Good afternoon. Just to let the people who are connected and following this capital markets day online know that the slide deck will be uploaded in a very short moment. It's quite a heavy document. Very soon, do not hesitate to try in two or three minutes. Thank you. I hand over to Stéphane Pallez.
Good afternoon to everybody in this room. Good afternoon or good morning maybe to people that might be online with us. I'm very happy to be with you today. I'm Stéphane Pallez, CEO and Chairwoman of FDJ United Board. It's my pleasure to welcome you today to our FDJ United First Capital Markets Day. Today is indeed a very exciting moment for us since it is our first capital markets day with the new group that was created recently. I'm very proud to present to you the key members of our executive committee that will play a major role in executing our group strategy.
It's a great team that also reflects the evolution of the group with, of course, the arrival last year of two new business unit leaders, Nils Anden, who was previously CEO of Kindred, and Giovanna Desposito, with a strong experience of international gaming business. We also created a new role as Chief Data and AI Officer with Sébastien Rosanes in this role coming from Carrefour to accelerate our data and AI strategy. Today is about sharing with you what makes FDJ United unique and providing you with a clear view on how we're going to execute our medium-term strategy and objectives. I will begin by presenting our new group with our assets, how we'll strengthen them further, and how we will continue to transform the group and the business. I will also, of course, share with you our strategic ambitions and our high-level financial outlook.
My team will bring this to life for our key business units, sharing major strategic objectives and milestones and plans to create value. Patrick Bufard will come first to explain how our strong and profitable lottery business in France will be further transformed to continue to generate profitable growth. Nils Anden will give you a precise view on OBG transformation to sustain growth with increased performance. For international lottery, Giovanna Desposito will talk you through the great assets of the group and how we intend, after PLI, to grasp further opportunities. Pascal Chaffard will demonstrate the power of our economic model to create sustainable value and through a disciplined capital allocation to translate it into robust financial objectives. Sébastien Rosanes will talk you through the data and AI strategy roadmap and will show you how it's going to be core for performance and further transformation.
Of course, Charles Lantieri and Vincent Perrottin will reaffirm our strong belief and further ambitions in how we differentiate in sustainability policies, which are strong enablers of our economic model. There will be a Q&A session at the end, and there will be a comfort break between these sessions. Now let's turn to our strategic ambition. We have carefully designed this new phase of our transformation journey with a clear ambition, which is to assert our leadership in Europe as a unique sustainable lottery gaming and betting operator. Our ambition builds on our performance and our track record over the last years and on the strengths of our new model. We will achieve it through our new strategic plan, Play Forward 2028, with solid growth, recurring EBITDA margin expansion, and high cash flow generation. 2025 is a pivotal year for this journey.
Our integration of Kindred in the group is well on track, as planned, and we are building further a strong position to prolong our profitable growth for the future and to deliver attractive medium-term returns for our shareholders. This journey has indeed started, as you know, in 2019 with the very successful IPO of FDJ. From the start, FDJ, now FDJ United, has grown through a compelling business model. Over the years, we fortified and continuously grew our high cash generation lottery business in France, and we started to grow our other assets and, of course, particularly our online assets. Over the years, our performance has demonstrated the success of this strategy.
Between 2019 and 2024, group revenue increased by almost two times, reaching EUR 3.8 billion, recurring EBITDA more than doubled to EUR 964 million, and year on year, we delivered our commitment with a recurring EBITDA margin expansion at almost 500 basis points to over 25%. This very high level of profitability has been, of course, fueled by our high operating leverage and our performance culture. In addition, for us, financial performance goes hand in hand with sustainability and ESG. We want to be recognized industry leaders in terms of ESG. We are recognized as such by the main rating agencies such as Moody's, and of course, our ambition is to remain being so. On the basis of this, we were able to realize a constant delivery of attractive dividends to shareholders.
have been able to deliver continuous dividend growth to our shareholders over the last years, including to 400,000 individual shareholders who chose to join the adventure from the beginning. We have guaranteed shareholders' returns with a high payout ratio and will continue doing so because it is part of our fundamentals. It has been a successful transformation journey, and I want to come back a little bit on it. Since 2019, FDJ UNITED has been transformed from being a leading lottery and sports betting operator in France to a European lottery, betting, and gaming champion in Europe. It has been achieved, first, of course, through successful organic growth and then complemented by selective M&A.
In the French lottery business, we have driven organic growth by providing a safe and entertaining gaming experience, both off and online, and we are actually one of the few lotteries that has been able to grow simultaneously online and offline distribution channels. We also have been able to grow our large player base with always a strict responsible gaming approach. In addition, we invested in our sports betting activities, both in retail and online in France, and did achieve major changes. Our retail sports betting gap, for instance, was a game changer in the way wagers are placed in stores. In the competitive market, the launch of our online poker has complemented and strengthened our sports betting activity and has been a big success. Therefore, building on these achievements, from 2022, we progressively started to enrich our growth through selective M&A.
We started with international lottery business by the acquisition of PLI, the national lottery in Ireland, which marked a milestone as we became for the first time a lottery operator outside the French market. We now hold the exclusive license to operate the national lottery until 2034. For OBG activities, with the acquisition of The Turf, a horse betting online operator, we extended further our product portfolio and became a full-fledged gaming operator in the French market, present on the three authorized segments. Of course, after that, the decision to acquire Kindred in 2024 drove a step change in the scale of OBG in the group and created a strong new European footprint. In line with our vision, our business profile significantly changed since FDJ UNITED is now a unique champion in Europe, covering the entire spectrum of attracting gaming verticals in a more balanced and diversified way.
As Kindred was a transformative acquisition, let me come back to the fundamental reasons for this move. We strongly believe that to be able to generate profitable growth in this market in the future, we need to continue to increase scale, diversification, and online components of our business. It is on this basis that we selected Kindred, a native online operator, as a great opportunity. The strengths of its leading brands, such as Unibet or 32Red, complement our strong brand portfolio. Its proprietary platforms are essential in terms of product differentiation and cost control, which are key in this competitive environment. Its strong positioning in key European markets creates an attractive international footprint, all this being deployed by multicultural teams who share our culture of performance and our commitments for responsible gaming.
Last but not least, this company has shown a consistent financial profile with our group, with strong cash flow generation fueled by profitable growth. At FDJ UNITED, we have historically developed our assets to be credible and relevant to this industry, and with Kindred, we think we have even acquired more levers to sustain our development, effectively leveraging group synergies and cross-fertilization. Kindred is a transformation accelerator for our group. Where are we today? After we completed this acquisition in October 2024, we initiated a structured integration process, which is well on track today. On this basis, as announced during 2024 annual results, we are going to deliver more synergies than estimated initially, as we are now committed to deliver more than EUR 60 million of synergies and cost optimization, with a gradual effect until 2028, starting, of course, in 2025.
In the first months of 2025, we have launched a number of group-wide projects, including, first of all, the progressive rollout of KSP, our proprietary platform, sports betting across all our markets. We now operate in a new unified group, bound together by a common international culture and new shared values designed by all our employees: accountability, passion to succeed, and collective spirit. What are we now? We are now a European group with considerable scale that allows us to develop increased efficiency. Today, we are one of the top three lottery betting and gaming operators in Europe, active in 10 European markets. We hold leading positions in most of these markets and are profitable in all of them. All are locally regulated, with Finland being on a clear path to becoming regulated by 2027.
We're now reaching globally around 33 million players, of which 9 million are online players who enlighten the quality of our offers and gaming experience. This is true both off and online through our large retail networks, both in France and Ireland. Of course, 5,000 employees of more than 70 nationalities work together in the new group within this new culture. We have transformed our business profile and built a unique, stronger position in the industry. First, we've added an international growth engine to the group, with international activity now approaching 30% of the group's revenue. Second, we have a more balanced and diversified business portfolio, with revenues from activities open to competition representing one-third of our revenues. Third, the group has increased its capacity to grasp the benefits from online growth, with one-third of its revenue generated by online activities, both in lottery and betting.
On this basis, with 2025 as a transition year, we have opened a new chapter in our history. Building on our strengths, we aim to assert our leadership in Europe as a unique sustainable lottery, gaming, and betting operator. We aspire to emerge as a leading benchmark for the industry in Europe across all verticals and markets we operate in. Our customer and asset base are robust, our brands are strong, our teams are talented. We therefore have the ability to leverage our business model, and this is the ambition under our motto, Play Forward. Why Europe as our playing field today? Because we believe Europe is an attractive market and that we are well positioned to succeed, to capture those trends. To start, Europe has a solid underlying growth in the regulated markets, which are, of course, our only playing field.
GGR CAGR, between 2025 and 2028, is expected to be over 6%. Underlying growth opportunities are even higher when you look, of course, at online activities. We also believe in Europe, in our sector, as a resilient market with low cyclicality, particularly in downturns at the macroeconomic level. Additionally, European markets have a mature regulatory environment, which provides a certain level of stability in terms of operating control. Europe today is still a fragmented market, offering room for further consolidation. We see our scalability to operate successfully around, along, on those markets and across those different markets as an opportunity to further strengthen our market positioning in core markets and to extend our footprint beyond in the future. What do we see in terms of trends? We know that our markets will evolve further in the coming years.
Despite intense competition and challenging operating conditions, there are many opportunities for us to grow, taking advantage of market openings and license renewals. We also know that customers' expectations are evolving. Customers look for more personalized games and for entertainment value, and we compete, of course, with all the entertainment industry. Although this digital universe is expanding rapidly, customers still value human interactions and proximity and trustful service providers that we are. With our capabilities, assets, and footprint, we are well placed to capture value from these trends. We have now reached a critical size to benefit from scale. Thanks to our proprietary platforms, we have the capacity to innovate and offer differentiated products across both new and existing brands and across markets. Finally, we can effectively leverage our assets, our portfolio of powerful brands, our large distribution networks, and our state-of-the-art technology infrastructure.
We have a compelling business model. Thanks to this scale and powerful assets, we have built it and will further enhance it, resulting in both solid growth and high cash flow. Pascal will come back later on how this model fuels future growth and profitability and allows us actually to both invest for future growth and to offer attractive returns to our shareholders. To fully unleash our ambition and this model, we have adapted our organization and created four business units, which all contribute to the group's growth ambition. Two of them, LSF and OBG, are and will be powerful cash generation engines. The two others are smaller at this stage and more in investment mode, while already serving group strategy. Let me briefly highlight our main objectives with each of them.
For the French lottery and retail sports betting in France, we will grow the player base in a profitable and responsible way. We will increase digital penetration while starting to unlock the omnichannel potential. Patrick Bufard will walk you through our objectives and execution plan on this. For OBG activities, we will excel at profitable scaling and generate revenue growth and faster growing margin growth. The next few years will be focused on our market positioning by exceeding to top three position as a medium-term objective in the majority of our existing markets. To achieve this, we will focus on our core customers from whom we will provide a differentiated customer experience thanks to our unique platform. Nils Anden will provide a deep dive on our plans to achieve it.
For international lottery, we will further develop the opportunity to become more and more a multi-jurisdictional lottery leader, leveraging our well-proven ability to manage and transform our core business activity. PLI was a first step in this direction in 2023. It demonstrates our ability to successfully operate lotteries outside France by leveraging group synergies and fostering cross-fertilization. Based on this first case and on a careful market assessment, we believe there are significant additional growth opportunities, and we are getting ready to see them, and Giovanna will provide you with additional colors in our strategy and action plans on this. Our payment and service business, which was launched in 2022, has been progressively developed to provide value for multiple use cases, targeting both end customers and retailers in France.
We believe in the potential of this activity, although small at the group level, and are working on creating a truly differentiating and scalable asset, which will continue to serve the group strategy, particularly in France at this point. We will not go into more details during the presentation on this one, but I am open, of course, to questions if you have some. Data and AI. As I indicated at the beginning, we are convinced that our business activities are going to be strongly transformed and empowered by data and AI in the years to come. We are now deploying and have started to do so, a focused strategy, a focused roadmap to realize it with two priorities: elevate gaming experience and customer experience to drive responsible growth and improve efficiency to reach new standards for operational excellence all over our business.
Sébastien will give you more insights on our trajectory to achieve this. We have a unique balance profile to generate sustainable and profitable growth today. We are active in all gaming activities and distribution channels. We have a strong footprint in most significant European markets. We are combining mature activities with online growth, and we have a solid financial model to fund investment and returns for shareholders. We can translate this into strong financial midterm commitments. Between 2025 and 2028, we want to achieve 5% organic revenue CAGR, with always a recurring EBITDA margin higher than 26% in 2028, and a recurring EBITDA to free cash flow conversion, of course, above 80%. On this basis, the group will be able to maintain a very solid financial structure while allowing a year-on-year dividend increase with a minimum payout ratio of 75%.
At the same time, we will remain committed to our sustainable and responsible growth strategy by both reducing the risk linked to our activities with our responsible gaming policy and increase further our positive impact on society. To conclude, FDJ UNITED has the ambition, the strategy, the plans, and the teams to deliver an industry-leading performance. I will now let Patrick Bufard talk about our lottery in France, and we will come back later for the conclusion and question and answer. Thank you very much.
Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you, Stéphane, for the introduction, and thank you all for being here today. I am Patrick Bufard, and I have been working in the gaming sector for 18 years. In the next 20 minutes, I will walk you through the 2025-2028 strategy of the French Lottery and Retail Sports Betting Business Unit, which I have been running since June 2024.
Please note that the French Lottery and Retail Sports Betting Business Unit will be referred to as the LSF BU in my presentation. What I will demonstrate today is how we plan to expand our player base and grow our business in a profitable and responsible way, while, as Stéphane mentioned, starting to unlock the omnichannel potential. Between 2025 and 2028, our ambition is to sustain low to mid-single-digit revenue CAGR growth, supported by a dynamic stakes trajectory in line with our past trends, but with a lower revenue conversion in 2025 and 2026 due to the taxation increase. We aim to develop the iLottery revenue share to 20% in 2028, adapting to evolving player behaviors, and we are committed to bringing our EBITDA margin above 35% by 2028 at the latest, fully absorbing the impact of new taxation.
To begin with, let me give you an overview of our current position. The French Lottery and Retail Sports Betting Business Unit is the cornerstone of FDJ UNITED leadership, powered by its exclusive rights and a strong brand portfolio. It holds nearly 50% of the French gaming market. It contributes to 66% of the group's revenue, making it a key growth engine. With an attractive EBITDA margin of 35%, it delivers strong profitability. It is important to keep in mind that our lottery model stands apart in Europe and is a key driver of our success. Let me highlight a few reasons why. First, our dual-channel growth is unmatched, with a 27% CAGR in iLottery and a 3% CAGR in retail, which is, in fact, exceptional by European standards.
Second, our best-in-class mobile app, which is consistently receiving very high ratings, reflects our commitment to delivering a seamless and engaging online customer experience. At the same time, our extensive retail network allows us to connect with 8.5 million players every week, reinforcing our reach and accessibility. Now, looking ahead to 2028, our ambition is clear: to expand our player base and responsibly grow our customer value. On one hand, we aim to increase our active player base by more than 1 million. This growth will be driven by both channels. Two-thirds of these new players will be recruited through our retail network, while one-third will join us via the online channel. At the same time, we are targeting a 3% increase in the average revenue per user, driven by responsible upselling and a smart cross-selling both between and across our game ranges.
To unlock even greater value, we will focus on converting single-channel players into omnichannel players, a segment that consistently shows high value and engagement. Let's now see what our ambition for 2028 looks like. The iLottery will be our primary growth engine, delivering a low to mid-teens CAGR. Meanwhile, our retail activity will continue to grow steadily with a low single-digit CAGR, supported by our strong physical network and a loyal player base. Together, these dynamics will drive a low to mid-single-digit CAGR for the entire LSF business unit, ensuring balanced, sustainable growth across channels. To achieve this ambition, we are guided by a clear focus strategy built on three pillars. First, increasing digital penetration. Second, transforming the point-of-sale network. Third, executing a bold omnichannel strategy. This strategic framework will be reinforced by enhanced performance, ensuring we deliver sustainable and profitable growth.
Starting by digital, digital penetration is key. Why? Because it's at the heart of our future growth strategy, and it's a major driver of profitability. We project a low to mid-teens CAGR for the iLottery, reflecting a strong shift towards online play, with a digital share reaching approximately 20% of total lottery in 2028. With the iLottery margin being more than 1.5 times higher than that of retail, this shift is essential for improving long-term profitability. Let us now turn to our iLottery strategy. In order to deliver our ambitions, we are focusing on two key growth drivers. The primary driver will be expanding the digital player base by 50%. Two-thirds, yes, this will fuel two-thirds of the online growth. How will we achieve this? We will recruit new players by relaunching our iconic draw-based game, Euromillions Lotto, and reinforcing their brand promise.
We will also rely on new innovative draw-based games such as Crescendo, a major launch planned for November this year, designed to attract and engage new audiences. The second growth lever is enhancing the value of each player. We expect one-third of the iLottery growth to come from an increase in the average revenue per user. To achieve this, we are designing a more engaging and personalized player experience, powered first by game innovation. We are enriching our portfolio with new immersive formats, multiplayer experiences, and innovative mechanics, all designed to deepen engagement and encourage cross-sell. You'll get an overview of those games in the video I will show you at the end of my presentation. Second, by personalization, we are leveraging AI technology, tailoring content and experiences to each player's preferences and behaviors. Third, by stronger player protection.
AI and data are also enabling us to identify at-risk behaviors early, providing support and ensuring that our growth remains responsible and sustainable. We have a proven track record to support this ambition. Since 2019, we have consistently demonstrated our ability to engage customers responsibly in the digital space. Our digital player base has steadily increased year after year, more than doubling versus 2019. We have achieved significant reduction in acquisition costs per player, improving efficiency and return on investment. We have seen a clear decline in the share of GGR from high-risk iLottery players from 2.3%- 1%, a strong indicator of our commitment to responsible gaming. Let's now turn to the second pillar of our strategy, transforming our retail network. Our objective is clear: expanding the reach and accessibility of our distribution network to better recruit and serve players wherever they are.
By 2028, we want branded banners to represent 20% of our POS network, doubling their share versus 2019. This network diversification, mostly through hypermarkets and supermarkets, will enable us to reach players who do not visit our traditional network. It will contribute to the recruitment of two-thirds of our new active player target, and it will generate more than 100% of value creation across the retail network. The transformation of our commercial organization and sales model is also key. By the end of 2025, we will have completed a major restructuring plan, which has involved considerable efforts over the past few years. First, with the internalization of the sales force to gain full control of our commercial strategy, with a complete overhaul of the field organization, reducing sectors from 140- 21, with the outsourcing of POS deliveries to make distribution more cost-efficient.
Starting in 2026, we will leverage this organization to implement a high-performance commercial model focused on value and driven by two main levers. First, launching a new segmented commercial approach to concentrate the sales force efforts on high-potential POS, in other words, high-value POS with committed shop owners. Second, developing commercial skills and leveraging AI to increase operational efficiency across our network. Pursuing this transformation is therefore both a growth project to boost retail sales, but also a key project to meet our 2028 performance plan objectives. The third pillar of our strategy is the omnichannel strategy. Why is it so important? First, because today's players expect seamless personalized experiences, whether they are online, in-store, or switching between both channels. Second, because it is a proven value driver. Omnichannel players have significantly higher average stakes than retail or digital-only players.
It will actively engage our partner retailers in our digital transformation. For this, we have already taken a major step forward. We have already signed a new agreement with all our retailers. This contract gives them a real interest in developing omnichannel and digital activity together. Our omnichannel strategy focuses on three key priorities. First, identifying players at point of sales. Second, reinforcing player protection across all channels. Third, converting single-channel users to omnichannel practices, responsibly increasing their engagement and value. Our ambition by 2028 is clear. More than 25% of our players will be identified. How do we get there? 2026 will be a turning point in our journey as it will mark the launch of player identification at retail point of sales, a cornerstone of our omnichannel approach.
Players will be able to create an account in-store, accessible across all channels, or use the existing digital account they have in-store. At the same time, players will benefit from FDJ & Moi, our first omnichannel loyalty program designed with responsible gaming at its core. This program will address evolving player expectations by recognizing their loyalty while rewarding their responsible gaming behaviors. That marks a major innovation in player engagement and protection in the lottery world. Building on those foundations, we are progressively crafting a best-in-class omnichannel experience powered by three key components. We will give our identified players access to a range of exclusive products and services, such as second-chance opportunities. We are unifying the player experience through the single-player account that connects digital and physical worlds.
The mobile app will be, of course, at the heart of this experience, making it easier for players to manage their activity. Finally, we will build deeper and more personalized relationships with our players, tailored to their preferences and grounded in responsible gaming. This will be enabled by leveraging data and AI capabilities, along with the launch of FDJ Protect, our new tool to monitor player behavior, which Vincent Perrottin will further cover in his presentation. Together, these levers will enhance player experience, accelerating the shift from single-channel to omnichannel players. As we look ahead to 2028, I want to leave you with the key indicators that summarize our ambition. From 2025- 2028, the French Lottery and Retail Sports Betting Business Unit is fully committed to delivering responsible and profitable growth.
Our financial targets are clear: delivering a low to mid-single-digit revenue CAGR while returning to an EBITDA margin level above 35% by 2028 at the latest. This will be supported by a strong performance plan meeting 40% of the 2028 group performance objectives. This will be also achieved by an increased digital penetration, reaching 20% of the lottery business in 2028, and a transformed retail network with banners representing 20% of the POS network by 2028. At the heart of this transformation is the omnichannel strategy, which will play a pivotal role aiming to identify at least 25% of players. With a clear strategy and a strong commitment to execution, I'm confident in our ability to deliver our 2028 ambition. Thank you all for your attention.
I will now hand over to Nils Anden, who is going to explain how online betting and gaming will bring substantial growth in the years to come. Before that, let's take a moment to have a quick look at the innovations we are bringing to instant gaming in France. Thank you.
Thank you, Patrick, for that very exciting presentation about our lottery and retail sports betting unit. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Nils Anden. I'm super excited to be here today to show you why FDJ UNIITED is uniquely positioned to take advantage of the dynamics in the online betting and gaming markets. I will, over the next 20 minutes or so, show how we will outgrow the market through our proprietary technology advantages and continue to drive increasing operational leverage while delivering growth and expansion. Our ambition is very clear.
We are going to excel at profitable scaling and generate revenue growth and foster margin growth. This relies on two key levers: outgrowing our markets, using our proprietary One Platform and in-house products to create great customer experiences, which translates into a high single-digit revenue CAGR through 2028. This is purely organic in our existing market footprint. We're also going to create high operating leverage through increased automation and standardization while maximizing the synergies within the larger group, resulting in an elevated EBITDA CAGR compared to our growth CAGR, leading to an EBITDA margin above 30% by 2028. If we look at the OBG business unit, our online betting and gaming business serves a 3.8 million strong active base and covers all key product verticals, 10 100% regulated or regulating markets, 11 brands with Unibet, our flagship brand, being one of the few truly pan-European multi-product brands.
We also have a rapidly growing top 10 online casino B2B provider in Relax Gaming. We are a truly multi-product, multi-brand, and multi-market business, which gives us a unique position in the market. Sports and casino are our key revenue drivers, these two product verticals accounting for just shy of 90% of our revenue. However, Relax Gaming, poker, and bingo are still key in driving incremental revenue and scalable EBITDA. From a market perspective, the big three markets we have, France, the U.K., and Netherlands, drive a majority of our revenue, but the split is relatively even between the three. It is also important to remember that the remaining markets also have a strong contribution, making our portfolio more diversified than many of our peers.
From this wide base of products and markets, we produced strong results in 2024, generating over EUR 1 billion in revenue and just shy of EUR 300 million in EBITDA at a 28.5% margin on a pro forma basis. We believe our business is in fundamentally attractive markets. The online gaming industry is resilient, with its significantly outperforming GDP and even growing during the last two recessions. Going forward, if we look at the next three and a half years, it is forecast to have strong growth with the markets we operate in specifically expected to grow above 6%. Critically, we have room to outgrow the market by taking market share, with many of our markets being fragmented and the industry in its early phases of consolidation.
In seven of our 10 markets, we see the top three operators having less than 70% market shares, one of those three being France, where we do have a top three position. Why is that important? It means there is plenty of opportunity to consolidate and increase our market share. However, to unlock the full potential of these markets, operators today must take heed of the evolving dynamics in the market and create not only the right strategies to adapt to them, but also build the right scalable assets and capabilities. We're not blind to the changes many of the markets have undergone in the last couple of years. Hence, our full focus is to excel at navigating these challenges to truly unlock the full potential of each market that we operate in.
How are we going to ensure that we can excel in this very dynamic environment? In essence, we see strong long-term value creation in three main areas: growth, operating leverage, and being able to take our winning formula to new markets. In order to capture our existing market's potential, we must do more than just maintain our market share. Therefore, we have put outgrowing the market as a core pillar in our strategy by delivering a differentiated customer experience to our core customer segment. More to come soon. Our second strategic pillar is operational effectiveness. We will continue to deliver significant efficiency savings not only through automation and AI and synergies, but also through shifting to a more scalable fixed cost structure by further enhancing our product control.
We will then deliver this winning formula of high operational effectiveness, core customer focus, and differentiated CX on our industry-leading One Platform. This sets the foundations for successful expansion, with us able to take this winning formula to new markets or acquired brands using our One Platform. While that might not be in our base case, this is a clear additional upside that we can deliver on. Let's now go a little bit more in deeper and look at how we are going to outgrow our existing markets. As mentioned, we're talking about these core customers. We need and want to focus on a sustainable, loyal customer who plays for fun. We call these core customers.
These sustainable customers are far more resilient to regulatory change, often playing below affordability limits, but still have attractive lifetime values due to their loyalty and high margin play, making our overall unit economics very attractive. Building the experiences and tailoring our products to this segment ensures we can acquire and retain better and future-proof our business to any further regulatory changes. While these customers today represent, as you can see, roughly 21% of our active base, they represent over 70% of our revenue. This is up from 18% and 54% respectively in 2020, showing our proven ability to win in this segment. Going forward, as mentioned, we will continue to focus on this segment, with them expected to represent 24% of actives and roughly 80% of our revenue by 2028. This will all build on our already loyal customer base.
As you can see, 77% of our revenue in 2024 came from customers acquired in previous years. Not all growth is equal. We want to grow sustainably. Our goal is to continue to create a sustainable customer base where we use our strong capabilities to continue to reduce the percentage of revenue from high-risk players. We have successfully deployed cutting-edge responsible gaming tools across our markets that have supported and will continue to support the positive trajectory and our increased focus on preventive-first approach. The strength and focus on our core customers will support this journey towards sustainable growth. As mentioned, the second leg of outgrowing the market is our enhanced product control.
That is a key part of driving this great experience as it allows us to create experiences that are tailored to our customers' needs that are also differentiated versus our competition, giving us a true competitive advantage. Currently, we fully own our own poker and horse racing products, as well as a variety of exclusive casino games. However, going forward, we will fully own our sports betting as well, with the full rollout of KSP and continue to develop our exclusive games library through Relax Gaming, our in-house casino provider. Let me now dive a little bit more deep into how our two main product verticals will contribute to our growth. We start with sportsbook. KSP is live in Estonia and 32Red in the U.K., two smaller markets for us, but is performing well, seeing strong margin and relative revenue performance.
The KSP is already a strong, functioning sportsbook, and we are improving it rapidly with more than 70 new features expected between now and the end of 2025. What is more exciting is that we've had the opportunity, and we are doing it, to build a true next-generation sportsbook without legacy that can really drive true differentiation. That is exactly what we are on course to do. KSP will deliver a true data-driven and personalized player experience using the latest technology and AI to ensure that our customers get the exact events and rewards they want. It also has best-in-class and high-resolution trading and risk management tools to ensure that we can run highly efficient, real-time trading operations. It has a slick, modern, and engaging UX that is truly differentiated and innovative.
Coming back to the core customers, it also has a strong design and development emphasis on high-margin entertaining products such as combos and bet builders in parallel with the state-of-the-art reward center. In casino, the second main product vertical, we have a wide game library of over 4,500 games. We are driving growth using next-gen personalization to ensure that we can recommend the best game for each individual customer. We additionally have a very strong proprietary games library thanks to Relax Gaming. Their network games come with significant cost of sales synergies, and their collaboration with us is also in part what has driven Relax Gaming's rapid growth and will continue to do in the future.
We complement this strong library of games with innovative features that bring extra enjoyment to our customers, whether it be filters that allow players to more rapidly find the games they're looking for, free-to-play games that incentivize customers to regularly come back to our site, or the new cross-provider jackpot tool that we built in partnership with Relax Gaming that we will release later this year that will allow our customers to turn any game into a jackpot game, creating an even more entertaining experience. Going forward, we will continue to innovate in the casino space, whether it be new features, exclusive games, or adding the best games to our library. This will be a driver for an even better experience for our customers and further improve our capability to drive growth.
All of this that I've just gone through will build on what is already proven to be a great customer experience. 62% of our customers who play with other operators say that we offer the best gaming experience out of all the operators they play with. 92% of all our players say that the experience exceeds their expectation. However, we never rest, never are satisfied. We want to continue to improve this further. We already have a track record of doing it by improving our net promoter score by 10% points in 2024 alone. Our strategy is really key to supercharging these efforts. We have come to the second key strategic circle. It is a continued strong focus on increasing our operational effectiveness. The efficiency gains you see here are part of the performance plan Pascal will touch upon a little bit later in today's presentation.
Specifically for the OBG business unit, this entails using the larger scale we have as a group to streamline our supply cost. We will transform our commercial department to ensure it's ready to really take advantage of the latest technology. We will build on the next-generation marketing technology we have already implemented. We will embrace automation across the business, including having augmented customer service operations and AI-led tech development. We will evolve our operating model towards leaner ways of working and structures. In addition to these, as I said earlier, we are evolving our P&L structure towards a higher share of fixed cost due to the greater product control, with 60% of our revenue expected to come from insourced products by 2028.
Showing you a little video here, which is really a reflection of the work we're doing to further automate our marketing and reward strategies to ensure consistency and facilitate optimization. We have created two things called AAMP, which is an automated advertising and marketing platform, and Create, which are proprietary AI-driven creative and campaign tools that allow us to rapidly build new marketing creatives, put them in production, and A/B test them to ensure optimal output. We call this the FDJ United's Casino GPT. It's actually very unique in its ability to automate, localize, and deploy marketing content efficiently by combining data inputs like localized offers, terms and conditions, and creative assets to create tailored campaigns. This can be used in a variety of outbound comms, including acquisition campaigns and CRM campaigns.
The launch of this tool has taken our campaign creation time from averaging two weeks to averaging under 20 minutes. If we move on, all of what we've described will be done on our one platform, with all our markets and brands fully migrated to our player account management platform during 2026, and KSP, our sportsbook, fully rolled out by the end of 2026. This really allows us to scale our winning formula of customer excellence and operational effectiveness across all our brands and markets, enabling us to drive high operational leverage and cross-market growth. It is a large contributor to the efficiency savings, as highlighted earlier, as part of the performance plan, and at the same time, drastically increasing our scalability.
Our one platform also enables us to rapidly launch new brands and markets, as well as integrate any potentially acquired companies, thereby ensuring we can scale our winning formula beyond our existing footprint. We circle back to the growth aspect. You can see we expect growth across our three main markets in the blue bar, but also from our smaller markets. We believe diversification is essential in ensuring we are resilient to regulatory changes in any individual market and that we can maximize our addressable market. Therefore, we will also continue to push for diversification going forward in two ways. Firstly, we will efficiently leverage improvements across markets and brands using our one platform to drive cross-market improvements. Secondly, as mentioned, while it's not incorporated in our financial projections, we will have the capacity to penetrate new markets organically and inorganically.
Not only does this represent potential additional revenue upside, but it also creates an opportunity for further diversification. Another key growth driver that relies on our broad brand portfolio that really allows us to maximize our addressable market proposition. Having this also on one platform is a distinct advantage as it enables us to scale our winning formula across brands and rapidly deploy new brands. We will start by capitalizing this by turning 32Red into a pan-European brand. We're starting right now by launching it in Romania imminently, offering a more internationally casino-focused brand to compete with the two brands we already operate in Romania, Unibet and Blood Casino, a locally focused casino brand. This is a key benefit of having a strong, diversified brand portfolio on a single platform, and we will drive further growth for the group.
We are ultimately building the foundations for expansion and going through a transformation of our business. This includes getting all brands and markets onto one platform, rolling out KSP, truly transforming our marketing capabilities, and delivering an augmented customer operations. This means we are now in a position to start transitioning from focus on building and transform to growth and expansion. This is not just, though, about delivering new brands, markets, and M&A, but also accelerating growth within our existing market footprint through delivering a fantastic customer experience. Summing up, we believe our strategy will enable us to outgrow the market with a high single-digit CAGR. This means building strong positions in our key markets. Today, we have podium positions in France, Netherlands, Finland, and Denmark, and top positions in Belgium and Sweden.
Our midterm ambition is, thanks to our winning formula, ensure we have podium positions in all our markets, with the U.K. being the obvious laggard due to the size of the market. It is still a fantastically attractive market. While doing this, we will achieve operational leverage, driving at least EUR 60 million in efficiency savings by 2028 and achieving a higher EBITDA CAGR than our growth CAGR. We are bringing all our brands and markets onto one platform during 2026, ensuring that all our markets can benefit from these improvements. All of the above means that we are really well set up to engage in further creative organic and inorganic expansion, taking our winning formula to new brands and new markets.
Putting this all together, we believe that we offer a unique value proposition to fulfill our ambition to be a leading European regulated gaming company excelling at profitable scaling, generating fast revenue growth, and faster margin growth. Thank you so much for listening. I'm now going to hand over to Giovanna Desposito for the international lottery part, which will be very exciting. Thank you.
Good afternoon. Thanks, everybody, for being here. My name is Giovanna Desposito. I joined FDJ United a few months ago as Chief International Lottery Officer. In the next 15 minutes, I will take you through an outline of where we are currently with our international lottery business, where we intend to get to, and why we are confident that we have the right strategy and that it will be effectively supported by group assets and group capabilities.
Our current international foothold includes lottery operations in Ireland following the acquisition of PLI in 2023, a joint venture called BZP, which is an instant ticket printing facility producing over 9 billion standard units. These are premium tickets that we also use in our Irish, French lotteries, among others, and iLottery Solutions, supported by our Interactive Factory, a platform that we successfully use with Nordics lotteries and other European lotteries, currently generating about EUR 90 million in GGR. Let's now zoom on PLI. Today, with the license secured through 2034, PLI enjoys 98% brand awareness. In 2024, it generated about EUR 370 million in GGR, of which two-thirds were transferred to good causes and delivers a 26% EBITDA margin that we are going to improve visibly over the next few years. This is a robust, well-managed national asset where we are already generating clear improvements as a group.
Looking ahead at the 2025-2028 period, PLI is expected to grow revenues by mid to high single digit annually. Growth and scale will be accelerated through a disciplined plan and through group synergies that will start yielding results already in Q4 this year. This includes redesigning our game portfolio thanks to learning from FDJ France, both in draw-based games and in scratch cards. We will introduce new game formats already towards the latter part of this year, and next year, we are revamping certain products such as our Lotto or Daily Millions. Pressing on digital innovation, expecting to deliver about 20% of total sales in iLottery, similarly to what France's Patrick explained.
Investing in the optimization of our retail network, looking not only at improving our footprint, but also introducing innovative distributions such as self-checkout systems and operational leverage, which will be achieved thanks to a double-digit improvement in EBITDA. These improvements in our margin are driven mostly by cooperation with the group, so shared services, platform integration, and procurement gains, for example, the scratch card production that I mentioned initially, and also in digital content. Now, PLI is our first international lottery operation, but of course, the opportunity landscape is much broader, and we are actively looking beyond Ireland. Our vision is to become a multi-jurisdictional lottery leader. We approach this with what we call global focus local fit. This means maintaining focus on our strengths and assets everywhere we go, and at the same time, adapting the operating model to the unique regulatory, cultural, consumer dynamics in each market.
We bring three strategic advantages to this effort: operational excellence. FDJ UNITED is globally renowned for this, an innovative and proven digital stack, and long-term relationships and credibility with institutional as well as commercial partners. We are globally recognized as a leading force in compliance, in responsible gaming, and in sustainability in relation to our players, in relation to society, and also sustainability in our financial practices. We believe that this is a very effective combination to deliver our ambition. How do we get there? Our strategy rests on four pillars. First, we want to leverage our European foundation, where we already understand regulatory complexity and consumer behavior. Priority is given to European markets, even though we will pursue opportunities elsewhere if we believe that we have a right to win. Second, we'll approach our growth through models that adjust to different markets.
I will comment a bit more on this in a few moments. Third, we are looking to build strategic partnerships, both locally or in certain cases across multiple jurisdictions. This will often be needed to strengthen our local credentials or complement our assets. Fourth, iLottery, which is the fastest-growing segment in our industry and where we have some clear advantages. These are the strategy principles, how we want to execute our strategy. Let me now tell you what we want to do. We are intentioned to pursue opportunities both organically and through M&A where relevant and in accordance with our capital allocation strategy. Worldwide, there are hundreds of lottery jurisdictions that currently generate about EUR 150 billion in GGR. We will not chase them all.
We apply a double filter of attractiveness and accessibility, which means that we prioritize opportunities that are sizable, that are growing, that are profitable, but also we take a very good look at where we can realistically enter, meaning looking at the structure of the license, at the competitive dynamics, and our own right to win. This brings us to a focused set of opportunities that by 2030 will have an approximate total addressable market of EUR 10 billion in GGR. Lottery markets worldwide have diverse operating models. They can range from fully licensed direct operations to central system type of contracts.
We want to remain focused on what we do well, and we will only operate in those configurations that are a good fit with us, which means as a direct lottery operator, mostly in Europe, as what we call a delegated operator, for example, when some state-owned lotteries outsource part or most of their value chain. Across these two models, a third model, which is iLottery, is a core part of our proposition. With iLottery, we will adopt a progressive approach, for example, starting as a pure content provider in certain markets and then expanding over time to a full turnkey solution. We are planning not only to embed iLottery within the first two models, but also offer it as a standalone service. In pursuing all these, we are not starting from zero, as you've heard already from my colleagues.
FDJ United has a strong base of 33 million customers. We understand players. We understand their needs and their behaviors. We have access to a large network of over 34,000 points of sale. We know how to work with retail partners. We know how to address their needs and pain points. We have in-house tech assets that are already deployed across nine international lotteries and a very rich catalog of games. We enjoy a clear leading position in responsible gaming and deliver direct measurable impact on society. I would like now to share a bit more about some of these elements and why they make us confident in a successful lottery internationalization. Starting from our in-house iLottery asset, the stack that we deploy includes game content, game engines, and platform modules that we can integrate with partners or scale directly. Ours is one of the top platforms available.
It does a lot of things. It offers access to all of FDJ UNITED's gaming engines that are among the most advanced on the market. We have multi-steps, multiplayer, progressive jackpots, phygital, and so on. It can aggregate third-party content with a wide range of mechanics and themes. Importantly, it enables lotteries not only to access our library content, but also to easily produce their own games on the platform. At the core of all of this, there is our distribution aggregation model interactive factory, which can be considered as an open innovation hub. It has been designed to be deployed in different jurisdictions, and it can also enable liquidity sharing. We believe that this is a very solid base, and all of this has acquired further competitive edge through the integration of Relax and our online betting and gaming division.
Today, we produce over 7,000 games through the Relax network. Whilst Relax is not currently producing lottery games, its platform and game creation capabilities are a clear potential asset within this segment. Our digital operations and digital marketing capabilities are now stronger than ever, thanks to Kindred. All of this means that we now have, as a group, content at scale, flexible platforms, and proven innovation that supports both growth and margin, as you heard from Nils and as Sébastien Rosanes will explain in more detail later today. All of this will be instrumental for a sustainable expansion. For a group like us, sustainable expansion and value generation also carries a strong societal meaning. We consider ourselves as the European champion in responsible gaming and positive societal impact.
On this note, I'd like to conclude with a word on PLI's contribution to this proposition through the Good Cause Program. In 2024, PLI transferred EUR 239 million to the Irish exchanger for good causes. Since the beginning of our license in 2014, we have transferred over EUR 2.5 billion to good causes. PLI is a stronger and more sustainable business today thanks to FDJ UNITED. FDJ UNITED is stronger at the core of its proposition thanks to PLI. Contribution to society is the right thing to do, but it also strengthens our operating model thanks to public support and cooperation with regulators. These are levers that we intend to maintain and to nurture everywhere we go. I'd like to show you now a short video that embodies this spirit. You.
You know you didn't just play, right? You helped me get my first time in the game!
You rescued this bat. You revived a tradition. You came to the rescue. You were a teammate. A work of art. A high nose. A safe space. You did not just play. You made this possible.
I believe that we now have a 10-minute break before welcoming to the stage Pascal Chaffard, our Group CFO and Strategy and Performance Leader, who will talk to us about much-awaited, I am certain, financials and about our value creation model. Thank you.
Je ne t'ai pas montré ma dernière prise. Mais non. Bah si. Oui, c'est bien sur l'appli FDJ que l'on peut recevoir ses gains et les virer sur son compte bancaire. Mais non. Un projet qui... Pardon. Il n'y a plus de saison. Ouais, non, mais c'est sans fin, ce truc. Bah oui, tous les mois pendant 30 ans. T'as gagné, t'as gagné. Ouais, j'ai gagné.
Tentez de gagner jusqu'à EUR 20,000 par mois pendant 30 ans. Eurodreams, le nouveau jeu de tirage FDJ. FDJ, partenaire officiel des Jeux de Paris 2024. Les joueuses d'escrime entrent en piste. Petit check d'épée. Oh, elle a touché. Oui, Éric, c'est elle le chat maintenant. Sans aucun endroit où se percher, ça va être dur pour la souris. Mais peut-être, mais peut-être que oui, Éric! Incroyable retournement de situation, c'est maintenant l'Américaine qui est le chat. She is a cat! Dans le sport, il vaut mieux connaître les règles. Et pour les jeux d'argent, c'est pareil. Avoir plus de 18 ans, se fixer un budget, surveiller sa pratique. FDJ, partenaire officiel des Jeux de Paris 2024. Mission Nature, c'est le jeu de grattage consacré à la biodiversité lancé par FDJ United et l'Office français de la biodiversité. Comment ça marche? C'est simple.
Pour chaque ticket acheté, une partie de la somme est reversée à l'Office français de la biodiversité pour financer des programmes concrets de restauration écologique. 43 projets ont déjà été soutenus. 2025, c'est l'année de la mer. Alors cette année, Mission Nature met à l'honneur la mer et les littoraux. Pour cette troisième édition, ce sont 21 nouveaux projets sélectionnés partout en France. Des projets pour préserver nos mers et nos littoraux, dans l'Hexagone comme dans les outre-mer, et pour sauvegarder de nombreuses espèces. Pour protéger la biodiversité, c'est à vous de jouer. C'est quoi votre style? Mon style? Foot, basket, tennis. Je joue sur les trois terrains. Mon style? Toujours mettre la chance de mon côté. Ma spécialité? Frappé au bon moment. Votre style? Votre pari. Unibet, par les joueurs, pour les joueurs. T'as parié sur qui, toi, Jérôme? J'ai rien parié, au final, je le sentais bof.
T'as raison. Des fois, il faut réfléchir. Garder bien la tête froide, un peu comme moi, quoi, tu vois. Qu'est-ce qu'il y a? Rien. Non, pari. C'est décevant, Jérôme. Mais j'aime pas trop les regards comme ça. Non, non, mais moi non plus, j'ai pas aimé. Je sais pas si ça relève de la paranoïa, mais... En point de vente, bien parier, c'est parfois ne rien parier. Salut, Gérard. Salut. Joli gant. Merci. Je peux avoir du cash, s'il te plaît? Bien sûr. Ta veste est immonde. C'est pas gentil, ça. Non, mais c'est cash. Bah merci. Je t'en prie. Tu sais, j'ai vu des sommets où la neige était éternelle. J'ai vu des poissons de couleurs que je connaissais même pas. J'ai vu des plats tellement beaux que je ne sais même pas y goûter. Même pas y toucher.
Mais mon plus beau souvenir depuis que j'ai gagné un EuroMillions, ça reste la tête de ma famille quand je leur annonçais que je partageais avec eux. Mais t'es un poisson ? Oui, oui, oui, oui. FDJ, partenaire officiel des Jeux de Paris 2024. Il y en a un qui gagne, on partage ? Il est fou, lui. Non. Oh mon pote. Et ça fait combien si on divise par trois ? On va diviser par un. C'est plus simple. Quoi ? Il dit quoi ? C'est plus d'un million de gagnants par jour et un seul ticket suffit. Sauf pour les moins de 18 ans. Là, c'est interdit. Bah oui, c'est comme ça. On joue quoi, là ? Tu mets victoire de Paris avec au moins trois buts dans le match. Ok, et but de qui ? Paul État ? Non. Qu'est-ce qu'il raconte ? Je peux avoir un café, s'il te plaît ? Bonjour.
Très bien, et vous? Du coup. En point de vente, profitez de codes boostés sur les buteurs du Paris Saint-Germain. Au fait, Théo, t'as fait un dessin? Je vais l'accrocher là, il sera très bien. Bah, c'est quoi ce nouveau tableau, maman? T'as gagné au Loto, ou quoi? Il dessine bien, ce petit, hein? Loto, ça n'arrive pas qu'aux autres. Vendredi 14, super Loto de la Saint-Valentin de EUR 13 million. Pour tenter votre chance, rendez-vous en point de vente ou sur l'appli FDJ. Dis, je t'ai pas montré ma dernière prise. Mais non. Bah si. Oui, c'est bien sur l'appli FDJ que l'on peut recevoir ses gains et les virer sur son compte bancaire. Mais non. Un projet qui... Pardon. Il n'y a plus de saison. Ouais, non, mais c'est sans fin, ce truc. Bah oui, tous les mois pendant 30 ans. T'as gagné, t'as gagné. Ouais, j'ai gagné.
Tentez de gagner jusqu'à EUR 20,000 par mois pendant 30 ans. Eurodreams, le nouveau jeu de tirage FDJ. FDJ, partenaire officiel des Jeux de Paris 2024. Les joueuses d'escrime entrent en piste. Petit check d'épée. Oh, elle a touché. Oui, Éric, c'est elle le chat maintenant. Sans aucun endroit où se percher, ça va être dur pour la souris. Mais peut-être, mais peut-être que oui, Éric! Incroyable retournement de situation, c'est maintenant l'Américaine qui est le chat. She is a cat! Dans le sport, il vaut mieux connaître les règles. Et pour les jeux d'argent, c'est pareil. Avoir plus de 18 ans, se fixer un budget, surveiller sa pratique. FDJ, partenaire officiel des Jeux de Paris 2024. Mission Nature, c'est le jeu de grattage consacré à la biodiversité lancé par FDJ United et l'Office français de la biodiversité. Comment ça marche? C'est simple.
Pour chaque ticket acheté, une partie de la somme est reversée à l'Office français de la biodiversité pour financer des programmes concrets de restauration écologique. 43 projets ont déjà été soutenus. 2025, c'est l'année de la mer. Alors cette année, Mission Nature met à l'honneur la mer et les littoraux. Pour cette troisième édition, ce sont 21 nouveaux projets sélectionnés partout en France. Des projets pour préserver nos mers et nos littoraux, dans l'Hexagone comme dans les outre-mer, et pour sauvegarder de nombreuses espèces. Pour protéger la biodiversité, c'est à vous de jouer. C'est quoi votre style? Mon style? Foot, basket, tennis. Je joue sur les trois terrains. Mon style? Toujours mettre la chance de mon côté. Ma spécialité? Frappé au bon moment. Votre style? Votre pari. Unibet, par les joueurs, pour les joueurs. T'as parié sur qui, toi, Jérôme? J'ai rien parié, au final, je le sentais bof.
T'as raison. Des fois, il faut réfléchir. Gardez bien la tête froide, un peu comme moi, quoi, tu vois. Qu'est-ce qu'il y a? Rien. Non, pari. C'est décevant, Jérôme. J'aime pas trop les regards comme ça. Non, non, mais moi non plus, j'ai pas aimé. Je sais pas si ça relève de la paranoïa, mais... En point de vente, bien parié, c'est parfois ne rien parier. Salut, Gérard. Salut. Joli gang. Merci. Je peux avoir du cash, s'il te plaît? Bien sûr. T'as vu, c'est immonde. C'est pas gentil, ça. Non, mais c'est cash. Bah merci. Je t'en prie. Tu sais, j'ai vu des sommets où la neige était éternelle. J'ai vu des poissons de couleurs que je connaissais même pas. J'ai vu des plats tellement beaux que je ne sais même pas y goûter. Même pas y toucher.
Mais mon plus beau souvenir depuis que j'ai gagné un EuroMillions, ça reste la tête de ma famille quand je leur annonçais que je partageais avec eux. FDJ, partenaire officiel des Jeux de Paris 2024. Tu mets un qui gagne, on partage ? Il est fou, lui. Non. Oh mon pote. Et ça fait combien si on divise par trois ? On va diviser par un. C'est plus simple. Quoi ? Il dit quoi ? C'est plus d'un million de gagnants par jour et un seul ticket suffit. Sauf pour les moins de 18 ans. Là, c'est interdit. Bah oui, c'est comme ça. On joue quoi, là ? Tu mets victoire de Paris avec au moins trois buts dans le match. Ok, et but de qui ? Paul État ? Non. Qu'est-ce qu'il raconte ? Je peux avoir un café, s'il te plaît ? Bonjour. Très bien, et vous ? Du coup.
En point de vente, profitez de codes boostés sur les buteurs du Paris Saint-Germain. Au fait, Théo, t'as fait un dessin? J'ai vu l'accrocher là, il sera très bien. Bah, c'est quoi ce nouveau tableau, maman? T'as gagné au Loto, ou quoi? Il dessine bien, ce petit, hein? Loto, ça n'arrive pas qu'aux autres. Vendredi 14, Super Loto de la Saint-Valentin de EUR 13 million. Pour tenter votre chance, rendez-vous en point de vente ou sur l'appli FDJ. Dis, je t'ai pas montré ma dernière prise. Mais non. Bah si. Oui, c'est bien sur l'appli FDJ que l'on peut recevoir ses gains et les virer sur son compte bancaire. Mais non. Un projet qui... Pardon. Il n'y a plus de saison. Ouais, non, mais c'est sans fin, ce truc. Bah oui, tous les mois pendant 30 ans. T'as gagné, t'as gagné. Ouais, j'ai gagné.
Tentez de gagner jusqu'à EUR 20,000 par mois pendant 30 ans. Eurodreams, le nouveau jeu de tirage FDJ. FDJ, partenaire officiel des Jeux de Paris 2024. Les joueuses d'escrime entrent en piste. Petit check d'épée. Oh, elle a touché. Oui, Éric, c'est elle le chat maintenant. Sans aucun endroit où se percher, ça va être dur pour la souris. Mais peut-être, mais peut-être que oui, Éric! Incroyable retournement de situation, c'est maintenant l'Américaine qui est le chat. She is a cat! Dans le sport, il vaut mieux connaître les règles. Et pour les jeux d'argent, c'est pareil. Avoir plus de 18 ans, se fixer un budget, surveiller sa pratique. FDJ, partenaire officiel des Jeux de Paris 2024. Mission Nature, c'est le jeu de grattage consacré à la biodiversité lancé par FDJ United et l'Office français de la biodiversité. Comment ça marche? C'est simple.
Pour chaque ticket acheté, une partie de la somme est reversée à l'Office français de la biodiversité pour financer des programmes concrets de restauration écologique. 43 projets ont déjà été soutenus. 2025, c'est l'année de la mer. Alors cette année, Mission Nature met à l'honneur la mer et les littoraux. Pour cette troisième édition, ce sont 21 nouveaux projets sélectionnés partout en France. Des projets pour préserver nos mers et nos littoraux, dans l'Hexagone comme dans les outre-mer, et pour sauvegarder de nombreuses espèces. Pour protéger la biodiversité, c'est à vous de jouer.
Good afternoon to you all, here, with us and remotely. I am Pascal Chaffard, Group CFO, Strategy and Performance Leader. Today, I'm going to outline the strong appeal of our financial model. I will highlight its highly cash-generative nature and showcase the value creation we will deliver over the next three years.
Its appeal resides in our ability to do all of these at the same time, fuel profitable growth organically, provide external growth optionality to accelerate further, and offer attractive value to all stakeholders, including shareholders, with attractive dividends. First, a quick comment to say that we are reiterating our guidance for 2025, with stable revenue compared to 2024 pro forma, an EBITDA margin of more than 24%. As indicated in March, we are mitigating gaming tax increases in France and the Netherlands, as well as stricter regulation implementation in the Netherlands and in the U.K. I'll detail our cost efficiency measures later on. I'd like now to come back to the attractive medium-term objectives introduced by Stéphane as part of our Plan Forward 2028 Strategic Plan. Our growth journey will resume with an average annual organic revenue growth of around 5% over the period 2025 to 2028.
The EBITDA margin will stand above 26% in 2028, compared to 24% in 2025, thanks to powerful operating leverage and meaningful cost efficiencies. CapEx will remain at a moderate level of between 4%-5% of revenue, perfectly tailored to our needs. Thanks to a negative working capital, the EBITDA to free cash flow conversion rate will continue to be above 80%, which we've consistently delivered since IPO. The group will maintain a very solid and disciplined financial structure, strong investment grade with a net financial debt to EBITDA ratio of no more than two times. Finally, a strong commitment to increase the dividend year on year with a minimum payout of 75% of adjusted net income. We are very confident in achieving these objectives given our powerful financial model coupled with a strong performance culture within the group. This slide illustrates the strong appeal of our financial model.
It will structure the rest of my presentation. We can rely on a strong performance-led culture in both our business units and central functions, including finance. This underpins our ability to drive robust organic growth, which is compounded by our ability to generate cost efficiencies while benefiting from operating leverage. Leverage is higher online, which validates our growth strategy that strongly focuses on digital. We are asset-light with moderate CapEx requirements due to our third-party-owned retail distribution. We have a structurally negative working capital, hence an additional resource as we continue to grow states. All this leads to a very high level of EBITDA conversion into free cash flow. We can therefore optimize our capital allocation with two key priorities on which we will both deliver. Firstly, invest to fuel sustainable and profitable growth. Secondly, offer attractive value to our shareholders. Moving on to these points in more detail.
Starting with the top-line growth, since IPO, we have recorded an average annual organic revenue growth of 5.5%. This year is a transition year for the reason that I mentioned earlier. Looking beyond, we expect our historical circa plus 5% growth trajectory to resume, supported by two key drivers: our ability to reinvent activity under exclusive rights, and thanks to the integration of Kindred, our ability to capture a much larger share of the online momentum driving our sector. Note that we do not expect the growth trajectory to be totally linear over time. Indeed, the phasing of increased gaming taxes in France and the Netherlands implies an impact not only in 2025 but also in 2026, with around 1.5% of the group revenue growth softening. Without these lingering impacts, in 2026, our new medium-term objectives would compare even more favorably versus historical growth.
Note also that our projections take into account all tax and regulation impacts known to date. We have been able to deliver EBITDA growth in excess of revenue growth. With revenue growth resuming next year, we therefore expect the EBITDA margin will start expanding again, reaching more than 26% in 2028 from more than 24% this year. This means more than 200 basis points margin accretion in three years. As with revenue, margin expansion will be continuous but not linear. We need to bear in mind the phasing of both gaming tax increases and the cost efficiency measures that we are implementing. In detail, we anticipate an EBITDA margin of more than 35% for LSF and 30% for OBG in 2028. For both PUs, we expect their respective margins to reach at least 2024 pro forma levels as soon as 2027.
In March, when we published our results for 2024, we announced a EUR 100 million annual cost efficiencies by 2027. Today, we extend these to EUR 120 million by 2028. As you can see on the chart to the left, this performance plan will have a progressive impact reflecting its more transformative nature. We are strategically making our business model more efficient in the long term, extracting savings as we go along. This year, we expect the majority of the EUR 20 million to come from short-term savings, such as rationalizing marketing expenses or other arbitrable costs like consulting fees. In 2026 and 2027, our business transformation initiatives, as well as the synergies coming from the integration of Kindred, will start to bear fruit in a very meaningful way. On the pie chart to the right, you can see these cover multiple areas.
For example, you have heard from Patrick about retail transformation in France and also Nils about the consolidation of our online gaming platforms in Europe. In terms of BU, more than 50% of total efficiencies will be delivered within OBG, 40% within LSF, and the rest within central costs. Our plan is being deployed over time to be the most fruitful it can be in a sensible way. We will continuously review it, assessing progress while potentially identifying new streams of efficiency improvement. In addition to our sharp focus on cost optimization, our cost base, being 48% fixed, allows meaningful operating leverage. A simulation using this cost split indicates that EUR 1 of incremental revenue would have converted it to around 60% of incremental EBITDA, hence an incremental EBITDA margin of 60%. This represents a substantial accretion compared to the 25.5% EBITDA margin recorded last year on a pro forma basis.
All of the things equal, our retail activities in France, despite a larger share of variable cost, namely retailers' remuneration, indicate an incremental EBITDA margin of around 50%. Leverage is even greater online, either within iLottery in France or OBG, as you can see on the chart to the left. Leverage then gets compounded below the EBITDA with fixed depreciation and amortization costs. We are asset-light because our retail operations rely on third parties for distribution. This translates into moderate CapEx requirements of between 4%-5% of revenue. In recent years, we were in the upper part of this range, supporting online growth. Going forward, we expect this ratio to trend down, reflecting the shift from CapEx to OpEx within some IT spending relating to cloudification or artificial intelligence, for example. In other words, we will not be spending less to support growth, but we will be spending differently.
It is important to note that this will be neutral in terms of free cash flow generation. We estimate our CapEx needs for 2025-2028 to range from EUR 650 million-EUR 700 million. You can see on the pie chart that IT accounts for the vast majority, around 75%. Finally, we have a structurally negative working capital generating excess cash as we continue to grow stakes. This comes from the time lag between when stakes are cashed in and when winnings and gaming levies are paid. We have levered up to finance the acquisition of Kindred. We have a more efficient balance sheet now versus almost three years ago when I was presenting during our previous capital markets day. With financial costs, we have in effect added another layer of fixed cost, further compounding EBITDA growth into earnings growth. Yet, we have a very solid financial position.
Our long-term credit rating assigned by Moody's is Baa1, with a stable outlook reflecting its investment-grade status. In November 2024, we successfully placed a bond issue for EUR 1.5 billion with three tranches maturing in 2030, 2033, and 2036, with an annual coupon ranging from 3%-3.6%-5%. In parallel, we finalized a EUR 400 million syndicated loan with top-tier French and international banks to be repaid over five years. We also achieved a good balance between the bond and the bank debt, and most of our debt is fixed. The average cost of debt is around 3.5%. Combining organic growth, operating leverage, and cost efficiency from an income statement perspective with an asset-light model and a negative working capital from a balance sheet perspective makes us very highly cash generative.
Since IPO, we have consistently delivered our target of converting at least 80% of EBITDA into free cash flow, and we are very confident this will continue. This means we have rapid delivery potential. Today, we confirm also our expectation to reduce net debt by at least EUR 150 million this year versus EUR 1.8 billion at the end of 2024. With ongoing delivery potential beyond this year, we will also be able to consider external growth opportunities. We will have the flexibility to temporarily exceed our target leverage ceiling of two times net debt to EBITDA while remaining investment grade, which is paramount. Considering now the two business units where we see external growth as a strategic two. Regarding OBG, the transformative acquisition of Kindred gave us a highly scalable synergetic platform for future expansion through bolt-on acquisitions.
Our aim is to either gain market share in existing markets or expand primarily in Western and Eastern Europe with a high level of synergies. Regarding international lottery, we seek to leverage our asset and decades-long expertise. We will consider acquisition of B2C lottery operators like we did with PLI and also opportunities to bid for new licenses or renewals to operate national or regional lotteries. Being so highly cash generative allows us to optimize capital allocation. We can fuel organic growth with sustained CapEx while also being able to consider external growth opportunities without further permanent leverage. At the same time, we can offer attractive value to stakeholders by servicing our debt, making voluntary societal contributions, and paying a generous dividend to shareholders. Indeed, over the 2020 to 2024 period, we paid EUR 1.1 billion in dividends, representing nearly 20% of today's market capitalization.
Our dividend policy is to increase dividend year after year with a minimum payout ratio of 75% of adjusted net income. In the coming years, our capital allocation will be well balanced between dividends and investment in additional growth. This additional growth is a very interesting upside on top of the organic objectives we have presented today. In conclusion, FDJ UNITED represents a unique value proposition extracting the best of two worlds: growth and dividend. We will continue to deliver solid, profitable, and sustainable organic revenue growth. M&A can provide additional growth, creating more value while keeping a very sound balance sheet. All this will be achieved while maintaining a high level of cash returns to shareholders. Now I'm pleased to hand over to Sébastien to show you how data and AI will be a catalyst for growth and efficiency.
Good afternoon, everyone.
My name is Sébastien Rosanes. I am the Chief Data and AI Officer of FDJ UNITED Group. I'm pleased to be here with you today to share the exciting digital transformation journey we are embarking on at FDJ UNITED, especially around the use of artificial intelligence. To start, let me take stock of where we are today in this journey. First, we've built robust digital assets serving 9 million customers in over 15 countries, with a bench of more than 20 mobile apps and 100,000 terminals in our point of sales. These digital assets form today a bedrock on which we've built strong data foundations from the ground up. We have more than 300 data experts organized in five data factories across the group and more than 300 million analytic events processed every single day.
To say the least, FDJ UNITED is a data-rich company, and we've built very solid data and digital foundations. What's next? As you see, GenAI and Agentic AI are the new frontiers of our digital transformation journey, leveraging these strong digital and data assets that we've built steadily over the years. The purpose of the next 10 minutes together will be to share with you how we are going to build up towards this new frontier. Looking ahead of us, our vision is clear: leverage AI to elevate gaming experiences and processes to drive responsible growth, reach new standards of operational excellence to improve efficiency and effectiveness, and provide a compelling culture to attract and nurture top talents. To do that, as Stéphane introduced it to you earlier, we are committed to two main priorities. First, elevate gaming experiences and customer experience to drive responsible growth.
Second, improve efficiency to reach new standards of operational excellence. Let me detail this out for you. To conclude my presentation, I will outline how we will operate this acceleration behind the scenes. Let's jump in. First, chase growth done responsibly, using AI and data as our secret weapon. First step, as we innovate, we are staying true to our responsible gaming roots. This is a big deal for us as we want to protect our customers, as Patrick and Nils outlined. We begin with the basics, gathering data to better understand our clients. Using part of that data, we are developing cutting-edge cognitive science solutions to detect undesired behaviors, enable real-time risk prevention, and reduce underage gambling. Second, marketing excellence. Across lottery and online betting and gaming, we will make the best of every euro invested into building close-knit customer relationships and relevant interactions.
In lottery, leveraging our FDJ & Moi omnichannel program and with AI-driven segmentation, we can really get to know our customers. This allows us to tailor our messages and offers, making sure every interaction hits the mark. In OBG, we are developing our AMP platform, as Nils Anden mentioned, our next-generation marketing engine, a platform that combines local inputs in developer customer data to develop more targeted and more effective marketing campaigns. Besides, thanks to AI, we will accelerate the rollout of campaigns by up to 10 times, automating all steps from design and orchestration of campaigns and content creation, deployment of the content, and feedback collection. The third pillar is our next frontier in client relationship management: the personalized gaming experiences. Imagine having a virtual coach that gives you real-time tips to make better gaming choices.
It analyzes historical sports data to show you the winning probabilities and offers personalized advice. This isn't just about playing the game. It's about experiencing it to a whole new level. The assistant will also be available 24/7, enabling our customers to get the answers to their questions faster. On top of this, we will expand the depth and the richness of graphic design of our online casino games thanks to the power of generative AI. Finally, we are enhancing personalization with a Netflix-style algorithm, creating smarter, more tailored online navigation and experiences and game recommendations that boost engagement and drive results. In short, our growth strategy is all about striking the right balance. We are not just expanding; we are doing it responsibly and with our customers in mind. Next, let's dive into how AI is taking our efficiency to the next level.
First, our duty is to uphold the highest level of compliance to protect our players, partners, and our group. It is at the heart of our DNA. AI will be an extraordinary enabler to tackle fraud and money laundering head-on. With AI-enhanced investigations, we will catch issues faster, detect more complex schemes, and enhance communications with our regulators. Secondly, when it comes to customer-facing interactions, we are automating processes so our sales and customer service team can focus on what truly matters: building real human interactions. We want to make it about understanding our customers deeply and delivering exactly what they need. For example, our three-year plan includes that up to half of digital customer interactions, the most common and higher volume, will be handled fully by AI. We are already on our way, accelerating fast. This also applies to our sales and retail lottery business.
One of the standout features we are introducing this year in our augmented field salesforce environment, and that we demonstrated at VivaTech two weeks ago, is a powerful AI-enabled voice assistant. After meeting with one of our 28,000 merchants, our salesperson jumps into his or her car and starts a conversation with the assistant to debrief from the meeting. It is like having a personal assistant in the pocket on the road, providing a wide range of assistance, from writing a structured report up to taking targeted actions based on this report. This is where the Agentic AI comes into play. We call it Lucia. At the end of this presentation, you will have a short video specifically on Lucia. Now you might ask me, how are we going to do this? For this, let me briefly share how we will transform to perform this data and AI acceleration.
We talked about the cutting-edge productivity tools that AI enables. This transformation starts, of course, with technology, but it goes way beyond that. It is about empowering every single FDJ United employee and building a powerful ecosystem. First, on tech, we are tapping into OBG's pure player assets and expertise to upgrade our tech foundations across the group. By leveraging this expertise, we are already building our next-generation tech platforms anchored on cloud-first analytics and open source to enable scalability. For this, we are also partnering with leading global tech firms as we progress on our journey. Second, on people, we are also committed to developing a common culture and shared expertise through global upskilling to data and AI. We will make it very concrete. We commit to train 100% of our staff to data and AI by the end of 2026. We are already on our way.
For example, last month, we onboarded the top 100 leaders of the company into this AI journey. This leadership group showed a lot of drive and desire for transformation with AI. They committed in this session to take actions. Next step is, of course, equipping all our corporate functions with specialized AI agents, such as an HR agent, legal agent, or finance agent. The goal is very, very clear: boost productivity and refocus on high-value tasks. For this, we are building the FDJ UNITED Agent Store to enable all functions with task automations and retrieval augmented generation, or RAG, for every area of expertise. On top of this, we've assembled a team of more than 300 data and AI professionals as we integrated Kindred into the group. This is a really powerful strike force to build and transform.
Finally, through FDJ United Ventures, our corporate venture capital fund, we've invested EUR 70 million so far in tech startups to infuse disruptive innovations into our business, including EUR 25 million in AI startups. We have more than EUR 40 million to deploy by the end of 2028. With this, we support trailblazing startups, and we build an ecosystem that we can leverage internally to open new avenues in our business. This investment strategy ensures we are constantly pushing the boundaries and exploring new frontiers. In summary, transforming together with AI is about more than just technology. It's all about the people and about building a stronger, more agile organization where every employee is empowered and equipped with AI to contribute to our shared success. Our leadership is on board with this transformation journey and ready to act.
This is setting us up for a future where we lead in the industry, not just follow it. Thank you for your attention. Let me give the floor to Charles and Vincent, who will share our ambitious trajectory towards sustainability. Before, as promised, let me give you a quick sneak peek into Lucia, our new AI assistant for our lottery salesforce. Thank you.
Meet Lucia, your AI voice assistant designed to supercharge sales performance. Lucia captures spoken conversations, generates clear summaries, and eliminates low-value tasks so salespeople can focus on what truly matters: building deeper customer relationships. From identifying merchants via agenda or address to structuring reports, asking smart follow-up questions, and preparing briefs for next meetings, Lucia does it all. Reports are auto-organized and always accessible. Less administration, more impact, stronger client bonds. Lucia, serving our sales team and our merchants.
Good afternoon, everyone.
I'm Charles Lantieri, Deputy CEO of FDJ UNITED, and I'm pleased to present our sustainability strategy. I will share this presentation with Vincent Perrottin, who is Chief Sustainability Officer at FDJ United. I will outline our main objectives, and Vincent will explain how we are achieving them. Sustainability is strategic for FDJ UNITED to create long-lasting value for all stakeholders. This strategic conviction is nurtured, of course, by our history since the creation of the national lottery in 1933, and even more by the strong commitments we have taken the past 30 years and that we are taking to the future. Furthermore, in FDJ UNITED's case, our model of growth and profitability has always included awareness of the non-financial impact of our activity.
Because FDJ UNITED has been created for solidarity with the veterans of the First World War, so-called the Broken Faces, and nowadays, solidarity is the purpose of the FDJ UNITED Foundation, which helped 370,000 people since 2018, and because player protection has always been our concern. FDJ UNITED has been one of the first gaming operators to develop a comprehensive, responsible gaming program. It has been having the best level of certification among lotteries for many years. At the end of the day, this commitment towards players and more broadly society makes sustainability a fundamental part of the brand value. As an example, FDJ UNITED, which is a lottery and retail sports betting brand, has 97% of awareness, as Patrick mentioned. This brand value significantly contributes to FDJ UNITED share value. Beyond this contribution to the value, sustainability is a fundamental asset of our activity.
It strengthens our legitimacy to operate the monopolies, which will remain the main source of rentability for many years. This legitimacy is a strong asset at the time when we have to candidate to renew our monopoly license, first in Ireland and then in France. Furthermore, it is a source of comparative advantage in competitive markets, online betting and gaming markets, considering the evolution of the regulations to be ready to comply with them. Finally, it gives us a framework, a strong know-how to address other markets, especially considering the international lottery strategy that Giovanna Desposito described earlier. This conviction has fueled our work to define FDJ UNITED's new purpose. Indeed, FDJ UNITED is not only a new brand, but also a new company with new dimensions following the recent acquisitions.
We decided to redefine its purpose to take this new reality into account, but also confirm our fundamentals. This work on this new purpose has been an opportunity to highlight commonalities between the components of the new group, especially FDJ, Kindred, and PLI. This purpose that you can read on the screen states that FDJ UNITED intends to inspire the future of safe and entertaining lottery, gaming, and betting with positive impact on society. It has been included in our status, and several commitments are associated with it to drive operational goals, in particular in respect to our sustainability strategy. FDJ UNITED's sustainability policy, of course, exhaustively covers the different topics of economic, environmental, and social responsibility. This was recognized by the score of 71% given by Moody's ESG Solutions.
To respect the schedule, I will not give you an exhaustive view of this extended commitment, but I will focus on the heart of the strategy, which is based on two pillars: address risks and externalities, and beyond that, amplify positive impacts. The first pillar: address risks and externality. First, responsible gaming is core to our business and industry. Player protection is key for our customers and for the regulation authorities. That is why we want to go on setting industry standards. Second, decarbonization is core to every company. On this crucial point, we have committed to have a target of carbon emissions reduction, which is in line with Paris Agreement. The second pillar: amplify positive impacts. Redistribution to various stakeholders is by nature a characteristic of our activity model, especially lottery. It includes the finances of good causes and, more broadly, general interest.
Beyond that, as a committed company, we aim to add a positive impact for society and for the environment, which includes everything we will do proactively to amplify our positive impact on our social and environmental ecosystem. These are not only words. We have clear commitments that I can illustrate to you with a few KPIs. On responsible gaming, we have decided to expand our ambition of dedicating 10% of media budget to preventive communication. This target, as you know, has been implemented since 2021 at FDJ UNITED and is now extended to the group level. We also commit to reduce GGR from high-risk players. FDJ UNITED and Kindred were the first operators to have such a commitment, and we still are the only ones. We have continually reduced this ratio for the last years.
As we are currently working on the best way to provide a group-wide view on responsible gaming, we will publish the new associated KPI in 2026 once we have the consolidated view. On decarbonization now, our decarbonization strategy is compliant with CSRD requirements. Two key performance indicators are linked to carbon emissions across all scopes, that is to say, including our entire value chain, minus 42% carbon emissions across scope one and two, and - 25% carbon emissions across scope three by 2030 compared to 2022. We have a clear action plan on five main areas to address this decarbonization trajectory: game material, IT, sales, mobility, and real estate. Of course, to commit the whole company on this goal, on all these goals, some of them are, of course, taken into account for short-term and long-term incentives for employees and the top management.
I propose you to dive now into the positive impacts. Our business model is specific to the lottery, gaming, and betting industry. It distributes values to all stakeholders. You can see on the screen a selection of figures that we track every year to measure the evolution of our positive impacts towards our stakeholders beyond shareholders' remuneration. As Giovanna underlined, good causes are highly important in Ireland, and we have implemented a similar approach in France with Mission Patrimoine and Mission Nature. These are games with a cause for which our activity financially contributes above the EUR 4.5 billion we pay to general interest through specific gaming taxes. Another example is the EUR 1 billion remuneration we pay to our resellers that are also a very important contribution to the vitality of our territories in France and in Ireland.
On top of the model of redistribution, we are building a unique approach by giving back to society and the environment to provide a positive impact. We have decided to progressively commit to allocate 5% of our net income to society and environment in 2030, knowing that today we are at the level of 2.7%. Vincent will come back to it. I would like to emphasize to you that this commitment is strong and is very important too. It is made because we are convinced that we must contribute to a more sustainable world. While reducing risks and externalities is important, it is not enough in a context where our planet and our societies are facing major threats. We believe that businesses must do more than offset their externalities. They must contribute to a better life.
Taking into account who we are and what are the main threats of our environment, we have decided to concentrate this impact on social inclusion on one side and biodiversity preservation on the other side. We have computed that without significantly impacting shareholder remuneration or the company's investment capacity, as Pascal told you, 5% of the total net profit of FDJ UNITED could have a real impact. Vincent Perrottin is now going to give you more details on these important topics, and on the way, we operationalize this strategy. Vincent, I'll give you the floor.
Thank you, Charles, and hello everyone. I'm Vincent Perrottin, Chief Sustainability Officer for the group. As Charles just presented it, responsible gaming is at the heart of our sustainability strategy. Our player protection strategy is based on three pillars: prevention of underage gaming, prevention of excessive gaming, and detection and support of vulnerable players.
This group strategy is implemented in each of our entities, taking into account the specificities of our different activities and geographies. Our overarching ambition is to reduce the revenue coming from high-risk players thanks to our numerous actions and based on our 20 years of experience and commitment in the field of RG. Our expertise on RG has indeed been constantly rewarded by the European Lottery certification for more than 15 years. With the acquisition of Kindred, FDJ UNITED now unifies the two only actors in the gambling sector that have set an objective and taken actions to reduce the revenue coming from high-risk players, as Patrick and Nils showed earlier, respectively for our iLottery and online betting and gaming activities. All of this to ensure the sustainable development of our business.
Our RG actions are focused on three main areas that I will now quickly illustrate: prevention, detection, and support to vulnerable players. First, prevention. As a gambling operator, we want to make sure that our clients are aware of the specificities of our gambling products. Gambling is recreative for 95% of the players, but there can be risk for 5% of them and important consequences for 1%. That is why we are the only operator to dedicate a minimum of 10% of our media budget at the group level to RG campaigns and communications, both on TV and digital, to inform the public and prevent both underage gaming and excessive gaming.
We systematically measure the positive impact of these campaigns, and the results show clearly that they are efficient in raising awareness among our clients and also that they contribute to strengthen our brands and to build trust with our clients. Next, detection. At FDJ UNITED, we are strongly committed to fighting against excessive gaming, and we constantly develop new tools to better detect risky behaviors. Our ambition, as outlined by Sébastien, is to capitalize on data and AI to further enhance player protection. We already use data and AI cutting-edge technologies to better detect risky behaviors. For instance, we have developed and launched in 2025 our own risk detection model for French iLottery called FDJ Protect. We also use data to develop personalized automated interventions, for example, towards our online betting and gaming clients, thanks to a tool called Crucial Compliance.
But we want to go beyond that and to innovate further. First, we are developing predictive models to enable earlier detection of harmful behaviors and more preventive measures. Second, we are currently working on experimenting real-time detection and intervention measures to be able to act preemptively and thus limit harm for our most at-risk players. This preventive approach to detection will help us focus marketing efforts on the good clients and hence limit our externalities. I will now guide you through our third focus, support to vulnerable players. As I said, our priority is to strengthen our early and real-time detection and intervention capacities to prevent excessive gaming. Once harmful behaviors are detected, we implement proactive and concrete actions to support vulnerable players. One of our key actions consists in proactive care calls to high-risk players.
Here again, we measure our impact to make these calls as efficient as possible. Our goal is to have 80% of contacted players with a reduction of their GGR observed after the call. As you can see, our ambition is to consolidate our leading positions on RG in our industry thanks to four main strengths: a holistic approach to player protection from prevention to detection and support, a proactive policy to detect as early as possible risky behaviors and prevent harm, transparent and consistent KPIs set at the group level and adapted to our different entities, and finally, continuous dialogue with our stakeholders, notably through partnerships and research projects to ensure we back our actions on science and improve our efficiency thanks to feedback from the best experts. After responsible gaming, I will now make a focus on the second most distinctive asset of our sustainability strategy: positive impact.
As Charles mentioned, our objective is to go beyond the redistribution of our value creation to our stakeholders and to gradually increase our voluntary contributions up to 5% of our net result in 2030, consistent with our financial trajectory presented by Pascal earlier. How are we going to implement this objective? First, we will dedicate our actions, on the one hand, to society with a focus on insertion, diversity and inclusion, and social vulnerabilities in continuity with the action of our foundation founded more than 30 years ago. On the other hand, to the environment with a priority on biodiversity preservation consistent with our existing partnerships with environmental organizations such as WWF. Second, we will extend our actions at the international level based on our long experience in the field of contribution to society in France.
The goal is also to strengthen the footprint of the group in our different countries of operation, as well as to sustain our business development by enlarging the scope of our positive impact model. Now, to achieve this contribution plan, we will rely on partnerships with experts, organizations, and donations to charities, but also on investments in social impact and nature-based funds. As a first realization of this initiative, we are proud to announce an investment of EUR 5 million in ARDIAN Natural Base Solutions, a fund led by ARDIAN in partnership with Edriada, aiming at restoring forests, wetlands, and mangroves while contributing to carbon sequestration. To conclude, and as you understood, we are convinced that our strong and unique commitments on sustainability will consolidate our position of benchmark operator in our industry and, more importantly, strengthen our capacity to create value on the long term.
Before passing on to Stéphane for the conclusion, let's see a short video highlighting our ambition to develop AI-based innovative responsible gaming initiatives. Thank you very much.
Responsible gaming is one of FDJ UNITED's core commitments. We are committed to advancing our player protection strategy by leveraging innovation, data, and artificial intelligence. The objective is to intervene in real time when our systems detect potential loss of control. Our R&D pilots explore various avenues for communication in real time with message content such as personalized gambling insights, advanced personalization, and progressive messaging by risk level. These innovations protect players and strengthen our business model.
Now, conclusion. It is going to be a short conclusion because I think we had a long day. I hope an interesting day for all of you.
I really want to actually conclude by thanking the exceptional people that you've seen on stage for their ambition, their commitment, their energy. For me, it is a key factor to succeed in this ambition that we have been explaining to you today. This ambition, it's on the screen, is to assert our leadership in Europe as a unique sustainable lottery gaming and betting operator. We think we are uniquely positioned to do that, as you've seen. We think we have thought clearly about all the execution advantage that we have to achieve this. Of course, we will pursue fiercely this ambition in the coming months and years. Now, I just want to ask the team to join me on the stage, of course, to ask your questions, to ask your questions as we promised.
I think I have a short video while we come on stage. Thank you very much.
A new era begins. One of sustainable growth, visionary ambition, and unwavering responsibility. At FDJ UNITED, we are playful. We ignite passions and fuel dreams. We welcome optimism and boldness. We craft playing fields and design new games for all players. We bring entertainment to every corner. At FDJ UNITED, we play fair. We inspire an industry where entertainment and safety go hand in hand. We foster and spread positive impact for all every day. We set new standards for the safest gaming experiences. We embrace our heritage united by our international community. At FDJ UNITED, we play forward. We push boundaries to offer new entertaining moments. We create intense emotions through innovation. We unlock the potential of advanced technologies and elevate our industry.
We grow further and go stronger to drive gaming forward with purpose and impact. Our signature, it's who we are, it's what we do. FDJ UNITED, playful, play fair, play forward.
I distribute the questions, right? Please. Michael. Maybe you need a mic. You need a mic.
Good afternoon. It's Jaafar Mestari from BNP Paribas, Exane. I've got three, if that's okay. The first one is on the mitigation benefits that you expect, and you've detailed some of the phasing and some of the mix there. If you could just remind us what sort of implementation costs we should expect for those, if they're all going to be exceptionals and if they're going to be front-end loaded in any way or more linear.
That's one. Yeah.
Secondly, on the network, a big push towards the branded banners. You already have some, of course, 10%, but doubling that.
Just curious if it's more of the same, if there's a new model of those that's being pushed more aggressively. Generally, anything you can say on how those work, if you run them, if the retailer runs them, and if all in all, you expect the number of point of sales to grow or if that's just going to be mitigating some decline at the traditional tobacconists. Lastly, on regulation, I appreciate you've run through a presentation based on what is known and nobody has a crystal ball, but I would just be curious to know what the watch list is at the moment. If we go back to this map of your territories, what's flashing green? There's no public support. There's no talks. We should assume it's all good. What's flashing amber?
Where are you aware that there could be second rounds or that there are discussions at the moment? Thank you.
Okay. Maybe Pascal can say a word on mitigation costs.
Yeah. I thought it was for me. Yeah. On mitigation costs globally, you have in the PNL, in the EBITDA, the cost that will be in the EBITDA for those mitigation measures. Apart from that, you know that we have below the EBITDA something like EUR 20 million a year of cost below EBITDA. Last year, it was nearly EUR 40 million due to the cost of the transaction with Kindred. What would be a good assumption for the three coming years, 2025, 2026, and 2027, would be to have this kind of figure, EUR 40 million below EBITDA, a cost that will relate to a number of things including what is needed to do the mitigation plan.
Okay.
Thank you, Pascal. On the network in France, Patrick, you want to take it?
Yes. I can take this question. It is true that our network is for the moment mainly, so main, it is made of 90% of, of course, traditional POS. In fact, these point of sales in the traditional network, there are some closures, and we are compensating, of course, the closures by implementing our distribution in the new branded banners. These banners, it has not started recently. We have done some implementation before. I think the change in the strategy is that previously we were concentrating on small, I would say, proxy outlets, not hypermarkets and supermarkets. Really, the change is we are targeting hypermarkets and supermarkets because the really value creation with those point of sales is much larger. This is really the shift we are moving towards more. Why are we doing this?
Because, in fact, we do not have real opportunities left in the traditional network. To compensate for the POS closures, we have to target the best opportunities we can reach.
Just to summarize at the end to your question, which is, does it increase the number, the total number of point of sales? No, it is more to compensate the natural decrease that we have in the traditional network. Of course, as Patrick stressed, the new point of sales should have, in the medium term, a high value potential because the level of traffic could be high. We are just at the start of this, but we think it is a very potential, interesting development. On regulation, I think, as you said, no crystal ball.
Since we don't have a crystal ball, I think we've made a careful assessment of the risk that we know on the different markets and, of course, included the risk that we know in our total medium-term business plan. Of course, the next increase in Netherlands tax is part of this. We also know that for reasons related to the level of compliance of Kindred before the acquisition, we have some risks that actually are embedded also in our guidance to have fines related to, again, previous actually way of managing this business. I think the best way to, I would say, to reassure us and you about this is, as we stated, to drive for the best operational excellence and compliance, which actually goes together in our strategy, particularly at OBG. This is really the best protection. That's how I can answer this.
Sorry, I cannot, yes.
Thank you. Ed Young from Morgan Stanley. I've got one for Patrick, one for Nils, and one for Giovanna. You decide, one sort of question. I'll ask them and you can decide, obviously, Stéphane, whether to. First of all, in the lottery section, there was a discussion about the relaunch of some of your iconic draw games. I'm presuming that means really marketing and brand push behind them to help your sort of draw-based digital recruitment. I just wanted to check, first of all, if you could elaborate a bit. Second, I just wanted to check if you're changing or plan to change any of the game structures or distribution as a way of supporting your ARPU goals as well within lottery.
Second, with OBG markets, it's clearly been a difficult start for a couple of those top three markets, but you think that in 2028, they'll be bigger than they were in 2024. I wonder if you could just speak a little bit about whether you think Netherlands will really recover well from the levels it's going to at the moment, or do you expect a particularly strong recovery in the U.K., or do you expect outsized growth in France? How do you balance where you've got to with those forecasts? Perhaps you could touch, I know you said it's not in the base case, but touch on the characteristics of new markets that you would like to enter. The final one was on international lottery. In the recent Italian concession, there was a sort of growing theme about cross-sell from lottery into online and into gaming.
It's becoming perhaps a bigger theme. Is that an example that FDJ United might use given Kindred's capability? Is that an example of leveraging group capabilities you were speaking about, or should we listen to your other message, which is about sticking to what you're good at and focusing on the core? Stick to more like French and Irish style lottery as a separate entity. Thank you.
Patrick, you start with draw games and digital.
You know, draw games are really one of the first levers to recruit new customers on the digital channel. That's why it's very important to maintain a very attractive offer. We, of course, will have to make this offer more and more attractive. For example, just to give you an example, on Euromillions Lotto, we are planning to relaunch next year.
We have reached the maximum jackpot we can reach at EUR 250 million. Of course, we know that to attract more and more players, especially on the digital channel, we have to raise this cap. This is really one of the changes we will make on the game to keep really the gross momentum on that game. We will, of course, consider to relaunch all our iconic games in draw games. Of course, we are targeting our evolution on the key insights that are relevant for each of the draw games. For example, for Euromillions, it's a really high jackpot. For Lotto, it's a bit different. We will adapt, of course, to the key insights we want to stress. We will, meanwhile, have some work on the PAO ratio because it's key, of course, to try to maximize the stakes to revenue conversion.
We will always have to find a good balance between maintaining the attractiveness of the game for players and revenue to stakes to revenue conversion. This is not so easy to make. This is optimization. It's not a huge change, I would say.
Okay, Nils ?
Yeah, thank you, Ed. If we start with your first question, what's kind of the balance we see from sort of the U.K. and France in terms of growth rate in the next sort of three to four years or three and a half years? I think it's clear that Netherlands is probably the most challenged out of those three markets. We saw some of the impact of the regulatory changes in 2024, but the majority of them in this year, and also the fact that the taxation change came in this year and continues next year.
I have a fairly positive outlook on Netherlands over sort of the midterm in the sense that the operating conditions in Netherlands are much harder now. We have already seen a number of operators actually leaving that market, which should lend itself to kind of the top operators taking further market share. It will be very interesting to see what the regulator can do around the kind of poor channelization rate that we see today with increased tools for the regulator. I hope we can see an improvement on that, which would be a good tailwind for us. For the other two markets, U.K. and France, I think U.K., we have a very positive outlook, and I think we see that as a very strong growth driver for us over the next three years. Similarly, for France, there are some offsets in terms of taxation changes.
It is clear that the mutualization of our brands and our increased kind of firepower comes with the one platform that will be deployed in France and our new sportsbook, I think gives us a really good opportunity to take further market shares in France. Without being too detailed, your second question, which was in relation to kind of market expansion, right? I do not think I am going to sit here and say exactly which market we are going into, but I think the characteristics for us is, of course, that it kind of builds on our scalability. So do we have the right platform to enter this market? Can we kind of utilize the assets we already have? And then, of course, coupled with what does the competitive climate look like? And is there a stable regulatory framework in place? That I would say is the characteristics we are looking at.
Thanks, Ed. Just to complement what Nils was saying and actually to what he said in his presentation, to actually be able to scale new markets, we need to have implemented our platform. Therefore, we need this transition year that we talked about, which has started already and which will finish in 2026. You have to combine this with the criteria, if I may. Giovanna.
Yes, thank you, Ed. Indeed, with the recent Lotto tender, both participating consortiums had an investment thesis that was strongly based on this concept of cross-selling. Elsewhere, even outside Europe, in other jurisdictions, there is a lot of talk, as you know, about convergence of OBG with lotteries. We will look at that because we do consider that online betting and gaming is a strength that we have in jurisdictions where the regulations clearly allow that.
Yeah, which is in France today, as you know, it would not be possible. As we said, for regulation or anti-trust reasons, there are some markets where you can do it, some others where you cannot. Of course, which does not mean that you do not use the cross-fertilization and the synergies in your global assets, as Giovanna explained. When you come to a relationship with the client, then rules differ market from market. The Italian market is interesting in this regard, of course. Thank you.
I think we took your two. We are going to continue. Can you pass the mic to Sabrina on the back of the... Sabrina, hello.
Yeah, good afternoon. Sabrina Blanc Bernstein. I have three questions also. The first one is regarding the increase of active players, but in point of sales.
I remember that we used to say that half of the French are playing already in your game. To understand where it can come from. The second question is regarding the lotteries opportunities in Europe. You have mentioned potentially EUR 10 billion CAGR, sorry, GGR, just to understand which type of countries could be interesting for you. The latest one is regarding the risk regarding the merger of the IT platform. What is the biggest risk behind the merger?
Active player in point of sales. Yes. Patrick, you want to comment on that?
It is true that we have an objective I mentioned. It is to recruit more than one million players in the years to come until 2028. A big part of this recruitment will come from the retail network. How can we make it?
In fact, we know that when we consider hypermarkets and supermarkets, that through point of sales, they have a different type of audience than our traditional network. We have made some research that confirms that we have 5.6 million potential players who do not visit the traditional network and go regularly to a hypermarket or supermarket. We have a potential target really to be reached through this implementation of our offer in hypermarkets, supermarkets. It is not really stealing the players that we already have in the traditional market. It is really targeting other customers.
To your point about our penetration in France, Ireland, 75% of Irish people do play the lottery. The 50% penetration that we have in the French market is high, but it actually leaves some opportunity to get additional players, and especially if you go to fetch them in different networks.
Over the past few years, we have been increasing our penetration on the French market. We are already doing this increase in penetration. With the opportunity we have in hypermarkets, supermarkets, it is an additional way to grow our player base.
Giovanna, lottery opportunities in Europe.
Yes. Let me just very briefly explain how did we get to the EUR 10 billion starting from the EUR 150 million. What we have done, we have looked at jurisdictions where in the next five years, because it was referred to 2030, there are some opportunities that are consistent with the type of models that we want to operate in. Not looking at everything. With that analysis, we have selected a small number of opportunities that are mostly in Europe, but not only in Europe, as I mentioned earlier on.
The idea is that we'd like to capture part of those 10 billion that is the total value, the total value in GGR generated by the lotteries. I will not right now single out the individual countries.
Okay, and IT merger risk, Nils?
That's a very experienced IT manager. I think generally speaking, in the sense of what we're looking at now is unifying all our client-facing platforms onto one. It's not like we have a majority of that business somewhere else. The majority of our business, vast majority, is on the CAPAM, as we call it. We are very experienced with these kinds of migrations and unifications of platforms. We've done two very successful migrations this year, one in France for PSCL, not on the CAPAM, but within the French IT system.
We have just recently, in March, migrated 32Red, our U.K. casino brand, onto our in-house platform with great success. I think it took us three and a half to four weeks to index better than prior to the migration. With careful planning, I'm not concerned that there is a massive risk with this. It's just execution rather than anything else.
Thank you.
Hello. Hello, I'm Estelle van Grot from JP Morgan. I've got two questions. To Ed's point, where do you see the highest potential in the online business unit? I mean, high single-digit growth seems a little bit ambitious for mature markets, if I may say. I wanted to know what geographies would drive this high single-digit growth, or do you foresee high single-digit growth across the board within that unit?
The other question, just on M&A, I guess right now you're busy with the integration and migration and so on. Just wanted to check on potential timing for M&A. Could it be as early as next year? Thank you.
On growth in... Yeah, I think that's a very good question. I don't think we're going to detail exactly how we see the growth trajectory between each and every one of our markets. I think, as I answered to Ed's question, we see a very good opportunity in terms of growth in the U.K., but also actually across a range of our other markets within our portfolio. Some of those markets have higher growth rates. For example, Romania has a much higher growth rate than the rest of our portfolio. I think we see it kind of spread across our markets, but not evenly spread.
I'm not going to give a detailed answer to that today. Just to continue on the M&A opportunities and maybe give another view on what Nils had just said, just to remind you what we have said in the Q1. Q1, we have said that we were already at high single-digit growth if we take apart the situation in the Netherlands and in the U.K. When we will resume on those two markets by the end of the year, it's not new for us to be able to grow at a pace that is high single-digit. It's already there. On the M&A, I will just continue. As Stéphane has said and also Nils, what is important for us is to do synergetic M&A on OBG.
As far as we have not ended our journey to migrate on the one single platform that will allow to do this very synergetic M&A, we will not do it. It will be somewhere in 2026 that we will begin to look again at what is possible. It's important to do it phase by phase. On international lottery, it's a little bit different because we have not this kind of thing. We will begin to look at different potential, but it will take some time to realize it. Beginning to look at the different potential doesn't mean that we will activate it in the coming months because clearly we will not activate it in the coming months.
Thank you. I see a question here. Hi, there.
Thanks for taking my questions. It's Conrad Gayner from Bloomberg Intelligence.
The first one, when we talk about market share growth, you've mentioned things like AI, customizing the customer journey, innovation of games. These are things that all of the scale players are mentioning too. Can I pressure a bit more? What is it specifically that you think can grow your sales ahead of the market? Is it that you maybe expect some more shaking out of the smaller players? The second question is, given that you now have the sort of Kindred technology stack within online casino, how quickly and easy is it for you to pivot into new markets should the opportunities in new markets arise? Are there other complexities that we should be thinking about too?
Okay, your first question on growth is on OBG, right? Or yeah, Nils?
Yeah, of course, I'd like to give you our sort of playbook here, right? I don't think that would be appropriate. I think we have a very solid go-to-market strategy for market share gains in every market we operate in. I mean, we have a financial profile that would let us invest where we actually see outsized growth than we're kind of expecting. I also think that one of the key differentiators for us as a business is that we're actually ahead of a lot of our competition in this area. Particularly what I would say comes to being able to utilize one platform across all our geographies, which gives us a much greater scalability in terms of deploying smart tools and smart campaigns or reward mechanisms that work in one territory across all of our territories.
I think that is also one of the key kind of benefits that we have that makes us stand out. I think in terms of sort of next-gen marketing and how we work with that, I think we are pretty far in our industry if I compare it to what I've seen from some of our key competitors in this area. In terms of sort of what do we see more broadly, I think given where the regulatory environment is in Europe, I think there are markets where we will see shakeout of smaller players for sure. I think it's going to be harder and harder to maintain a profitable P&L in some of our core markets if you do not have scale in those markets.
On online casino, your question was how do we, can we and how do we use it for new markets, right?
Yeah, it's how easy in which you can now transition into new markets should the opportunities arise.
Yeah, I think it's two questions there. Organically, how easy is it? I think from a platform perspective, we have all the tools required. Then it's more about sort of the regulatory adaptations that would be required for each individual territory. Would it be through an M&A? I think it depends again what does the regulatory environment look like, what kind of offering does any acquired target have today? I think that is also one of the key kind of KPIs we're looking at is, okay, how do we optimize time to market once we decide to go for a market entry?
Thank you. I don't see questions in the room. Do we have questions online? No?
We do not have any questions yet, ma'am.
Just maybe a quick reminder, if they wish to ask any questions by audio, please press star one. We'll just give them one moment.
Okay, if we do not have any more questions... No questions. I want to thank you all for attending this Capital Market Day. Hope it's been inspiring and instructive. Of course, we are ready to continue to answer your questions. We will see you a lot, certainly during the next month for our next financial communication, including, of course, end of July, H1 results. Thank you very much and see you soon. Thank you.