To coincide with the World Lottery Summit 2018 held in Buenos Aires, FDJ announces the creation of FDJ Gaming Solutions.
FDJ Gaming Solutions brings together the technological subsidiaries of the FDJ Group in France and the United Kingdom, and a 37% equity investment in BZP1. With the creation of this subsidiary, the technological assets developed for the FDJ Group will be harnessed in order to expand B2B sales of products and services worldwide.
This new stage in the expansion of FDJ's expertise on the international stage follows the launch of the FDJ Gaming Solutions brand two years ago. It aligns with the FDJ 2020 strategic plan, which has already achieved a number of results:
- after rolling out a sports betting service in Portugal in late 2015 for the Santa Casa de Misericórdia lottery and surpassing €500 million in player stakes in 2017, in early 2018 FDJ Gaming Solutions delivered a sports betting platform and management service to the Loterie Romande in Switzerland, whose sales have already more than doubled;
- partnering with IDEMIA, FDJ Gaming Solutions has also delivered its software solutions to supply some 25,000 point of sale terminals to Lotto Baden Würtenberg in Germany, Svenska Spel in Sweden, Loterie Romana in Romania, PMU in France, and the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation in Canada;
- The joint-venture "Lotteries Entertainment Innovation Alliance AS" (LEIA), which was created by FDJ with the Danish lottery Danske Lotteri Spil, the Norwegian lottery Norsk Tipping and the Finnish lottery Veikkaus with the aim of innovating in the digital lottery field, will utilise the interactive game distribution platform developed by FDJ Gaming Solutions;
- FDJ Gaming Solutions continues to support BZP in its business development.
Lottery games and sports betting2 account for 36% of the global gambling market3, and in 2017 they generated a gross gaming revenue4 of €116 billion out of a
worldwide total of €369 billion for gambling5. Gambling is on the rise in all the major geographic regions, with projected growth of 16% between 2018 and 2023.
FDJ, the second largest lottery operator in Europe and the fourth largest in the world, with €15.1 billion in player stakes in 20176, occupies a leading position in the
lottery sector. As Vice President of European Lotteries, Stéphane Pallez, Chairwoman and CEO, is a member of the Executive Committee of the World Lottery Association. The World Lottery Association includes 149 national lotteries that operate in 80 countries on every continent.
The creation of FDJ Gaming Solutions aligns with the FDJ 2020 strategic plan. This plan, which has been spearheaded for the past four years by Stéphane Pallez, is endowed with €500 million in investment, including €250 million to transform its technological platform, and it aims to make digital technology and innovation central to the company's growth in order to respond to customers' new digital user habits and attract new generations of adults. This plan enables major advances when it comes to products and services that may be shared on the global B2B market.
About FDJ
La Française des Jeux (FDJ) is the world's fourth largest lottery, with sales of €15.1 billion in 2017. It offers its 26.1 million customers and the general public a fun, responsible and secure range of lottery games and sports betting. The Group, together with its subsidiaries (FDJ Réseau, LVS, etc.) has over 2,180 employees, a network of 30,800 local points of sale and a multimedia channel that attracts 1.8 million customers. In 2017, FDJ redistributed 95% of its player stakes; €10 billion paid to its customers, €3.3 billion to the community (including €230 million to 'sport for all'), and €755 million to retailers.
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1 Chinese joint venture that prints scratch tickets set up with the China Welfare Lottery in the late 1990s.
2 Scope of games operated by FDJ in France
3 Study by H2Gambling Capital
4 GGR = Difference between player stakes and player wins
5 Lottery games, sports betting, horse betting, casinos, video lottery terminals, etc.
6 GGR of €10.2 billion in 2017
