11 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025 Do your retailers see online playership as a threat to their business? Stéphane Pallez: In this world, we do not believe in a separation between the online and offline worlds, but rather in the development and strengthening of omnichannel retailing. We are now working on a program that empowers our retailers to be an integral part of our customer acquisition programs. Retailers will invite players at points of sale to create accounts that allow them to play both offline and online. This is a new and ambitious long-term objective. One of our key performance indicators will no longer be just measuring the number of digital clients, but also the share of customers who are engaging with us both in-store and online. We are deepening our partnership with retailers; integrating them directly into our relationship with players is new territory. It will take time and adjustment to align expectations across players, retailers, and FDJ UNITED. But it is an exciting new chapter for the future. That’s remarkable. You’re empowering retailers with a big-picture understanding of the value of connecting with customers across every channel. Stéphane Pallez: Exactly. We have already established MOAs (Memorandums of Agreement) with retailers on this objective, and we have started to experiment with the process in points of sale. We want our retailers to be fully integrated and engaged in a holistic ecosystem. Of course, this will require ongoing dialogue to keep everyone aligned and confident in the value of these initiatives, including for responsible gaming. The competitive environment, consumer tastes, and all manner of external factors are shifting constantly. How do you adjust for that? Stéphane Pallez: It’s vital to combine short-, medium-, and long-term vision with the agility to seize opportunities as they arise. For example, we knew that to remain relevant in the global online market, we first had to be stronger in our domestic market. We therefore decided to become a full-fledged operator across all game verticals opened for competition in the French market. We launched online poker organically, and we seized the opportunity to acquire ZEturf, an online horse-race betting operator. These moves were consistent with our vision: to compete in online gaming, we needed to offer customers access to all segments, in a seamless, system-enabled way. That led us to the next step: the French market alone could not provide the scale necessary to be fully competitive in the European market, where large companies can achieve greater efficiencies by spreading fixed costs over higher revenues. Anticipating increased competition and the importance of scale, we expanded our focus beyond France. Stéphane Pallez was appointed Chairperson and CEO of La Française des Jeux (rebranded FDJ UNITED in Q1 2025) in November 2014. Her arrival marked the beginning of a transformation that continues at high speed today. Within six months, she secured unanimous FDJ Board approval for “FDJ 2020”, designed to accelerate digital transformation while driving ambitious revenue and profit growth. Mission accomplished— and just the beginning. In 2019, Mrs. Pallez oversaw FDJ’s privatization through an IPO (the State retains 20% equity). From 2019 to 2024, FDJ UNITED executed a strategy to expand digital and international operations while strengthening its traditional French retail network. FDJ UNITED expanded internationally, acquiring Premier Lotteries Ireland (PLI) in 2023 and completing a nearly €2.5bn acquisition of Kindred Group, a leading online betting and gaming operator, in late 2024. These moves extend FDJ UNITED’s strategies globally and confirm its position as a leading B2C operator. International revenue rose from 3% to 26% of total revenue, and digital sales grew from 5% to 35%. Over the same period, revenue climbed by 80% to €3.8bn, with average annual organic growth of over 5%, and net profit increased nearly 1.8x to €351m. Today, FDJ UNITED serves more than 33 million players with a diversified, responsible portfolio: lottery and sports betting offline in France, lottery in Ireland, and online gaming (sports betting, horse-race betting, poker, casinos) across key European markets. With operations in more than 10 regulated markets, international business now contributes roughly one-third of revenue and almost half of the workforce. Looking ahead, FDJ UNITED expects to add over one million new players in France by 2028, building on 27 million players in 2024. Growth will be driven by extending the POS network into large food retailers—potentially 20% of outlets by 2028, offsetting closures in the bar-tobacco-press network—and by continued expansion of online play, expected to represent 20% of lottery revenue by 2028. As far as online betting and gaming is concerned, the Group aims to be in the top 3 in most of its main European markets. Continued on page 12
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