France is a country with a gambling industry in a state of flux. On the one hand, there is a mature and respected land-based sector; on the other there is the looming presence of iCasino, yet to be legalised, with an offshore market that is apparently thriving. Some studies have put the size of the country’s black market at €1.5 billion annually, which means not only significant tax revenue lost for the exchequer, but possibly the biggest offshore market in all of Europe.
We’ll come to that later though. First, meet Group Joa CEO Laurent Lassiaz. His route to the casino industry might seem from the outside to be circuitous, but in reality it makes perfect sense. Originally working as operations director for KFC and Pizza Hut in France, Laurent discovered what he describes as “the challenge of delivering a promise”, something that has stood him in good stead during his more recent casino industry career.
Making promises
“If you tell someone you will deliver their pizza in 30 minutes, that’s a promise – so you need to make sure you have everything in order to keep that promise,” Laurent explains. It’s a great lesson for anyone in hospitality, indeed any customer-facing role. After shaping KFC’s entry into the French market, Laurent found progression was only available in bigger roles – heading up the France operation, to heading up Europe, for example – and he didn’t want to become typecast as a food and beverage (F&B) specialist.
His talents had been spotted, however, and Club Med came knocking with an entirely new challenge: delivering consistency for their customers regardless of the holiday destination. “I liked the challenge so I took it on, and enjoyed it for ten years. It was really fascinating to develop the same customer experience in different countries with new rules and different workforces.”
Headhunted from F&B
The next call was from a casino industry headhunter. Luckily, Laurent’s background had him well prepared for the contact. As he says about the casino industry, “you have the F&B, you have some shows to organise, you have some events to welcome. The only difference is you have the gaming side, but this is only mathematic. You don’t design your product, you basically buy it and design what’s around it in terms of experience, service, design, quality of service and all the product that you can add around it to try to make the difference versus the competition.”
Speaking of the competition, Laurent’s Groupe Joa is the country’s second-largest operator with 33 casinos in total. France’s mature land-based market sustains just over 200 casinos, varying from smaller operations with 20 slots and two table games, up to integrated resorts with 500 slots, 20 tables and a variety of entertainment. Some European countries have ‘casinos’ which are actually slot halls with no live dealer games, but in France these are not permitted, it’s all Vegas-style slots and classic table games, sometimes supplemented with electronic table games.
Within this spread of casinos, slots are by some distance the main earner; France loves a good slot machine. The market’s GGR is around €2.8 billion, and slots represent between 75% and 82% of that figure.
Introducing a slot market
Slots were introduced to French casinos in the early 1980s and before their appearance casinos were solely table game operators. But the modern customer, Laurent notes, is not looking for slot play necessarily.
He tells iGB: “If you look at what’s going on right now, let’s assume that the slots are played by older players, retired people enjoying the casino for a long time. The new players are much younger and their focus is not really on slots. It’s much more on table games and on electronic table games. Because you can play it for cheaper. But definitely more table games because they have much more in the sense of controlling the game, trying to beat the casino versus playing on the slots which is perhaps a bit boring because there’s not much interaction with the slot machine.”
The sociable aspect of table gaming is something slot manufacturers have been trying to emulate for decades, but it might be fair to ultimately conclude they’re just very different players. Older players, Laurent observes, “come to the casino to socialise. They have a budget. They know by experience that they won’t really make huge money. So they are buying time and experience which is a bit different from the younger audience because those guys, they want to make money. And that’s the reason why they want to prioritise games where they have the feeling of control.”
Monaco, an exception
The French casino market is essentially one huge locals market, with one obvious exception: Monaco. And as Laurent notes, it attracts a very different player to the average French casino. “Monaco is a very specific market, which doesn’t work at all like the French one. Of course, they have some French players coming to have a look, to experience the Monaco ambience. But where they make the money is wealthy people flying in to spend their money because they have dedicated space for high rollers. That’s not at all the customer profile of the French casinos.
“The average spend per entry in my group of 33 casinos is €80. We are very far from the movie stereotype that you see in Casino Royale, for example, with people spending lots of money, having some big luxury car. In France, it’s a popular activity and has nothing to do with the profile of the Monaco casino.”
Positioning
The Groupe Joa CEO makes a very important point here. Because the French casino industry is aimed at locals, it’s more resilient than a destination resort might be and less exposed to influences such as the cost of fuel.
“For the French population, the casino is a local leisure destination; it’s part of the local list of leisure activities that you can do. And that’s the reason why it resists a poor economic environment so well, because when the economy is bit shaky like it is today, for example, with the war, with the price of energy and so on … we are suffering less than the rest of the industry because it’s a local type of leisure,” he explains.
“In difficult times people tend to postpone a big expense such as changing the car, extending the house, expensive travel. But local leisure, local pleasure, this is the last thing that they will sacrifice. That’s the reason why we keep playing this positioning, being not just a gaming destination but a leisure destination. That’s the place where people socialise and meet on a Friday evening for a drink.”
Dating back to Napoleon’s reign
He admits it is quite specific to the French market, but it’s also linked to regulation. “If you operate a casino you need to operate three different activities: firstly gaming,…