Banijay's Big Bet: The JOA Acquisition and Its Market Impact | Ep. 812
In this episode, industry experts analyse the recent acquisition of French casino operator JOA by Banijay Entertainment, exploring its implications for the European gambling market, regulatory landscape, and industry consolidation trends.
Key Topics
- Banijay Entertainment's acquisition of JOA
- Impact on French land-based casinos
- Regulatory considerations in France
- Industry consolidation trends in Europe
- Online vs land-based casino strategies
- Branding and IP in gambling industry
- European market expansion strategies
Host: Fernando Noodt
Guests: Ted Menmuir & Jake Pollard
Producer: Anaya McDonald
Editor: Anaya McDonald
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Fernando Noodt (00:02.102) In another power play in Europe's gambling sector, Banny J Entertainment has announced the acquisition of French casino operator Group JOA.
The deal adds JOA's 33 land-based casinos to Banny J Gaming's growing portfolio, which already includes Beitclick and German market leader typico, further strengthening its position as one of Europe's largest gambling groups. The acquisition underlines Banny J Gaming's financial game power, but what does it mean for the future of the French gambling market and the change in balance of power among Europe's listed gambling giants? Welcome to
iGaming daily brought to you by Optimove, the creator of positionless marketing and number one player engagement solution for iGaming and Sports Betting Operators. I'm Fernando Nott, media manager for SBC and your host for today. where I'm joined again by the great, as it's labeled on his on his little screen. Editor at large, Ted Memier. Ted, how are you today?
Ted M (01:19.549) Very well Fernando, little bird told me you broke your voice over the Argentina win.
Fernando Noodt (01:26.508) Yeah, yeah, I think the the the recording of this podcast is has is bad timing for this. since less than twenty-four hours after the the comeback led by by the great Lionel Messi. but we are here to discuss France and not precisely France winning the World Cup, which is what will happen eventually. for that matter, we're joined by Jake Pollard, French specialist and longtime SBC contributor.
Ted M (01:31.945) Click!
Fernando Noodt (01:55.241) And editor of the gaming and co newsletter, Jake, how are you today?
Jake Pollard (01:59.448) Very good. Thanks for having me on,
Fernando Noodt (02:03.276) Yeah, thanks for joining us.
Jake Pollard (02:06.042) I was just going to say, yeah, I I was going to ask, I was going to ask, what do you think of the refereeing though in the, in the, in the lead up to the disallowed goal for you? We'll talk about it. We'll talk about it offline. We'll talk about it offline.
Fernando Noodt (02:07.522) You want me to add go ahead.
Fernando Noodt (02:14.927) we're going there.
We're going down that ro down road okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we'll talk about it offline because we all know that was a foul and the the goal was correctly this loud. But we're going straight to France Jake first. So how has this deal, this Banny J JOA deal, how has it been received by industry observers and of course Banny J's competitors.
Ted M (02:20.009) Hi.
Jake Pollard (02:37.964) Hmm? Yeah.
Sure, of course, of course. mean, major deal, major deal, have to say. Somewhat surprising. I think if you put, you know, on a bingo card what kind of &A deals, you know, Banijay, the next &A deal Banijay would do. I don't think many people would have had Joie, or JOA or Joie Groupe, among the three biggest casino operators in the country. I don't think many people would have expected it.
So, you know, what's the word, ballsy to use a World Cup, you know, to keep in keeping with the football references. So, yeah, so big deal. But interestingly as well, very little on the record comment. People are really, you know, just waiting to see how it plays out, which, you know, is understandable in a way because.
One, it's not been completed. think as you guys reported, it's going to be an H2H3, Q2Q3 maybe. And also we'll find out exactly how much Banijay are going to pay for it. I mean, it's hard to quantify. Some people are talking around the 800, 900 million euro mark. We'll see. Let's see. But you know, strong company. Laurent Lassier is the CEO. Joa Groupe has done a very good job. They're profitable.
Ted M (03:36.574) Yeah.
Jake Pollard (04:02.076) 430 million in revenues over the past 12 months. So we'll have to see what the margins are, the EBITDA is, and then we can work out what kind of multiple PAN and GE are paying. But yeah, interesting deal. And really all eyes on how this impacts, of course, the key question as well around online casino regulation.
Ted M (04:27.721) Mm-hmm Jake just quickly. I mean France is Notoriously got a tight market very kind of scrutinized So is there any concerns on kind of any kind of regulatory intervention on banjay who owned bet click? Merging with joa. Do you think there's gonna be kind of any concessions there?
Jake Pollard (04:49.398) It'll be a really interesting one. I mean, if you look at the pure facts of the deal, you would think not because BetClick is online, doesn't do any casino.
Luchoire is purely land-based casino, doesn't even do any poker to speak of, even physical poker. So, you know, which is one of the online verticals that is allowed in France with sports betting. in theory, you know, my instinct would be to say no. Having said that, you know, who knows, who knows? But no, I would venture not. Yeah, it'd be interesting to see. And, you know, if there were objections on that front,
You can imagine Bani J would turn around amongst say, whether it's PMU or FDJ as land-based and online operators with a land-based monopoly, with a de facto monopoly, whereas the casinos are actually a competitive market. All kinds of arguments could break out, you'd imagine.
Ted M (05:51.849) Mm-hmm.
Fernando Noodt (05:54.219) And of course, this is iGaming Daily, so we always talk about iGaming as and of course the online gaming industry has been the the main discussion point for the industry over the last few years, I would say even the last decade. But Benij is actually adding Joa's portfolio of thirty three casinos, so is this acquisition a wake up call for France land based gambling sector?
Jake Pollard (05:58.329) Mm.
Jake Pollard (06:21.082) It's an interesting question because you would imagine, know, just to give a bit of context, it's important to understand in France that obviously casino operations are very, what's word?
anchored in the territories, in the communes, in the regions are a massive driver of tax revenues for all the towns they are in, which by law they have to be in either tourist, thermal, spa resorts, which is how they get the authorisation to open casinos. It's called a public service delegation, obviously casinos are not public service, but it comes from the local authorities saying yes, a casino is justified.
here and also with the casinos and as as as has been mentioned in in the press release have you know a lot of activities in terms of restaurants and cultural events which is part of their derogation they have to provide those to the public so they have really important anchorage in the regions and the local territories so that's really important to see it in that way one would imagine that the other two or three other major groups which are Barrière, Partouches and Tranchons
will have been notified of this deal. They would have known of it. But still, the fact that one of their peers in terms of size and in terms of revenues and in terms of heft is being taken over by the online market leader is, you know, it is a kind of it's big news. Yeah, there's no without question those groups will have gone.
Wow, you it's, it's, you know, and it's, can nearly, nearly, if you're being a bit kind of cheeky, you could even say it's kind of role reversal because 15 years ago, 20 years ago, you would have expected maybe the opposite, you know, a land based giant taking over an online company. And now it's, know, it's kind of role reversal.
Ted M (08:14.408) Thank you.
Jake Pollard (08:18.938) Whether it's a wake-up call for the Lambay's, probably not because they're doing well. Partouches are doing well, barrières are developing nicely, developing properties.
I'm not, I don't have that much visibility on unfortunately. But you know, I don't think it's a huge wake-up call more in the sense what I think what's going to really impact relationships between the Casino de France syndicate, which is those guys, the big, big players, the union for the big casino groups and the online operators is how it impacts the push for online casino regulation. Because without doubt, you know,
casino de France have huge lobbying power. We saw a couple of years ago they stopped the kind putative online casino regulation project put in by Barnier, Michel Barnier, in its tracks, dead in its tracks within what, a few weeks. It was announced in October, by November, December it was effectively over. And that's because they have the political heft, they have the MPs, they have the mayors, they provide tax revenues. So it's going to be really interesting to see what its position is.
is in terms of whether it really pushes for regulation of the online casino vertical.
Ted M (09:39.465) I want to get kind of Banjai's eyes on this. And one of the things, look, when we do kind of an EMA, we talk about the synergies. But is there actually any synergies between Beckley and Zhoa? Do they actually have to come into play or do you just leave this as kind of like these are my municipal casinos, just let them be?
Jake Pollard (09:46.842) Mmm.
Jake Pollard (09:59.482) No, I assume it's very good on point. I mean, talking about synergies, I'm like, you know, no, it's really, I mean, it's what firstly, you know, there are very different verticals, you know, okay, they've got a bit, they can add some AI, bit of tech and so on, but there's no synergies in terms of, can't put a sports book in there, I like what they do in the US. You know, you can't, it's offline.
Ted M (10:07.658) You
Ted M (10:14.024) You
Ted M (10:21.01) Yeah.
Ted M (10:24.86) But are they gonna then become like Beckley Casino or Beckley On Jure or?
Jake Pollard (10:32.589) Maybe, that would be interesting in terms of branding. It'd be really interesting. Again, your instinct of very early days would be to say unlikely. I think more interestingly, and again, reverting to what is allowed online.
That is poker. Poker is one of the verticals that is online. So I imagine we'll see lots more BetClip poker events, you know, in Shoah casinos might go towards rivaling some of the, you know, I don't know.
see I don't know if the EPT still exists I don't think so but some of the some of the other poker events that are running in some of the French casinos notably run by Winamax obviously which is still a strong poker operator in the space. No yeah I can't really see I can't really see in terms of Singes I don't really know what they are or unless I've obviously missed something but I think you know online in online poker Becklick is one of the leaders and I imagine it's going to try and
roll out that poker branding and you know
was a rollout of poker branding across the Joie estate. And yeah, and I think it should work. They've shown that they've been able to online. They've done a very good job since they brought the platform back in-house. They've got the tech, they own all the database, they own all the marketing tools. They have all the tools at their disposal that they can apply to some of the offline land-based environments. And I imagine promote their bait click poker branding.
Jake Pollard (12:08.488) through a number of events, land-based events, which will make them even stronger in their home market.
Fernando Noodt (12:18.21) Before we go into the break, Jake, which French competitors are most exposed to this acquisition and should they be concerned about about about this deal?
Jake Pollard (12:30.562) It's a good question again. mean, I feel like I'm saying I don't know quite a lot, but it's it's very early days. don't think, I don't think, I can't see, you know, I can't see the landscape changing significantly in terms of market share, in terms of, of suddenly, I don't know, Joie becoming the leading casino group in France above, say, Barrière and Partouche. I think...
the situation in terms of size revenues will stay roughly similar. But I think more it may be more of a long term slightly slower.
play in terms of how it develops and I think it's very early to know for sure how that will be. But again I would say really it's you have to look at this in the sense of online casino regulation, the position it gives Becklich and via Becklich-Avgel the online operators association in France, the position it gives them within the syndicate Casino de France
And it's a major, major play in that sense in terms of, again, as I say, online casino regulation. And I think also another one that we haven't mentioned so far, another player who will be looking at this with really close attention will be FDJ United. You know, they are the other party within the online casino regulation that...
you know, that has a massive input in terms of the government, terms of ministers, terms of revenues. You know, if you think about just in terms of breakdowns, the lottery revenues of FTJ are nearly 50 % of the whole of the gambling GGR for the country.
Jake Pollard (14:17.018) So it's pretty humongous. they obviously have a lot of input in that regard. And with online casino regulation, they also have their own products, which effectively are de facto casino products on a monopoly basis online in the country. So how do you square all those elements and that equation in terms of coming up with a scenario where all these parties are?
happy with the outcome. It'll be fascinating to, it really will be interesting to watch because FTJ on one side, BetClick already a powerful operator online is now amongst the top three land-based casino groups as well as being the top online group. Do you see what I mean? So it's, it'd be really interesting to see how that develops.
Fernando Noodt (15:06.606) We'll have to hashtag wait and see how this deal impacts the French land-based industry. but right now we're gonna do a very quick outbreak and we will be right back with more iGaming Daily to continue discussing JOS should I say acquisition.
AD BREAK
Fernando Noodt (16:00.938) And we're back with more iGaming Daily to continue discussing a very big deal in the French land based casino segments together with Jake Pollard. So Jake, the Joas acquisition follows Banny J Gaming's purchase of Typico. We mentioned that in the first half of the episode. So what do these deals tell us about Banny Jay's ambitions in the European gambling market in general?
Jake Pollard (16:27.182) Yeah, I mean, it's really interesting. mean, think a couple of points to make into it.
in terms of looking at Europe and the deals they've done. Firstly, the size of them, the scale. I mean, there's no question that they're going for big players. So, Tipico in Germany and now Joa Group. And Joa Group may be even more momentous, if I could use that word, than Tipico because a different vertical. For the first time, we're seeing a pure online player acquire a major, land-based casino group in the biggest European market, actually.
Ted M (16:40.295) Mm-hmm.
Ted M (16:55.431) Sure.
Jake Pollard (17:03.772) I mean, France, if I'm not mistaken, has the most number of Lambakes because he knows in Europe, 200 or so. So that's quite interesting. If I could use a comparator, could maybe say, I don't know, imagine a draft in DraftKings taking over, I don't know, Caesars, MGM, you know, to put it in, I mean, kind of totally different scales, but you know.
Ted M (17:23.466) Nugget, yeah.
Fernando Noodt (17:24.632) Mm-hmm.
Jake Pollard (17:24.642) Yeah, exactly. So there's that. think also the markets that that Betclick have been successful in is really interesting because if you look at their two biggest markets now with Tipico are Germany and France, which are both highly taxed, quite restrictive. France doesn't have online casino, but Banijay and also not forgetting Poland, obviously, but Banijay have been highly successful in really, you know,
growing markets that in theory, you know, lot of operators look at and go, wow, we're not going there because the taxes are too high. The charges are this, you know, that it's really restrictive. You can't promote such products and you can't market and you can't do online casino in France. So so I think that's interesting. What does it mean for the broader European markets? That's an interesting one. Where would their next, you know, where would their next target be? Could it be Spain, which has a maybe slightly more permissive?
environment than France or Germany, I doubt it would be the UK. But you know, it'd be really interesting to see where they go after this, because you know, they've got France, Germany, Poland, which is also a big market. And of course, the number two just behind Betano in Portugal. So yeah, mean, Italy maybe, but Italy is a tough one, know, Tad has written extensively about. But yeah, I mean, I think the fact that they've got this big casino
basically casino group is makes them you know quite an unusual operator in the space. Rivaling certainly, rivaling some of the lottery moves you know such as all wins and stuff like that which have been you know really expansive in recent years.
Fernando Noodt (19:14.936) Ted I felt I felt like you wanted to to add something to the to what Jake said.
Ted M (19:18.998) No, think look look Banjo Entertainment definitely got real shake up to the PLC ranks.
And I think you just have to look at how this company is, what's it made out of. And it's not just your standard gambling, you know, online and retail. It's a production company. It has a lot of IP, a lot of, you know, production there, production value. And it's definitely, I think that at the top ranks, it kind of views how to leverage kind of IP from entertainment towards iGaming, towards gambling. And...
One card that these guys are holding, and I think it's like when the laws change, should they change in Germany, France or Poland, I think these guys can actually get to market.
very strong propositions coming in from the production from the kind of TV IP, entertainment IPs. And that's going to be an interesting play for European gambling to have that kind of powerhouse that is not just solely fixated on gambling alone. So it's definitely one to watch.
Jake Pollard (20:25.594) Yeah, I totally agree with that.
Fernando Noodt (20:29.014) Until yeah, go ahead.
Jake Pollard (20:31.674) So sorry, I was just going to say, mean, 100 % on that front. when you look at some of the media brands, Baning J Entertainment has, know, talking Peaky Blinders and huge, huge franchises. You know, as we've seen in the past when Marvel and stuff like that used to release slots and stuff like that, why would it not do the same thing? It makes total sense. And people would be, it would be instantly recognizable across the markets at TED as mentioned, Germany, France, Poland, et cetera.
Ted M (20:42.927) Yeah.
Jake Pollard (21:01.628) and should give them huge brand recognition and awareness.
Fernando Noodt (21:08.982) And we're running out of time here, so I'm gonna rush things up a little bit. We've seen wave of deal making changes, a wave of deal making sorry, during the first half of of the year with Ballis acquiring Intralot, Alwyn's expansion, Antane selling its Central and Eastern European assets now, Banny J's acquisition of Jaws. So Ted, how do you interpret these developments? What do they tell us about the changing order?
among Europe's listed gambling companies, and do you think this new generation of gambling PLCs will continue to grow through MA?
Ted M (21:47.111) I'll let Jake have the last word because think his coverage of European gaming has been excellent. But from my kind of perspective, it's that, you know, this industry has grown side by side by M &A. It never goes away.
Fernando Noodt (21:51.372) Mm-hmm.
Ted M (22:01.51) But I think now it's kind of this is reacting to kind of the elements that are facing leadership. And it's, know, yes, you have to scale. You have to deliver, you know, relentless growth, right? But how are you going to do that in markets that margins are tightening, cost controls are growing? And I think that that M &A and that PLC picture is turning towards that. You know, we talked about evoking balees. That was very much an M &A of survival. I think this is an M &A that says
distinction for Banshee that says we want to play in land-based casino, we want to play in iGaming and we are a company of scale and we're a company of options. The makeup of the top table is changing and I think it's going to be completely different in three years time. I think that's also kind of in a geographic level of where you're based and how you're tackling markets and actually...
It really comes down to how good you are on those controls and especially on those, you know, keeping those margins in. It's brutal out there, Jake.
Jake Pollard (23:08.282) 100 % agree. mean, you know, one, guess &A has always been part of the industry of our industry. It's how companies have grown historically, many of them. Like Ted says, it's all to do with execution, management, cost controls, implementation and...
If you have the leadership team that is able to instill within their teams the practices and the processes that enable the growth to continue, then it's all good. Obviously, do you become too top heavy? Do you take on too much debt? Can you deal with the regulations? I mean, we're seeing in Europe, whether it's in the Netherlands, whether it's in Belgium, whether it's in the UK, recently, those are things that everyone has to contend with. But yeah, it's part of the evolving face of our industry.
and you know I mean long may it continue so to speak but because it gives us something to talk about but it's yeah I think that's the new yeah I mean definitely Bani J slash Bet Clique in terms of you know gambling online and offline is definitely one of the power players now and for the next few years to come undoubtedly.
Ted M (24:04.611) Hahaha
Fernando Noodt (24:20.686) We'll definitely be looking out for what happens in Europe and especially with Bany Jay, which is now apparently the gambling PLC to watch in Europe. that's one topic we we had left. But no time here on iGaming Daily. Thank you very much, Jake Pollard, longtime SBC contributor and editor of the Gaming and Co. newsletter. Thank you very much also Ted Memir and of course Ania McDonald for producing this episode. I'm Fernando Nott and to our listeners out there, we'll see you in the next one.
Goodbye.