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A daily podcast delving into the biggest stories of the day throughout the sports betting and igaming sector.
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I wouldn't want to be in an Italian's shoes in June during the World Cup seeing nations with all due respect like Curaçao playing in the World Cup. To round off the week, the AI Gaming Daily Podcast takes a quick tour through developments in France and Italy. First up, Paris, where European giant FDJ United opens its 2026 accounts posting lackluster results as lottery performance remains flat and its expanded online unit shows little growth. We then head to Rome, where the Maloney government is on the clock to deliver long-awaited reforms to land-based gambling and present a new bill to overhaul the dignity decrease ban on gambling advertising. A lot going on in Europe. I'm Fernando Nod, Media Manager for SVC and your host for today's episode of iGamingDaily joined by greats Ted and Ted for a Ted and Ted talking time uh today on the podcast. Ted Ormecle, editor for SVC News and Ted Memmy, editor at large for SVC. Guys, how are you today? Let's start with Ted M. How's your day? Very well, Fernando. Looking forward to the Malta Summit next week where I will be the conference's busiest man. I hear you'll be cheering. So I those chairs look good for you. But Ted, I'll see how are you today? Pretty good. Thank you, Fernando. It's a nice day here. The sun is shining and... It's even brighter to now be back for some Ted and Ted time, as you say. Yeah, absolutely. And this Ted and Ted time and iGaming Daily is brought to you by Optimo, the creator of positional marketing and number one player engagement solution for iGaming and sports betting operators. Let's dive right in um because um we have a lot to cover and we will begin first in Paris with FTJ's poor Q1 results. All core metrics are down and full year guidance has been downgraded. So uh why do you think the giant is stumbling right now? I mean, I can come in here, I think uh a big... em a big talking point here and one I know we've done to death on the podcast but it needs to be raised is the European taxes. FDJ is obviously a French firm first and foremost. em It still is the operator of the French National Lottery. It also has a huge retail betting presence in France and an online presence and France has some pretty hefty taxes. There was a new regime implemented last year which put up very substantial levies on sports betting and lottery and there's also a smaller one on the poker as well I believe. So that's obviously going to be biting into their revenues there. On top of that two other core markets for them are the Netherlands and the UK to an extent due to their ownership of Unibet and 32 Red which they took over via the acquisition of Kindred a couple years ago. You know that That acquisition I guess probably made a lot of sense at the time for a company wanting to expand its footprint in online sports betting in particular, acquiring quite a proven and well-known brand like Unibet. But the timing of it has come along really, eh maybe not catastrophically, it's not been great for them, the timing of that coming along with the imposition of new European taxes and a general tightening of regulations across the continent. So they're just really feeling the squeeze from that, think. I don't know if Ted's got a different perspective on that. Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head. I mean, the other factor here is that, OK, think if we reverse back to 2025, that was kind of the year of the integration of Kindred. And then to come out the blocks and say, all metrics are down and we're revising guidance after Q1, it's not what they will really want to tell investors. Look, FDJ is still transitioning. I think as of March, it's French online unit becomes Unibet. So comes under the Unibet banners. We'll see. There is stuff kind of in the pipeline that they have. But again, it's that how much of its nature has FTJ changed since taking, since acquiring Kindred? How proficient is it online? We yet to see that. And again, just the exposure to these high tax markets, it's running on very kind of thin ice at the moment. And Ted, m of course, the reported tax bill for the first quarter for FDJ is 25 million euros, expected to rise to 90 million euros by the end of the year. So can you break down FDJ's tax liabilities and where the impacts actually are being felt most? OK, so again, as Ted said, France has implemented a new tax regime on gambling. throughout the spectrum moving everything up to kind of 50 % right at the same time as of April you're now seeing that 40 % RGD on the UK and it's had I think now kind of eight months of Dutch taxes at 38%. The first we kind of seen that you know the first kind of increased exposure is coming in at 25 million leadership believes that by the end of the year we will stand at 90 million plus. Now, just on those figures alone, that's a heck of an impact to take from the bottom line of any kind of PLC, right? What we're not kind of seeing in from FDJ's figures is that, okay, the stagnation in France, stagnation in the Netherlands, right? But where are its markets in which you can take kind of market share that it promised as this kind of bigger or enlarged enterprise? I think there's a lot of questions coming in from the investors of what are the growth seeds or the of growth narratives of FTJ as an enlarged enterprise. And you mentioned stagnation, so I'm going to switch things up a little bit here. And in previous years FTJ could rely on its French lottery performance, but that now seems to be stagnant. So how much of a concern is that for FTJ? That should be a pretty big concern for them really, given that it's been such a core product for some time. It's very central to the company's identity, an operating model as the operator of the year of the National Lottery in France basically. They did see a bit of an uptick in international lottery performance I think. um One of their biggest international assets was Premier Lotteries Ireland, which they took over a couple of years ago. That's the current license holder for the Irish National Lottery for uh a couple of years now. That division still saw some growth, but it's not enough to have really offset the dip we've seen for the French Lottery division, which they group in with their retail sports betting one, admittedly. But yeah, that is a bit of a concerning factor for them, really, to have such a core part of the business. not performing as you'd hope it would. Yeah, again, if I can interject, look, last year, FTJ said it's an air implementation and they, you the leadership also said we're kind of changing our DNA. One thing that they're very kind of aware of is how, you know, how dependent they are on French revenues, which, you know, compose about 65 % of corporate revenues are coming in from France, right? And they wanted to kind of diversify again. We're not seeing that kind of play out with the kind of new integrations of Kindred and as Ted said, the new kind of B2B uh lottery division. uh It has prospects, FDJ, it's just not delivering. And right now, uh moving on to the online front, on the online division of FDJ, we are already in year two of this Kindred's full integration. with FDJ. Have we seen any improvements on the online front for the company? It's still struggling. The results are still quite flat. mean, Kindred was already a struggling company, I think, at the time that FDJ took it over. It already hit a few stumbling blocks across Europe. And um maybe FDJ looked at it and thought, well, the company's up, it's interested in the sale. This is a good opportunity for us to take on, like I said earlier, two proven brands, two well-known brands. and inject new life into them, sort of bring in our own expertise, try and link the dots here between the different stuff. it's, you know, the process like you say Fernando, is still staggering along a little bit I think. Ted's totally right. just to add there, I think that, okay, post integration, this is really the, you know, how a new leadership team and... all these corporate changes get judged. It's on the performance of Kindred and also the online growth. I mean, of FTJ? Has it really turned the corner? Are we really looking at a new FTJ or is it still just very much a company reliant on French revenues? And before we wrap the FTJ story up, um let's look into the future. And of course, FTJ as a PLC is a... facing multiple headwinds in 2026. So what would count as a satisfactory year? Like a good year for the company in terms of its overall profile and standing with investors? ah Look, Kylons is going to be kind of notched down fine. I think that the investors, the long-term ones, ah they know what FTJ is like. And in terms of what a big corporation it is, its footholding in... in France but again it's returning back to what has the Kindred buy proved in the past two years and look how you just buying Kindred to have like a stagnant unit there with little growth no one wanted that that wasn't what was on the brochure so I think that the investors are going to really zone in on those Kindred units. Okay we'll still have to take either a quick short plane Maybe a quick short flight to Italy or a long train. Depending what part of France you're in I guess. Yeah I guess you're right. uh And we're part of Italy where you're going but we are going to Italy, probably Rome to discuss the new gambling overhaul but that's gonna be after this very quick commercial break so stay there we will be right back. Learn how OptiMove's positionless marketing is changing how iGaming teams operate. Discover how operators are using OptiMove's positionless marketing platform to launch personalized CRM campaigns, dynamically change casino lobbies and bet slips, and create engaging gamified experiences. Learn more at OptiMove.com. And we're back with more iGaming Daily to continue discussing the latest developments of the gaming industry in Europe, particularly in Italy. where there has been some interesting stories coming out of Rome, uh tell in Italy the Malani government has been put on the clock to publish and authorise its new gambling decree. So what's that about? So yes, pressure is mounting on the Malani generals of Mauricio Leo and Andrea Bolli to publish their respective decrees on Italian gambling. In the case of Leo it appears that He's nearly kind of at the finish line of a two or three year kind of negotiation with the Conference of Regions to finalize the new governance and license regime of Italian land-based gambling. ah know, deputies in chambers are aware of what changes the Maloney government wants on licensing, gaming machines and safer gambling. But the kind of point of contention and why this has taken two years is to just finalize the revenue and rewards model. that has to be agreed with Italy's 20 autonomous regions and that will be distributed to 110 municipalities. So as you can tell, that's kind of a very kind of burdensome process. And now kind of in the backdrop, what you'd also seen is that this year the Maloney government hasn't really been able to pay its full attention to land-based gambling as Georgia Maloney has campaigned for the Nordeo referendum to kind of overhaul Italy's constitutional orders. And now in the case of Abodi, this is very different. The repeal of the dignity decree has come from the shadows to the front of Italy's political debate. Because as you know, the Azuri has failed for the third time to reach the World Cup finals. And what we're looking at is kind of Italy's, I don't know, Italy's status now. It's in a kind of uh shock. And the public and media want answers. It's definitely a shocking story for the Italians and of course they are living it like that because I think they're calling it the third apocalypse or something like that. uh The first two are the other um failing to qualify. Of course everyone's always looking at sports and sponsorships and all that but... There's an update uh on the reorganisation decree for land-based gambling. So what's the update from Deputy Finance Minister Mauricio Leo? What has he said about it? So Leo, who's the Deputy Minister of the Economy and he's over kind of overlooked this project, He now believes that he's ready to kind of publish the decree to Council of Ministers in the next 10 days. But mind you, man, he said he would do this by April 10th, so he meet that deadline. So when he does, the ministers should kind of begin their review. However, the issue here lies with the Ministry of Finance that needs to kind of settle this year's budget by the 10th of August, eh or else the decree on land-based reorganization can't be added to the budget at 2026. Also in the backdrop is that Georgia Maloney needs kind of a swift sign off on this year's budget. So she needs her party kind of in line to get that process through because in 2027 it will be an election year. the Maloney government wants no hiccup on the budgets. And what about sports minister Andrea Abodi? Has there been any progress on repealing the 2018 Dignity Decree? So as mentioned, think the circumstances for Andrea Bodi and his negotiation are very different to the reorganisation decree. His mandate was given to him about eight months ago in which the Maloney government kind of viewed maybe a proposition to repeal the dignity decree. But since Italy's World Cup failure, that has come to the line, to the front of the line, especially as the the leaving bodies of the Italian Federation have backed the right to bet module that they want to kind of provide a share of betting revenues going towards the revitalization of Italian football. Bodhi has to kind of negotiate the terms of a new gambling advertising bill, not only with Serie A, but Italian sports federations and the Italian Olympic Committee. So there's like lots of stakeholders involved in this process and a lot of kind of parties with kind of different stances on where fun should go. And of course, we're talking a lot about football here because, soccer for our American audience. But in the background, the status of Italian football has become very politically charged. it, of course, in a country like Italy, uh politics always goes through football like Football is always heavily charged by politics. But right now they're on a deep crisis in terms of the sport, but also the organization. uh with all these developments, it has become even more politically charged following the failure to qualify for a third consecutive World Cup. So how is this affecting proceedings, uh Ted? I think, look, this is kind of the most interesting and kind of in the article I wrote is that, The Maloney government has looked to reorganize gambling in the past two to three years. It started with the online reorganization, it's now moving to the land-based. But what it's been pitched, mean, one of the kind of curveballs that it's been pitched is that all of a sudden all parties agree that the dignity degree of 2018 that implemented a blanket ban on gambling advertising has been a failed project. And it kind of sits with the government to kind of repeal that. However, I think that in the wider kind of sense of Italian politics and Italian football, it's that if the repeal does not go through, it will kind of come across as like the reorganization of gambling has completely failed. So I think that there is kind of high stakes to actually get this through to the door ahead of 2027. Also, I've back to you, Fernando, you live in Argentina, it's got a huge Italian community. and you know kind of the response that they had in seeing the Azuri fail for the third time. So, you know, what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, well, I mean, I know what will happen in Argentina if we fail to qualify to a 40 something team World Cup. I don't even know how many teams there are. Like I keep forgetting. How many teams is that? 48? Yeah, 48, yeah. It's crazy and I think it must be really painful for Italy not only failing to qualify for a third time but also failing to qualify for this specific World Cup with 48 teams which in theory makes it easier to qualify, right? So coming back to the sports betting industry is of course very very bad for all stakeholders because it hurts the... the operators, it hurts. Every side of the betting industry is being impacted in Italy because of this, let alone the social humor, right? I wouldn't want to be in an Italian's shoes in June during the World Cup seeing nations with all due respect like Curaçao playing in the World Cup and Italy four time world champion not playing. the tournament. uh But going back to the actual story, to the actual uh overhaul of gambling in Italy, how confident is the Meloni government that it can pass both mandates and satisfy stakeholders in 2026 with all these deadlines that are... they seem like far away for now but time passes by quite quickly so they will get here soon enough. So I think that in terms of the decree to reorganize land-based gambling, the Maloney government can, Georgia can clear the agenda and really focus on that and give Leo the support. But in terms of with the Bodhi's decree to repeal, it did stop so much repealing the dignity decree, it's actually kind of settling on a new framework for gambling advertising in Italy. And I think that's much more kind of politically charged and I don't want to comment on like, I think that that's guaranteed to come in by the end of this year. I think that's going to be a much tougher mandate to kind of pull through. Yeah, feel like we could talk for hours about this story because there's so many uh sides of it, like there's so many angles to it. We could probably do an entire 40 minute podcast on Italy failing to qualify for a World Cup. But we're probably not going to do that. We don't want to upset our Italian friends by keeping discussing, keep the discussion around their failure to qualify for the World Cup. So we're gonna wrap things up right here but we will continue to monitor what goes on on the regulatory front in Italy so make sure you are subscribed to all SVC media newsletters and also follow iGamingDaily not only on your preferred podcasting platform but also on social media so you can keep up to date with what's going on in Italy and everywhere else around the world. Ted? Ted? Thank you very much for joining in today, it's been a very... very complete episode, should I say, covering different things going on in Europe. thank you very much Annie and McDonald's as well for producing this episode. I'm Fernando Nott and to our listeners out there, we'll see you in the next one. See you.