FDJ United has confirmed that it will continue to operate its Unibet brand in the UK market, despite facing challenges such as rising taxes and a decline in betting revenues during the first quarter. Pascal Chaffard, the new gaming and betting chief, shared this insight following the company’s earnings report, which revealed a significant 24.1% drop in Kindred UK’s gross gaming revenue (GGR). The situation has been compounded by a steep increase in remote gaming duty from 21% to 40% of GGR, implemented in April. The company also encountered difficulties in the Netherlands due to recent tax increases.
Overall, FDJ's group GGR for the first quarter showed a slight increase of 1%, reaching €2.175 billion, while revenue fell by 3% to €895 million. Notably, online betting and gaming, encompassing its Kindred operations, reported declines of 1% in GGR and 8% in revenue. When accounting for the performance of the UK and Netherlands, online betting and gaming GGR actually increased by 6%, although revenue saw a marginal decrease of 1%.
Chaffard, who has moved from CFO to leading a strategic shift for FDJ’s online betting and gaming, addressed the possibility of withdrawing from the UK market during the earnings call. He expressed confidence in retaining a presence, stating, "Our market share in the UK is in the region of low single digit. The situation in the UK is that we are profitable. So we don’t have any intention to withdraw from the UK. I think it’s not the point. The point is that we have some problems to solve."
He acknowledged the need to balance compliance with growth and indicated that competitors have managed to do so. To improve its UK results, Chaffard highlighted the importance of enhancing collaboration across various departments within FDJ, which he noted had previously worked in silos. During the earnings report, he outlined plans to create targeted task forces in the UK and Netherlands to foster better teamwork.
Chaffard explained that initiatives across marketing, product development, responsible gaming, and anti-money laundering had not been adequately integrated. He stated, "So it’s a question of [finding] ways of working. It’s a question also on how we dig in the different details with the data that is needed to really understand what are the right decisions to take and the right moves to make."
He emphasized the urgency of these changes, asserting, "The question is to do things right. We don’t think that it will need years to come to this situation because at the end, it’s not a very structurally deep problem. It’s more the way we are working, as I said, the way we are implementing our different measures. So for me, there is absolutely no question of getting out of the UK. The top priority is to fix this problem, and it’s more a question of some quarters, maybe not one quarter, [but] some quarters [more than] years to get there, frankly."
