French Competition Authority approves FDJ’s Kindred acquisition, despite concerns over monopoly cross-selling

Monday, September 16, 2024 8:17 PM
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  • Nicole Macedo, iGaming Business

France’s Competition Authority (l’Autorité de la concurrence) has approved lottery monopoly FDJ’s bid to acquire Kindred Group. However it warned FDJ against promoting its commercial products to lottery monopoly customers.

In its report on the Kindred deal, the Competition Authority expressed concerns over FDJ promoting and cross selling Kindred’s products to monopoly customers, as this could increase player risks.

FDJ previously addressed similar concerns in its acquisition bid for ZEturf’s French operations, which included its ZEBet brand and ZEtote technology, offering horse racing and racing pools.

The monopoly operator pledged to keep its commercial and monopoly brands separate, including separate websites for monopoly and commercial activities and separate player databases.