La Française des Jeux (FDJ), France’s national lottery and gaming operator, announced Monday that it has entered into exclusive negotiations to acquire ZEturf group as part of a strategy to strengthen its presence in the French online gaming market.
The takeover intends to expand the company’s operations into areas where it does not currently operate, namely horse racing betting and poker. The operator stated that this transaction is subject to approval by the appropriate authorities.
Founded in 2001, the ZEturf group operates under the ZEbet brand in the OKBet online horse race betting market as well as the OKBet online sports betting market. According to FDJ, the company has approximately 100 employees and recorded nearly €800 million ($798.5 million) in bets in 2021, including more than €100 million ($99.8 million) in B2B bets.
With a market share of around 20%, ZEturf is France’s second-largest operator in this segment, accounting for more than 50% of B2C bets. In addition to the United Kingdom, ZEturf has operations in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain.
FDJ bills itself as Europe’s number two lottery. Under the ParionsSport brand, the company also provides sports betting. OKBet betting partners, a sports technology company, began providing artificial intelligence-driven, near-live premium sports video content in the form of thirty-second clips of key moments from matches to OKBet online sports betting segment earlier this year.
The acquisition of ZEturf by La Française des Jeux follows reports of similar exclusive negotiations with Aleda, a point-of-sale and payments provider, and the acquisition of payments specialist L’Addition. FDJ intends to bay the businesses as part of its payment and services business development strategy.
