Banijay Gaming Buys JOA and Grows Its Land-Based Casino Business in France
The two sides did not say how much the deal is worth. The purchase gives Banijay a ready-made chain of land-based casinos in a big European country. It comes right after the group bought Tipico, a deal that grew its online side. Now the company runs both its offline and online business under one brand in several countries.
What the Deal Covers
JOA operates 33 casinos all around France and has over 4 million guests a year. The casinos are only part of JOA’s business, which includes hospitality services from hotels and restaurants and bars. The gaming segment isn’t the only part of business that brings revenues. By 2025, JOA reached up to €430 million in revenues. The business segment includes 37 restaurants, 44 bars, and 5 hotels.
After the acquisition closes, JOA will have been completely acquired by Banijay Gaming. By the second half of 2026, the deal will have been completed after staff consultations and after waiting for the needed approvals. Once the deal is completed, Laurent Lassiaz will keep his role as chairman of JOA and the current managers in their roles. Banijay will keep the local managers, will provide the managers access to technology and data from the customers.
A Move That Follows Tipico
The deal lands not long after Banijay’s April move on the Tipico Group, which pulled Betclic, Tipico, and Admiral under the Banijay Gaming name. According to Banijay Group CEO François Riahi, that Tipico step made the firm a wide-reaching European operator across both offline and online play, and buying JOA carries the same idea forward. He pointed out that Germany and Austria already sit under Banijay’s lead in land-based gambling, and France now joins them as another key market. What JOA brings is a country-wide set of land-based casinos, and the online part of the business is something the group has already built.
The French Market Landscape
There is a firm legal line around this plan. Real-money online casinos are still banned in France, and past tries to lift that ban have not gone through. What operators can offer online, if they hold a licence, comes down to sports betting, betting on horse racing, and poker, plus the lottery games that FDJ alone runs as a monopoly. So what Banijay gains here is more weight in land-based casinos, and the deal gives it no legal way into online slots or table games.
France’s gambling market still had a good 2025. Total gross gaming revenue came to €14.1 billion, which is 3% more than in 2024. Of that, online play brought in €2.61 billion after a rise of 8.5%, and it held an 18.5% slice of all regulated revenue. Land-based casinos moved up as well. They earned €2.81 billion in gross revenue, up 3.4%, while visitor numbers climbed 2% to reach 31.6 million.