Hello, and welcome to the FDJ half-year results call. My name is Melissa, and I will be your coordinator for today's event. For the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen-only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the presentation. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question at any time. If at any point you require assistance, please press star zero, and you will be connected to an operator. Please note, this conference is being recorded. I will now hand you over to your host, Mr. Pascal Chaffard, Executive Vice President in charge of Finance, Performance, and Strategy, to begin today's conference. Thank you.
Good morning. Good evening, sorry, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to this presentation of FDJ Group's results for the first half of 2024. By my side, there is Marc Willaume, our IR. The presentation we are going to comment is available online on the investor section of our corporate website, and we'll try to keep this presentation brief to allow enough time for the Q&A session. I will first give you some highlights of our first half, both financial and extra-financial, and an update on the Kindred acquisition process, which is well on track to avoid any unforeseen suspense. Then I will present briefly our financial performance for the semester. So let's begin with the highlights of the semester. I'm now on the slide 3.
In the first half of 2023, FDJ recorded another set of solid results that set a steady path towards our annual guidance. Group generated revenues of EUR 1.43 billion, up 11% versus H1 2023, and up 5% at constant perimeter, i.e., excluding 2024 contributions of PLI and ZEturf, and also 2023 contribution of Sporting Group's B2C activity divested in 2023. So our, our overall level of activity is good, especially in France, where revenue of gaming activity is up 7% to nearly EUR 1.3 billion. Our digital dynamic is also very nice, with a reported revenue up 40%, 40, and up 25% at constant perimeter. Performance still largely attributable to the increase of, in the number of players, which takes the digital share of revenue to 15%.
Our point of sale revenue was up 8% and 3% at constant perimeter. The recurring EBITDA amounted to EUR 370 million, represented a 25.9% margin. The margin was boosted by strong business momentum, particularly that digital, but also by a high profitability in sports betting on the back of favorable sports results during Q2, and especially during the first phase of the Euro, contributing almost to one point of margin. From this publication, FDJ is introducing a new indicator to reflect its economic performance and on which dividend calculation will be based, the adjusted net profit. I'll come back to that later with more details. This indicator is up 28% to EUR 235 million.
This solid performance enables us to reiterate our full year 2024 guidance of a reported revenue growth of around 8% for the group and around 5% for gaming revenue in France, with a recurring EBITDA margin of around 24.5%. For FDJ, you know that financial and extra-financial performances are linked, driving us to continue strengthening our CSR commitments with responsible gaming at the heart of our business model. I will develop these on the next slide. And to finish with those highlights, regarding the Kindred acquisition we announced in January, the tender offer has been opened in February, and we are well on track to complete it on November 19th, in line with its calendar. I will also come back to that a little further in my presentation. Now we are on page four.
Our CSR commitments have been strengthened, and I will develop two main dimensions, particularly noteworthy for this first half. As you all know, responsible gaming, or we can also call it player protection, is at the heart of our business model, and we have a convincing result. We are the only operator with Kindred to have committed to reducing the percentage of high-risk players in our revenue, with 1.6% of online lottery gross gaming revenue made from high-risk players on the last twelve months versus 1.8% on full year 2023. We have already hit the target set for 2025, which was to be below 2%. And we have also stepped up initiative to promote responsible gaming with new TV campaigns to prevent excessive and underage gambling and increase communication on responsible gaming for Euro 2024.
The second CSR topic is the environmental commitment, which is also strong in FDJ. Our commitment to reducing carbon footprint has been constantly recognized, and for the third consecutive year, FDJ gets an A carbon rating from Axylia, thus ranked among the 40 best carbon scores in the SBF 120 index. We also renewed the group's sponsorship of the French Office for Biodiversity, with a new sponsorship agreement of EUR 700,000 over two years. Now I move to the business. Our H1 2024 underlying business momentum was very solid, with a revenue of gaming activities in France of 7% to EUR 1.3 billion. The lottery revenue growth was 5% and reached 8% excluding Amigo.
Revenue from instant games rose by 7%, buoyed by the success of events in the game portfolio, such as the launch of Ticket d'Or, a EUR 5 game in early January, and also the digital game Maxi Blackjack, a EUR 5 in May, but also other games. I will not quote every new game that we have launched successfully. The revenue from draw-based games was up 2% and up by 10% excluding Amigo. This performance was driven in particular by EuroDreams and by more attractive European jackpots than in H1 2023. If you recall, we had a poor number, a poor number of high jackpots in the first semester last year.
While Amigo also returned to growth at the beginning of June, when we have lacked the change of the game that has occurred last year, beginning of June. Sports betting and online gaming open to competition revenue jumped 15% and was up 7% at constant perimeter, which means excluding ZEturf . It's fair to say that betting on the Euro Football Championship fell short of expectations when we look at the stakes. This for several reasons, some specific to France, like the political context of the French national team's route and matches. But operator revenue was boosted by a result that defied the odds and therefore very favorable to us, maybe a bit too favorable.
To illustrate this point, on all the French team's Euro soccer matches, player winnings rate was low, almost 60%, compared to more than 100% for the last World Cup, and this situation was reverted a bit at the end of the competition, especially on the final, but it's in H2. Let's now have a closer look at our performance by distribution channel on the next slide. Digital revenue has risen sharply by 40%, as I said, when including the acquisition of PLI and ZEturf, and by 25% on a like-for-like basis. The digital revenue now accounts for 15% of total revenue. To recall, it was only 12% in H1 2023.
In detail, the French lottery digital momentum remains very strong, up 24%, taking the lottery digital penetration to 14% compared with 12% in H1 2023. This performance is still largely attributable to the increase of the number of players. The online lottery benefited from EuroDreams, with a very high level of digitalization, as well as the attractiveness of instant games and the exclusive online offer. The online betting and gaming continued to enjoy sustained growth, up 28% at constant perimeter, and this performance reflects the intrinsic dynamism of ParionsSport Online, which is also benefiting from the attractiveness of poker with a high 20% level of cross-selling. Apart from that, the point of sale revenue rose by 8%, mainly due to the integration of PLI.
In France, point of sale revenue rose by 3%, still impacted by the 25% decline in Amigo stakes recorded over most of H1. So let's move to an update on Kindred before diving into the figures of H1. So, the process has been launched, as I said, in February and is well on track to complete by November nineteenth. As of today, the completion of our tender for a maximum of 39 weeks remains subject to regulatory authorization and FDJ acquiring at least 90% of Kindred shares. The authorization decision of the Autorité de la Concurrence, the French competition regulator in France, is the last regulatory condition necessary for the offer to be finalized.
And to give some more color on this process, on May 14, FDJ notified the French Antitrust Authority of its acquisition project of Kindred. Following comments from third parties and questions from the market, FDJ proposed adjustments to the remedies in connection with the 2023 acquisition of ZEturf, relating to the separation of activities under exclusive rights on one side, from those open to competition on another side. On this basis, I would like to express my confidence that we will be able to complete this deal in line with announced calendar of November 19. Let's move now to our H1 2024 financial performance in more detail. So on this slide, you can see the major figures that I have already mentioned earlier, so I will not comment them very deeply. Maybe worth commenting a bit more-...
On the new indicator we have established, the adjusted net income, on which, as we presented to you in January at the time of the Kindred Group acquisition announcement, dividends calculation will be based. The net income is adjusted for PPA, purchase price allocation depreciation, and the non-cash impact of foreign exchange hedging of the acquisition of the Kindred Group, and changes in different taxes resulting from these items. And as you know, our dividend and its regular progression is an important element of our equity story. As a result, FDJ shareholders will not be penalized by continuing entries resulting from our external growth operations. Thus, adjusted net income rose by 28% to EUR 235 million in H1 2024. Lastly, the net cash surplus came to EUR 615 million, down EUR 55 million on December 31, 2023.
Let's look at performance by activity. Lottery revenue rose by 5% and 8%, excluding Amigo, as already said. In sports betting and online gaming open to competition, the revenue rose, as you can see on the slide, by 15% and 7%, excluding the integration of ZEturf. Thirdly, online betting and gaming continues to enjoy a sustained growth of 28% on comparable basis. I've already commented on that also. International and the payment services posted revenue of EUR 129 million. This increased on the EUR 74 million recorded in H1 2023, is mainly due to the contribution of PLI. Now, let's move to the recurring EBITDA that came to EUR 370 million, representing a margin of EUR 25.9 million, 9%.
This performance reflects the overall good business trends, especially in digital, and also the exceptional effect of the high sports betting margin already mentioned. Let's take a look at the main expense items to bridge revenue and EBITDA. The perimeter effect, I mean, PLI plus ZEturf , explains the major part of the increase, 6.5% of a total of 7% increase in the global expenses. If we look at each element, cost of sales first, retailer remuneration amounted to EUR 570 million, which rose by almost 5% due to the integration of PLI. In France, the retailer's remuneration was almost stable following the point of sale takes, that is a +0.6%, increase.
The low payout on sports betting we've already discussed explains the difference between stable retailers' remuneration on one side, and the 3% increase on GGR that I commented earlier. Now, let's look at the other cost of sales. The increase of this item is 7%. It's also due, for the most part, to PLI. If we look at the organic terms, these expenses are even slightly down due to the first visible effect of the sales force transformation in France. Marketing and communication costs rose by 16%, and by 6% on a comparable basis. To recall, this include costs linked to the development of the games and service offering, notably digital, and also advertising and communication costs. And in 2024, you have there the activation cost of the Olympics partnership.
To end on this slide, the G&A expenses were almost stable. Now, if we move on to the next slide, on the left chart, you will find the EBITDA breakdown by business. For lottery, the contribution margin rate stands at 38.1% versus 36.4% in H1 2023. This further improvement reflects the development of the digital business. To recall, the revenue was +24%. And for sport betting, the contribution margin rate was 30.8%, a very high level, versus 28.9% in H1 2023, and it is explained by the high margins that I have already mentioned.
For the other activities, international and permanent services, the contribution margin came to EUR 25 million, and the holding costs were virtually stable at EUR 128 million. If we now look at the evolution of Recurring EBITDA in terms of amounts, on the graph to the right, we see that the EUR 70 million increase is driven by all activities. Let's now have a look at the bridge from Recurring EBITDA, EUR 470 million, I recall, to the Adjusted Net Income with four main items. First, the D&A of EUR 85 million, and this EUR 25 million increase of D&A is due to the amortization of the PPA in connection with the acquisition of PLI and ZEturf at the end of 2023.
Second item, the non-recurring items of EUR 21 million mainly include, charges linked to our external growth strategy, notably costs relating to the Kindred tender offer. Third, financial result, that is remaining high at EUR 23 million, compared with EUR 19 million in the first half of 2023. And finally, the tax charge of EUR 78 million, corresponding to a tax rate of 26.8%, which can globally be extrapolated over the full year. These, elements explaining the gap between net income and adjusted net income have been mentioned earlier in my presentation. I will not come back to it. On next slide, you will find, quite familiar, bridge for you.
Just, I will remind you that it's not really appropriate to extrapolate the half year situation of our net cash surplus over the full year, as there is a strong calendar effect at the end of the year, with an advance paid in December on the public levies for the month, in addition to those for November, and also a possible booking of a jackpot that has not yet been paid. We cannot know now, but it's possible. And as you can see, the group remains financially very solid, with an available cash of EUR 755 million, and a net cash surplus of EUR 616 million, compared with the amount of EUR 671 million at December 31.
To conclude, on the last slide, and in view of the performance of the first half, and considering the consolidation of the PLI group at the end of 2023, the revenue growth of around 8% for the group as a whole, and around 5% for gaming activities in France. As mentioned above, H1 benefited from favorable sports results for the operator, and an excellent dynamic in digital. For the record, EuroDreams was launched at the beginning of November 2023, so we will lap this launch in a few months. We traditionally have a higher level of OpEx in the second half of the year. We are therefore fully confident of achieving a recurring EBITDA margin of around 24.5% over the full year.
So, this is the end of my presentation. Thank you for your attention, and Marc and I are now available to answer your questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. We have a first question from Jaafar Mestari with BNP Paribas. Mr. Mestari, your mic is open.
Hi, good evening, everyone. I've got two, please.
Good evening.
Hi. Just firstly, on your full year guidance and what this implies for H2, I can understand your reference to normal levels of OpEx that you just made, but do you have any specific reason to expect a margin that, if I'm correct, would be only 23% in the second half? Any other reasons than it's been lower historically in H2, or anything in the period, in the months that's already passed, that would cause the reversal that you're talking about? And then secondly, just on yeah, the usual question on the European Commission investigation, has anything surfaced in terms of timing? Has President Macron asked for an Olympic truce on this?
And should we not expect anything before the end of the summer this time?
Okay. Thank you, Jaafar. For your first question, really to help you, when you look at the 25.9% EBITDA margin of H1, you have something like 0.9 points that is linked to the exceptional level of margin on sports betting, that we cannot think that it will be the same on the second half of the year. And even I don't think it would be a good thing that it would be the same, because it would mean that the player payout would be very low, and it will affect, at some point, the level of stakes, and after that, the attractivity of this activity.
So, if you normalize the H1 margin, it's more 25%. Second point, traditionally, if you look at the previous years, you have usually 1 point of margin difference between the first and the second half. It's mainly due to the level of advertising and things like that, as the end of the year is very heavy on our calendar, on our business calendar, so there is not a 50/50 repetition between H1 and H2 on the part of the OpEx. This is why I said that you should take that into consideration, and not foresee that we could have a 25.9% margin over the full year.
But as I also said, we are very comfortable of the 24.5%, so it's more a minimum than a maximum. This was-
Okay
... the first question. Your second question, a traditional question, and I hope that at some point you will not be forced to ask it ... it's normal to ask it, and it's the third anniversary of this in-depth inquiry, so we are very pleased to have this further anniversary. So to be more serious, we can reasonably expect a positive outcome by the end of maybe October, as we have understood that the different teams that are in charge will change or change slightly at this moment. The end of the mandate is more at the end of October or in October than in June.
And we have been said that we were current affairs. I don't know if I can translate it like that. It's not a big deal for the European Commission. It doesn't need to have the new people being set. We know also that the European Commission wants to come to an end to this in-depth inquiry. We know that the French state is doing also the job to come to an end. So we are reasonably positive on the fact that we will come to a conclusion in the coming months. Clearly, we cannot commit to that.
You know that, yeah, that we have no real weight on this decision directly us. This is what we have understood, and this is also what we would like to happen. I think you will maybe say that we have said that several times, but this time it's maybe more probable, but still it's not totally certain. So we will see, but we have a reasonable hope that we will come to an end with this case end of Q3, beginning of Q4.
We are confident, but there's no commitment from the European Commission, so it remains our gut feeling.
Yeah.
So let's see. But the only thing which is sure, that as Pascal said, it will be the end of the current mandate. So the team will, there will be some shift within or amongst the team. And we assume that the current team may want to, we said, to get rid of this. It might not be the most important investigation for them, but we know in their backlog, there are something like 40-
Yeah
... different investigations. So that's our best assessment of the current situation, but it remains our view, and we don't have any commitment nor on this outcome nor on the calendar from the European Commission.
Yeah. Thank you for mentioning that, Marc.
Thank you. And just on the margin point, I understand all the elements you mentioned. I just want to clarify when you, for example, player payouts, it wouldn't be great if the player payouts remain low. We shouldn't expect it to remain low. When you say, advertising is traditionally where it is always an issue, I just wanted again to if that's your sense of traditional seasonality, or are you making specific investments to capitalize on the strong H1 results? Are you specifically trying to max out player payouts to what's allowed now that you've had the H1 that you had? Are you investing maybe a bit more in advertising now that you've had the H1 that you had?
Is this under your control, and are you making those decisions, or are you just flagging to us that traditionally this is how H2 played out?
Yes, it's more for the player payout. It's not a question of tradition; it's just a question of results, of the-
Of the way it is.
... outcome of the different events. But on the advertising, we have not decided to advertise more because the player payout was low. As you know, we have a maximum advertisement that is set by the Autorité Nationale
Mm-hmm
... and we are globally in this kind of range that we have committed on beginning of the year when we presented our our strategy advertisement strategy. It's more than that, and especially in lottery, we have more activity in the Q4 with a lot of events that are concentrated in the Q4. This is why we usually have more advertisement at this moment. And you may know, but when you advertise on a specific jackpot, it is not immediately making money.
Mm-hmm.
It's making money because we work on the attractiveness of the game more than a result, a positive result just on one event. And maybe a last comment on-
Thank you
... on sports betting. We are able to have a very attractive odds today, as we have some room to have some attractive odds. The question is after the Euro, where the players have lost quite rapidly their money too, for them to regain the capacity to play again. And we will do that using the different events that are coming, beginning by the Olympics, even if the Olympics are not an important event in our calendar.
I'm pretty sure you've seen with other operator that they have exactly the same happen for them in the H1, which mean low player payout/high return to the operator, and everybody expect the situation to normalize over the second half. So I would say it's exactly the same for FDJ.
Yeah. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Our next question is from Matt Siegelman with Locust Wood Capital. Mr. Siegelman, your mic is open.
Hi, thank you and congratulations on the good results.
Thank you.
I was just wondering... Yeah, I was just wondering if you could talk about two issues. One was just to give a little bit more detail on digital. It seemed like we had a few quarters when that growth sort of slowed down a little bit, and now it seems to be picking up. I know you talked about players, but just a little bit more color on what's driving it. And then the second is, you know, last call you talked a little bit about the Dutch political situation. You know, if you could just give us any recent color or thoughts there. Thank you.
Okay. Okay, no problem. On your first question, regarding digital, we are, yes, pleased of the, of the, of the growth, on the lottery and also on, on the online sports betting and, and poker. Maybe to comment, on online sports betting and, and poker, this is not, a surprise, as, we have performed well on this, on this, on this category, since, now a lot of quarters, in, in, in, in a row. So it means that the effort, the continuous effort that we have made to, make our offer, more attractive is, is, working, is, we have a, we have a success that is linked to that. And also, we have successfully launched, a poker offer.
And if you look at the different figures, we have a 25% growth on the sports betting online, and even a more important growth, maybe nearly 50%, on the poker offer. It means that the strategy to complement our offer with poker in addition to sports betting has really well worked. And in addition, we have added now the horse-race betting offer, and it means that we have a complete offer and we are in capacity to maximize the cross-sell in our different verticals. So we expect that we will continue to gain market share organically, and when we will be in a position to merge with Kindred, it will be even better.
On the lottery side, we have worked a lot on the quality of our offer, the quality of our app, the way we present different games, the way we market them. And, as a result, we have those very good, this good capacity to grow and more steadily than before. And, maybe two things worth to comment. First, we add the this new game, EuroDreams, by the end of 2023. EuroDreams is the game that has the more important digital penetration, between 35% and 40% digital penetration for this game. We are between 20 and 30 for loto and EuroMillions.
It means that we have boosted our digital offer with this game. This is a really good, good move. And secondly, we have worked a lot on something on which we were not that good. I mean instant games online. We have said that in the past, it was for us a bit difficult to have a really attractive offer in instant games online. And now we have a growth in the instant game offer that is very good, and it's over the growth that we have on draw-based games online.
The balance between the two activities is now 40% draw-based games and 60% instant games online. Sorry, 60% draw-based games and 40% instant games online. It used to be two-thirds, one-third, some, some, quarter before, before that. So we have worked a lot on the attractiveness of the instant games. So when you put all that together, it is possible to have a growth that is better than it has been. Maybe one last element on the digital penetration, we have also benefited. It's not on the digital growth, but on digital penetration, we have benefited from the-...
Weakness of Amigo on the first semester as we were still having this minus 25% of this game. It will not be the same on the second semester as we have lacked the change that we made on the game beginning of June last year. So it will rebalance a little bit the digital versus retail.
I think we said during the first quarter call that we were expecting on the full year basis a kind of digital online lottery growth something like in the high teens. So that's-
Yeah. And you have to have in mind that we will lack also EuroDreams at some point in the second semester. So it has to be taken into account, and this is linked to what Marc just said. Dutch situation, sorry.
Netherlands.
I nearly forgot that. Dutch situation, there is no real new element in the Dutch situation. If you look at what we have said in the first quarter, we expect that the limits to be put in place before the end of the year. We don't expect any decision as we commented end of Q1, any decision to shut a part of the offer. This was something that was on the market at some point. We don't think it will happen. It wouldn't be consistent with the need to raise more taxes that has confirmed the Dutch government. And we can say...
So we will have really this limit. We will not have a shutdown of the part of the offer. We will have a raise in taxes. We don't know at which level because it's not been set yet. And what we can say, and again, we are not the owner of Kindred today, so it's very difficult to talk for Kindred, so I will not do that. But if you have listened to what Kindred said yesterday, Nils Andén said during its conference that this measure, he cannot say that this measure wouldn't have some impact in the short term, but he confirmed also the full year guidance of Kindred.
And what he said, and we are totally in line with that, is that in the medium term, the fact that Kindred is a clear market leader in Netherlands, the fact that Kindred is best in class in the player protection, in the capacity to engage positive relationship with players, will benefit to this operator at the end. So we are not worried on the medium term. And you have to also have in mind that the clear differentiation towards player protection is what FDJ Group is aiming globally, and it's also what one of the reasons why we are very interested by Kindred, which is on the same page.
Thank you. Appreciate, all the color on that.
Thank you. Our next question is from Andrew Tam with Redburn Atlantic. Mr. Tam, your line is open.
Hi, thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to follow up on Matt's question about the digital penetration. Obviously, there's some very encouraging signs during this first half period. If I rewind back to your 2022 investor day, you talked about the margin differential at a contribution margin level between retail and online, there being a 20-point, you know, margin difference between the two channels. And it's clear to see that there is a contribution margin benefit coming through in the half in terms of with the higher penetration. Your EBITDA margin is obviously quite strong. It looks like there's a little bit of surprise, but if you back that out from the win margins, effectively, we're still talking at a 24% EBITDA margin.
So to me, it sounds like there's a contribution margin benefit, but that's just being offset at the EBITDA line. Is it fair to say there's not enough cost control, and that's offsetting all the mix shift benefits in terms of profitability that are coming through? And if so, why is that happening?
Yeah, thank you for your question. You are right to recall what we said during the last capital market day, and it's still true. We still have 1.5 to 2 times the contribution margin on the digital lottery. It's important to precise that it's related to lottery. That doesn't work when it comes to online gaming, sport betting and online gaming. And it's still true. And one of the reason why we have a solid margin in the H1 is the result of this digital penetration that boosts our margin. So there is no real...
On the more digital, we have no cost effects that could be in the other side. What is true is that in 2024, and we have announced that since 2023, a long time ago. We have extra cost linked to the activation of our partnership on the Olympics. That is a specific expense for 2024. We think it's a good thing for the company as it will, it is, developing the quality of the brand, the quality of the awareness of the brand, the positive view that the French people have on the brand. This is really a good thing, but in very short term, we have some additional costs linked to this Olympics.
It's maybe this element that you have to take in mind. If you also have in mind what we have said as the guidance for 2025, and we have said that since 2022, that we will be over a 25% margin in 2025, and we also confirm that it will be the case. This 25%, over 25% margin in 2025, will be the result of the digital penetration.
Globally, if you look at our business model, we already have and will have a low single digit growth in the retail, a double-digit growth in the online lottery, and we will benefit from the mix effect with the positive mix effect on the margin that you have mentioned. And this is maybe the most important element that will drive the margin, the improvement of the margin in the future. We will also continue to streamline our cost base, and we are currently doing that, for example, on the organization of the sales force that we begin to have an effect in 2024, and we will have more important effect in 2025.
Got it. Now, that's super helpful. Thank you very much for that. Just a follow-up question on the early one about the guidance, but less about the EBITDA and EBITDA margin, just at your revenue line. So you did 11% growth in the first half. You've reiterated your guidance for the full year at 8% overall, which kind of implies, just if my numbers are correct, just 5% in the second half. How do I reconcile that with the fact that you won't have a full period benefit from ZEturf and PLI?
Mm-hmm.
Because they obviously came in towards the end of the year, but you should, it should still be a pretty large benefit from that. You should have also a benefit from the fact that you've got some pretty easy comps from the low period of jackpots, which was specifically a second half issue last year. Are you making any specific assumptions around the level of EuroMillions jackpots when you reiterate your guidance there, or are you just being conservative on that front? Thanks.
No, what we do usually and always do to try to forecast EuroMillions is to stick to the average that we should have, the average level of jackpots. We cannot make assumption on beating the average or being below the average.
Sometimes we beat the average, sometimes we are below, but we always do our forecast, taking into account the fact that we will be at the average of what is logical of the statistics when we look at the level of the stakes of the game and which at which kind of period we will kind of and which number we can statistically have on the high jackpots weeks. This is what we do-
Okay.
You're right-
Let me try to ask the question another way then.
Yeah.
So if you're implying 5% top line growth in the second half, we know that there's gonna be 4%-5% of revenue growth just from acquisition. So if you back that out, your underlying revenue growth then is basically flat or zero. So I'm just trying to reconcile that point with the fact that, obvious, very low jackpot period, and we know that low jackpot periods last year correlated with a softer revenue growth environment. We also heard that that was below average, so shouldn't a normalization of those jackpots see a correlation with higher revenue growth, just the opposite, which happened last year?
No, maybe if I can try to help you in another way, when we forecast the lottery part of the business on second half, it's globally in line with what we had on the first part of the year. Something like high single digit. No, mid single digits, sorry, mid single digits. When we look at sports betting and online gaming, a large part of the growth has been done in H1, so we cannot have the same level in H2. And when it comes to PLI and ZEturf, we'll lap it, lap PLI at early November and lap ZEturf at the end of September.
So we will not have the full impact of those perimeter effect in the second half of the year. And if you reconcile all that, you will find the right element. Maybe another comment on sports betting. On sports betting, the growth will be on the online sports betting, will not be on the offline sports betting, quite obviously. So it's also, I think, a clue to understand how we did our forecast for the second half. And again, we said that we were comfortable with the guidance.
Got it. Okay, thank you very much.
Thank you very much. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question on today's call, you may press star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. We'll pause for just a moment to allow any other questions to come through. Our next question is from Geoffroy de La Grandière with Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Good evening, gents. Thank you for taking my questions. I've got one notably on Kindred, and to come back on the comments that you made regarding the third-party reviews. Can you give us a little bit of color as to what these third-party reviews showed in terms of issues? Was it mostly on the online sports betting, the horse racing? You're mentioning that you submitted behavioral remedies regarding ZEturf . So what exactly were the activities that were concerned by these remedies? And have you been thinking of potentially submitting maybe some asset sales or licensing in order to ease the decision of the French Antitrust Authority? Thank you.
Yeah. Maybe just, on globally, globally speaking, taking a higher view, there is, in this, in this case, only a question of conglomerate effect. What we call a conglomerate effect is to avoid any confusion between the monopoly part of our activity and the online betting and gaming in a competition part of the activity. And this is why we refer to ZEturf , because when we put some remedies to have the decisive positive decision on ZEturf , the only remedies that we had were to be clear on the clear separation of the two activities. I mean, competition activities on one side and monopoly on the other side. This is why we accepted to subsidize our ParionsSport activity.
This is why we accepted also to separate completely the wallets from the lottery and sports betting. And what we explain is that looking at Kindred, the situation is exactly the same. We still don't have any horizontal effect. It means that if you look at our position in the sports betting activity tomorrow in when you add Kindred to ParionsSport and ZEturf , we still- we will still be below 25% market share, which is not a problem of horizontal effect. We will still be the third actor far behind Winamax and Betclic, which have more than 30% market share each.
If you look at poker, we still have a market share of something like 10%, compared with the market leader, which is Winamax, more than 60% market share. And we will still be a challenger on the horse race betting activity, with something like 20% market share, compared with the 75% market share of PMU. So in each of those markets, there is no horizontal effect. The only point is conglomerate effect, and this is why we said that the remedies that we proposed for the Kindred operation are in the same kind of remedies than the one we have proposed for ZEturf .
I will not comment more on which additional remedies we propose, but clearly it's only link with the clear separation and to avoid any confusion between monopoly on one side and competitive activities on the other side. This is the only element that can be looked at by the authority. As I said, there is no horizontal problem.
To make it even, I would say even clearer, there are a lot of rumors, there are a lot of things which are being said regarding the fact that maybe among the remedies, there could be the disposal of the Unibet brand in France. To put it bluntly, this is totally false.
Yeah, nonsense.
Either a nonsense, a rumor, a lie, whatever you want, but definitely, we are moving to further, I would say, have a very clear cut, in between the business and the monopoly, and the business which are, so under exclusive right on the one hand, and open to competition on the other hand, and that's all.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. As a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question on today's call, please press star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. As there are no further questions in the queue, I would like to hand back over to Mr. Pascal Chaffard to conclude this conference.
Thank you to you all for your attention, and I hope and I think that you will be pleased by those solid results that we announced this semester. We hope that we will be able by the end of... By the nineteenth November to announce the completion of the acquisition of Kindred. But there is some work to do before that, and we will be back to announce the Q3 elements of revenue of FDJ on the seventeenth of October.
October.
Yeah. So, have a nice summer, a good Olympic Games, if you have the luck to be part of it, to be a spectator. I don't think that you will be into the competition. And a good evening. Goodbye to you all.
Thanks. Goodbye. Enjoy the summertime. Bye-bye.
Thank you very much. That concludes today's conference. You may now disconnect.