Groupe Française des Jeux (Groupe FDJ) has launched a multi-year action plan to offset French gambling taxes, which are slated to take effect on July 1, 2025.
At the end of 2024, French Senators accepted a new gambling framework proposed in former Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s 2025 budget.
Tax increases on all French betting and gaming activities were passed as part of the government’s Social Security Funding Act, with initiatives targeted at collecting an additional €500 million from French gambling businesses.
Lottery GGR (online and retail) will be taxed at 7.2%, up from the current rate of 6.2%, retail sports bets at 10% (from 7%), and online sports bets at 15% (from 10.5%).
Online poker stakes will also be subject to new taxes, including a 10% GGR tax. Additionally, the framework recommends a 15% tax on casino companies’ advertising expenditures.
As the operator of France’s national lottery and retail betting network, the FDJ sees itself as having the most exposure to the new tax system.
The gambling company registered on Paris’s Euronext “estimates that the increase in betting and gaming levies, effective from 1 July 2025, will reduce its revenue and recurring EBITDA by approximately €45 million in financial year 2025, with a full-year impact of nearly €90 million.”
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To respond to France’s new tax system, the FDJ will execute a multi-year strategy targeted at absorbing tax rises by 2027, requiring auditing to be changed beginning in 2025.
FDJ maintains its 2024 target, having merged the Kindred Group’s business on October 11. The M&A transaction resulted in a larger FDJ, with total revenues of €3.07 billion (+17%). Excluding Kindred, revenue increased 10%.
In FY2024 trading, the Group earned recurring EBITDA of €792 million, up 21%, with a margin of 25.8 percent.
“On a pro forma basis, assuming Kindred had been acquired on 1 January 2024 and based on the scope of business actually retained by FDJ, Group revenue would amount to nearly €3.8 billion, with a current EBITDA margin of around 25.5%.”
The FDJ completed their statement with a summary of the 2025 tax rises on French gambling GGR per section, “Total Stakes – Player Winnings”. In 2024, gaming revenue in France exceeded €2.6 billion, after public levies of more than €4.4 billion.
The FDJ predicts that each 1-point rise in lottery taxes affects lottery revenue by about 2%. Tax rises have no effect on stakeholder returns, but recurring EBITDA reflects the full impact of lower revenues.
On March 6, FDJ will publish its FY2024 accounts and FY2025 forecasts, marking the first release that combines Kindred Group results.
Incorporating Kindred Group assets increases FDJ’s tax exposure in Sweden, which introduced a new 22% income tax rate on gaming enterprises in July 2024.
Kindred Group delisted from the Nasdaq Stockholm Exchange on November 11, 2024. Kindred published its final reports, citing confidence in attaining an EBITDA of £196m, up 33%, with profit before tax at £107m, hit by strategic review expenditures of £34 million.
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