The Authority’s approval will enable Betclic parent company Banijay Gaming to close its acquisition of JOA Group, which operates 33 resorts and is one of the country’s top three casino operators, in Q4.
Banijay announced its intention to acquire JOA in July and, with the deal set to close before the end of 2026, the Authority announced on Wednesday that it had “authorised the transaction unconditionally”.
In its decision, the Authority noted that while it had “previously reviewed mergers in the land-based casino and online gambling sectors”, the proposed acquisition is the first time it has analysed a transaction that creates a unique corporate entity in France, “an operator active in both these channels”.
The 33 casinos JOA operates are active exclusively in France, and its turnover is supplemented by restaurants, bars and hotels located within the casino resorts it runs under public service concessions. As a result, the Authority found there was no overlap between JOA and Banijay/Betclic’s activities.
Non to online casino… for the moment
However, it said it considered “whether online casino games should be taken into account when assessing conglomerate effects”, but that the legalisation of online casino in France currently was not “sufficiently plausible to warrant analysing the consequences of the transaction under such a scenario”.
The topic of online casino legalisation in France has been discussed extensively within the sector and amongst parliamentarians for several years, but the Authority said its remit did not include analysing “the effects of the transaction in the light of this possibility, given that, as at the date of this decision, such liberalisation remains merely a hypothesis and therefore does not constitute a sufficiently plausible scenario within the meaning of the Authority’s guidelines”.
Still, as reported when the Banijay-JOA news came out, it’s impossible to look at the transaction without theorising on the potential lobbying footprint it provides for Banijay and Betclic. By acquiring JOA, the group gains a seat at the table of the Casinos de France trade group, which has access to hundreds of mayors, MPs and regional representatives and whose members’ taxes fund big chunks of many communes’ and territories’ budgets up and down France.
Online Crossover
The authority noted that France’s online poker and land-based casino markets – in particular table games such as poker – could be regarded as related markets, due to the existence of a shared player base between online and land-based poker.
It also pointed out that there are trends towards a younger casino clientele in France that is contributing to “a certain convergence between online and land-based player demographics” and that, further to exchanges with France’s s gambling regulator, the Autorité Nationale des Jeux, “poker players were keen to switch between land-based casinos and online gaming, and vice versa”. This is evidenced by the number of poker tournaments held in French casinos and organised by online operators such as Winamax, Unibet, PokerStars or PMU Play.
Beyond the regulatory speculation, the Banijay-JOA deal is unique in that, for the first time, an online operator is taking ownership of one of France’s largest casino groups, giving it unique and complementary features that will enable it to implement its omnichannel strategy. Some commentators call it a ‘phygital’ roadmap that combines the best physical and digital attributes.
Whatever the term, it will be interesting to see whether other online actors, like Winamax, will seek to emulate Banijay’s strategy.
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