new FDJ UNITED corporate identity, Pallez said the name embodied the pan-European and diversified nature of the group’s expanded activities and that it “builds on our historic roots, but reflects the international nature of the group”.
Results analysis
20/20 vision: The Kindred acquisition has enabled FDJ to reach the 20% market share in France and one of its slides showed that France, the Netherlands and the UK each generated roughly 20% of the group’s revenues in 2024.
By the numbers: Revenues increased 10% YoY to €3bn in 2024, recurring EBITDA was up 21% to €792m and EBITDA margins were a shade under 26%. The group produced an EBITDA cash conversion rate of 85% and in the long term will aim for 80%+. Its debt levels stand at €1.8bn, at 1.8x its EBITDA ratio it said it was well within its 2x target.
No contest #2: Pallez said the group will not contest the record €800,000 fine handed to Unibet by ANJ and that the failures happened before FDJ’s takeover of Kindred.
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Betclic enjoys record 2024 but fumes over tax hikes
French market leader to call on EU to address what it considers as state aid to FDJ
France’s on-offline gap: The CEO of Betclic’s parent company Banijay François Riahi said France's tax hikes on online gambling were “painful”, but also “anti-competitive” and the group will contact the relevant authorities to outline their opposition to the measures. Riahi added that they were also “creating a tax regime with a huge gap between offline and online companies” and, referring to FDJ UNITED, that “nothing justifies a gap which is only benefiting one company where the French state is a shareholder”.
Falling away: However, Riahi noted that “the tax increase will be partly mitigated by the fact that it reduces the competitiveness of the market” as smaller operators are forced to reduce marketing, but larger groups like Betclic can carry on and increase market share in the process.
Betclic said France’s tax increases will lead to a 20% drop in its EBITDA in 2025 and Riahi added that the group had advocated “for increasing taxes evenly” on the different verticals.
Unfair and senseless: After first agreeing to such a move, the French government changed tack, “we don't know why”, he said. The tax increase for OSB “is +4.4 points and for offline sports betting it's one point. So it doesn't make sense. It's completely unfair and for us, it's state aid to a partly state-owned monopoly, and so we are going to go to Brussels and use all legal levers we can” to address the issue.
He said he had no visibility on whether the government would assess online casino regulation and that while it had other pressing priorities, he was hopeful the study would be “reopened by the new government”.
Betclic’s strong numbers
Another great year: Riahi said Banijay Gaming had enjoyed an “outstanding year, once again” with unique active players, “the most important metric”, up 37% YoY. Riahi noted that UAPs had doubled over the past three years at 1.9 million per month. Euro 2024 and the Olympic Games helped drive volumes, and the new Champions League format was very popular with players.
Betclic enjoyed 45.4% YoY growth in OSB and gaming revenue to €1.4bn in 2024 and adj. EBITDA up 51% to €380m, with Q4 in particular showing “outstanding performance” at +49.3% and share gains across all products and geographies.
The Betclic app was the number 2 downloaded in France after DeepSeek and was ahead of ChatGPT in 2024. The group also launched its in-house poker platform in December.
Banijay said it was the “number one TV producer in the world” as group revenue rose 11% (at CC) to €4.8bn and adj. EBITDA increased nearly 22% to €900m in 2024.
Entain interim CEO in for the long haul
Stella David says she is “focussed 100%” on recovery
Surprised CEO MkII: Entain interim CEO Stella David admitted she was surprised to be on stage announcing FY2024 results following the surprise departure of Gavin Isaacs last month, but delighted to announce the company is “rebuilding momentum” after two years of decline.
Continuity stakes: “I’m here as long as it takes,” she said of the search for a new CEO. “If it takes a short time, that’s fine. If it takes a long time, that’s fine too. The key thing is to have continuity in the business and ensure we are building on the momentum that we currently have.”
“I want to reassure you that I’m focussed 100% on the operational performance of the business,” she said. “The strategy and the goals have not changed and it is working.” David added that there was “no magic wand or silver bullet” but “plenty of hard work left to do”.
Brilliant Brazil: Group NGR grew 7% to £5.1bn in 2024 with underlying EBITDA up 8% to £1.1bn as Entain recorded growth in all markets except the Netherlands (-13%) and Belgium. The low countries accounted for 5% of total revenue.
Brazil showed the strongest growth with NGR up 41% across the year, growing from +9% in Q1 to +65% in Q4. The momentum was attributed to a refreshed brand, refined customer acquisition channels, improved payment processing and a smooth transition to regulation where Entain can now boast a permanent operating licence.
UK turnaround: David continually referred to “momentum” with the UK displaying a similar pattern of “accelerating recovery”. NGR was flat across the year but a -8% drop in H1 bounced back to +14% in H2. UK Online has absorbed a number of regulatory changes and Q4 NGR was up 21% in Entain’s ‘home market’.
Angstromise this: David hailed the impact of Angstrom, the data analytics firm acquired in 2023, in the US. With the top six American sports all now “Angstromised” and in-play single-game parlays due for “Angstromisation”, Entain forecast FY revenues of $2.4bn-$2.5bn and positive EBITDA for BetMGM in 2025.
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Match-fixing alerts doubled, says Dutch regulator
KSA report reveals reports went up to 13 last year from six in 2023
Unlucky 13: The number of reports of possible match-fixing by licence holders decreased significantly in 2023 but increased in 2024, according to the Trend Analysis Match-Fixing 2024 Report of the Netherlands Gambling Authority (KSA). There were 13 reports from licence holders in 2024, compared to six in 2023.
Alert explanation: The reports revealed striking betting patterns and major changes in odds from eight different licensees. Efforts to raise awareness of reporting obligations were possible explanations for the rise in alerts, said KSA.
Eternal failure: The regulator has fined Sarah Eternal SRL €900,000 for illegally offering online gambling to Dutch players via its Casino Sky website.
It also found serious breaches, including no age verification and cryptocurrency gambling leading to a higher fine than the standard €600,000. Sarah Eternal had previously been fined €280,000 in March 2024.
Auto-ban: The KSA also addressed an unnamed operator on its use of gaming software with an option for autoplay, which is prohibited in the country and has notified “all providers to draw attention to the ban on autoplay”.
News shorts
Gambling.com Group has extended its available credit facility from $100m to $165m with Wells Fargo Bank. The new arrangement provides the company with access to funding via $90m revolving credit tranche combined with $75m loan facility that raises the uncommitted incremental facilities cap from $10m to $50m.
YouTube is set to ban links and logos promoting unregulated gambling websites as part of an update to its iGaming content policies. The group said the move was aimed at protecting younger viewers and the changes will come into force on 19 March. All urls, embedded text, image links, visual and verbal references to real money gambling websites will be banned and YouTube will also be placing age restrictions on iCasino content.
Calendar
Results: 19 Mar: OPAP, 20 Mar: Gambling.com
Events: 12-13 Mar: NEXT NYC 2025, New York, USA 19-20 Mar : SAGSE Latam, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 7-10 Apr: SIGMA Americas-BIS, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 13-15 May: SBC Summit Americas, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, US
Contact
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