ANJ and French senators question FDJ United monopoly after Kindred deal
The monopoly status of France’s largest gambling operator, FDJ United, is facing scrutiny after senior figures warned in the Senate that its growing size, bolstered by the acquisition of European online giant Kindred, risks creating a “mastodon” too dominant to regulate.
During a hearing before the finance commission, Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, president of the national gambling regulator (ANJ), said the deal “accentuates a major difficulty we had already identified, namely the conflict of objectives inherent to FDJ United’s duality. On the one hand, the monopoly requires limiting the offer of games in order to better protect players… On the other, as a listed company, FDJ United logically pursues growth and profitability objectives in the service of its shareholders. The gap between the two logics is obvious and our role as regulator is to ensure they do not diverge excessively.”
She insisted the ANJ’s “tight control” over FDJ’s game plans was designed to keep growth “within the limits defined by the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, growth that does not explicitly encourage excessive gambling.”
Regulator warns of “risk of intensification” in gambling habits
A few weeks after the hearing, ANJ rejected a request by FDJ United to ramp up its 2025 promotional spending. In its 24 July 2025 ruling, the regulator said the company’s planned budget increase would return promotional spending to “a budget global similar (…) to that having given rise to the decision of 17 December 2024,” when the regulator had already ordered the company to cut back.
The regulator noted that FDJ United’s revised plan involved a “particularly marked” rise in financial incentives for both new customer acquisition and retention. These changes, the ANJ concluded, “present a risk of intensification of gambling practices which could encourage a shift towards excessive or pathological gambling, in particular among the most vulnerable people (notably 18-25 year olds and at-risk players).”
It also took issue with the company’s timing, stating that FDJ United “has already engaged, from January to May 2025, the increased investments now announced (…) without taking into account the two-month period that the Authority has to rule on the substantial modification.” Such action, the decision warned, “could be considered as a breach (…) likely to give rise to sanction proceedings.”
Falque-Pierrotin told senators that rising marketing budgets were a concern, particularly in a year without major sports events: “The 11% increase in marketing budgets in 2025 seems to confirm this trend, when no major sporting event is planned.”
Senators question monopoly power
Several senators voiced doubts about whether FDJ United’s privileged position was still in the public interest. Christine Lavarde warned that the Kindred deal meant “we are now faced with a single operator present both on the online gaming market and on the physical gaming market. In this context, to what extent do the advantages granted to FDJ United during its privatisation not constitute an obstacle to effective regulation? Do they not also risk compromising the objective of protecting players, especially the most fragile and vulnerable?”
Jean-Baptiste Blanc said the acquisition raised questions about “what type of regulation you recommend in order to secure players while ensuring that this development remains profitable for public finances.”
Others highlighted the impact on rival operators. Jean Pierre Vogel criticised “the aggressive commercial policy led by FDJ United” and described seeing “a huge poster informing customers of the arrival of FDJ United at the supermarket reception” in his small town, while the PMU, which funds France’s horse-racing industry, struggled to compete.
FDJ United defends its model
FDJ United’s chair and chief executive, Stéphane Pallez, rejected suggestions that the company’s growth was excessive or irresponsible. She told senators: “Since the privatisation in 2019, the company has recorded moderate but steady growth of around 5% per year, which has benefited all stakeholders.” However, she added, “The main beneficiary of this moderate growth remains the State itself, through taxation.”
Pallez said the company’s model was “based on growth combined with risk control, within the framework of an extensive policy, based on a large pool of players playing in a moderate and risk-free way.” In lotteries, she added, the rate of excessive gambling was “five to six times lower than that observed in other market segments, such as sports betting.”
She also stressed that “more than 66% of our business is lottery, almost 70% of it in the French market” and that Kindred “has always been very committed to reducing risks, particularly those most marked in online sports betting.”
Calls for tighter limits
While FDJ United defended its record, Falque-Pierrotin reminded lawmakers that public health data “are unequivocal, the number of problem gamblers is 1.1 million, of whom 360,000 are excessive gamblers. These excessive gamblers account for more than 20% of the sector’s turnover.”
She warned that the transformation of gambling into “a consumer product” through digitalisation, and FDJ United’s own plans to “assure the attractiveness of the lottery and sports betting offer through dynamic animation and particularly strong innovation,” required even greater vigilance.
A clash of priorities
The Senate session laid bare the tension between FDJ United’s commercial ambitions and the regulator’s public health mission. As Falque-Pierrotin put it, “It is not a question of prohibiting FDJ United’s growth but of ensuring that it falls within the limits of moderate growth that does not explicitly encourage excessive gambling.”
For critics, FDJ United’s expansion into online gaming and its marketing muscle risk tilting that balance. For the company, its track record and fiscal contribution prove the monopoly still works in the State’s interest.
