Banijay Group CEO: French government moved goalposts on “completely unfair” tax increases

Banijay Group CEO François Riahi has claimed France’s government changed the parameters of its proposed gambling tax increases in a way that will benefit state-owned FDJ United.

Riahi said the planned tax hikes will impact operators in France’s competitive, commercial online sports betting and poker markets, with FDJ’s monopoly on lottery and retail sports betting not effected to the same degree.

As part of France’s Social Security Financing Act for 2025, tax on online sports betting GGR is due to rise from 54.9% to 59.3%. However, for retail sports betting, there will only be a one percentage point rise to 42.1%.

The tax rate on poker stakes will also increase from 0.2% to 10%, while there will also be a 15% tax on advertising spend. 

Speaking during the Betclic parent company’s 2024 earnings call, Riahi slammed the uneven tax increases across different gaming verticals.  

He said: “We had conversations with the French government about the taxes. We were advocating for increasing taxes evenly on the different types of gaming and gambling, which has not been the case.  

“The parliament at that point in time agreed on increasing the taxes evenly, and then it was changed. We don’t really know why. 

“In this change, the increase for online sports betting is 4.4 [percentage] points, and for offline sports betting it’s one [percentage] point, so it doesn’t make sense – it’s completely unfair.” 

During Banijay Group’s full-year 2024 earnings report, the company’s guidance for 2025 forecast that the tax hikes result in an approximate €20m hit on group level adjusted EBITDA. 

Last month, FDJ United said it was anticipating a potential €90m impact from the tax increases across all of its operations.

Riahi added the operator is seeking legal means to combat the tax increases, going via Brussels and the European Union to “use all the legal levers we have”.  

He continued: “The level of French taxes is, by far, the highest in Europe, and clearly the increase is significant.  

“It will have an impact on the market and some operators are going to leave the market. We cannot predict that there will be no additional taxes but, as of today, it’s not been discussed.  

“On the other hand, the previous government opened discussions around online casino because today people are playing on illegal platforms. We’ll see if this discussion is reopened in 2025, and we hope it will be the case.” 

Banijay Gaming, the division that oversees Betclic and bet-at-home, reported revenue of €1.5bn (£1.3bn) for 2024, representing a 46.1% increase compared to 2023.  

Sports betting contributed €1.1bn of the revenue total, with casino revenue adding €213.3m, poker revenue €77.6m and €20.6m worth of horseracing revenue.