Banijay Gaming Cleared to Take Control of JOA and Its 33 French Casinos

France’s competition authority has cleared Banijay Gaming, the group behind Betclic, to take exclusive control of JOA, the operator of 33 casinos across France. The Autorité de la concurrence announced the approval on 4 November 2026 in a press release, four weeks after Banijay Gaming notified the project on 7 October. It cleared the deal in phase 1 and attached no conditions.

JOA casinos in France

33

Unique active players a year at Banijay Gaming

~6.5m

From notification to unconditional clearance

4 weeks

Who is buying and who is being bought

Banijay Gaming is the sports betting and online gaming entity of Banijay Group. Through Betclic it is a leading online operator in France, with sports betting, poker and horse-race betting. After the finalised combination with Tipico Group, it now brings Betclic, Tipico and Admiral together in six regulated markets and serves close to 6.5 million unique active players a year, according to its own release.

JOA works only in France. Its 33 casinos make up the large majority of its revenue, alongside the restaurants, bars and hotels inside those complexes. The casinos run under public service delegations, the licensing model that French municipalities use to grant casino operations.

The first French operator on both channels

The regulator has reviewed deals in both land-based casinos and online gambling before. This is the first time it has assessed an operation that creates, in France, one operator active on both. Lov Group, the parent of Banijay Group, is not active in casinos in France, so the authority found no overlap between the parties.

Poker is where the two businesses meet most clearly. The authority’s review found that online poker and table games in casinos, poker above all, can be treated as neighbouring markets, because they share a common base of players. Its inquiry, which covered competitors of the parties and a consultation of the national gambling regulator ANJ, showed that poker players are willing to move from the casino to online play and the other way round.

The authority concluded that the new group could run an omnichannel strategy, including commercial bundles that link its online and casino activities, and tested the effects of that strategy. Given the parties’ market shares, the strength of their competitors in each market and the small place poker holds in JOA’s casino business, it found the deal would not harm competition.

A strategy built on acquisitions

Banijay Gaming has described the JOA project as part of its change of scale. It has named Antoine Jouteau chief executive from 1 September 2026, with Nicolas Béraud staying on as non-executive chairman. His mandate is to set a strategy built on organic growth and acquisitions, speed up growth in the group’s regulated markets and combine the strengths of Betclic, Tipico and Admiral.

The company frames the group as holding complementary digital and omnichannel expertise. JOA adds the physical side: a national network of casinos, hotels and restaurants where a betting brand can meet customers in person.

1. 1 September 2026Antoine Jouteau takes up the role of CEO at Banijay Gaming, after the Tipico combination and the JOA acquisition project.
2. 7 October 2026Banijay Gaming notifies the Autorité de la concurrence of its plan to take exclusive control of JOA.
3. 4 November 2026The authority clears the deal in phase 1, without conditions (decision 26-DCC-215).

What it shows about gambling M&A

Online operators have spent the last few years consolidating with each other: Betclic with Tipico is the clearest example. JOA shows the next step, an online group buying a physical network. The regulator’s reasoning, that shared poker players and commercial bundles make online and casino play connected markets, is a useful guide for any operator weighing a similar cross-channel deal.

For owners of land-based and hybrid gambling businesses, the message is that national casino networks have credible buyers, and that competition clearance in a market this tightly regulated can come quickly when the parties do not overlap. Acquiry tracks these deals and the buyers behind them; if you run a gambling business and want to know who is buying, talk to us.