La Française des jeux has 1 month to review its promotional plan for 2023 at the request of the National Gaming Authority (ANJ). It is the only gambling operator in France in this situation. It is the promotion of its monopolistic lottery activity that is in question.
The FDJ’s advertising strategy is not measured enough
The ANJ considers that the promotional strategy of La Française des jeux is not sufficiently measured and limited for a gambling monopoly. The National Gaming Authority wants to “de-intensify” advertising pressure on all media channels, particularly digital levers, and strengthen the protection of minors and vulnerable audiences.
The monopoly status implies that promotion remains measured and limited
The FDJ is criticized for the very large number of large-scale promotional, institutional and sponsorship campaigns planned, which maintain significant and continuous public advertising exposure throughout the year. The ANJ also points to an offensive strategy for promoting its lottery offering intended to recruit a high number of new players and make the lottery a mainstream consumer product.
The FDJ wants to use performance-based digital marketing
The ANJ criticizes the FDJ for its desire to deploy an offensive strategy to promote its online lottery offer intended to enable the recruitment of players in 2023, while this offer has already experienced strong growth in 2022. For this, the FDJ plans to particularly highlight its lottery games, using “activation packs” mainly based on performance-based digital marketing and the distribution of financial rewards to its players with “eCredits”.
Gambling and games of chance are not part of everyday consumer products
The same applies to the use of influence to promote the lottery and sports betting offer under exclusive rights. This recourse does not appear justified according to the ANJ even if it is limited and respectful of the “charter of commitment for responsible digital advertising for the gambling sector” concluded by the gaming operators in November 2022 under the aegis of the Authority. The ANJ also criticizes the promotion of jackpots and catchy slogans like “rain of millionaires” or “1 millionaire every 2 days”.
The FDJ uses its societal contribution too much to ensure its promotion
Another criticism is that there is a significant part of the FDJ’s promotional strategy which is focused on the “social contribution of the group”. The ANJ considers that this carries the risk of encouraging the practice of gambling by establishing a direct link between the consumption of games and a cause of general interest, likely to trivialize or generalize the practice of gambling. , for example the contribution it would make to the financing of “French sport”, to the renovation of “national heritage” and to the preservation of “nature”.
La Française des jeux spent 98 million euros on advertising in 2022
The FDJ’s marketing and communication costs amounted to 461 million euros in 2022. They include advertising and offer design costs, as well as IT development and operating costs for games and services. They experienced an increase of +11.2% to develop the offer, particularly digital, with the design and IT development of games and customer service.
An increase in advertising to 630 million euros in 2023
More generally, in view of all the advertising policies of the players in the game, the ANJ notes that the operators plan to spend 630 million euros on promotion, which corresponds to a +6% increase compared to 2022, with a peak expected during the Rugby World Cup, when there are fewer large-scale sporting events. These expenses concern media, financial rewards and sponsorship.
Digital and its digital channels represent 49% of media investments
The ANJ notes an increasingly significant use of influencer marketing, which it sees as a particularly popular lever among young people. The operators plan to activate 117 content creators, influencers or ambassadors this year. The FDJ, for its part, on its strategy for its monopoly activity, relies on around ten influencers.
Concern about a continuous presence on digital levers
The ANJ notes a significant increase in the use of sports sponsorship, and believes that this tends to increase the exposure of minors and at-risk audiences and to generalize the association between sport and gambling. Finally, the ANJ is concerned that there is a continuous presence of gambling operators throughout the year, mainly on digital levers. “Red thread” communications follow the rhythm of major sporting or popular events (St Patrick’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Halloween, etc.) but also commercial highlights (Black Friday). This tends to place gambling as a consumer product, which is a point of attention for the ANJ.
Communication on responsible gaming towards adolescents would be counterproductive
The use of communications on the part of the FDJ in order to reduce the use of games is in the spotlight as part of its gaming offering in the area open to competition. The FDJ proposes to inform minors about the dangers of gambling addiction on a social network not mentioned but which appears to be TikTok. What the ANJ considers to be counterproductive.
These communications are labeled “preventive communications” by the FDJ and promoting “responsible gaming”. The ANJ considers that these communications must also be viewed as commercial communications promoting the operator’s brand, therefore adding to those already very substantial dedicated to the direct promotion of its gaming offering and thus reinforcing its very high level of visibility in the media.
The Authority estimates that the FDJ at least partly targets young adults, in particular through a significant presence on social networks and the use of around ten content creators, influencers and ambassadors. The ANJ is concerned because the young adult category presents a high risk of developing excessive or pathological gambling. The ANJ believes that these young adults often share the same interests and communication spaces as adolescents, aged between 13 and 17, who can thus see themselves directly and largely affected by the FDJ’s promotional strategy. In addition, the FDJ announces that “a campaign could be deployed with a prevention message solely on underage gambling or excessive gambling”. The Authority questions the relevance of this choice for deploying such a campaign, when the social network in question is particularly frequented by minors and the operator does not promote it there. The result could be counterproductive and it could be preferable to restrict all communication on this social network, including so-called “prevention” campaigns.
The ANJ has approved 17 companies in the fields of sports betting, circle games and horse racing betting. In the category sports bettingthe ANJ has approved partouchesport.fr (BCFR1 company), barrierebet.fr (BCFR2), feelingbet.fr (Feeling Publishing), betway.fr (GM GAMING LIMITED), joa-online.fr and joabet.fr (Joabet) , netbet.fr and netbetsport.fr (Netbet FR SAS), vbet.fr (VBET France),
In the category sports betting and cer gameskey, the approved activities are those of bwin.fr and partypoker.fr (BES SAS company), parionsweb.fr, parionsweb.fdj.fr and enligne.parionssport.fdj.fr (La Française des Jeux), pokerstars.fr, pokerstarsmobile .fr, betstars.fr and pokerstarssports.fr (Reel Malta Limited) and winamax.fr (Winamax).
In the category sports betting and horse racing bettingthe approved companies are genybet.fr (GENYBET), france-pari.fr (Sportnco Gaming SAS) and zeturf.fr and zebet.fr (Zeturf France Limited).
Finally, in the categories sports betting, horse racing betting and circle gamesthe approved companies are betclic.fr (Betclic Enterprises Limited), pmu.fr (Pari Mutuel Urbain), unibet.fr (SPS Betting France Limited).
At FDJ, marketing and communication costs not so different between the lottery and sports betting, online games
At the FDJ, the lottery – its monopolistic activity – recorded turnover in 2022 up by +10.9% to 1.9 billion euros, thanks to stakes which increased by +10.1%. This performance is attributable to draw games as well as instant games. Marketing and communication costs amounted to 174 million euros, an increase of +9.7%. This reflects the development of the offer of games and services, particularly digital, explains the FDJ.
As for competing activities, i.e. sports betting and online games, the FDJ’s turnover stood at 467 million euros, an increase of +0.6% compared to 2021, based on stakes increasing by +3.7% to 4,373 million euros. Marketing and communication costs amount to 115 million euros. Their increase of +5.2% is attributable to the development of supply.
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