JOA Acquires and Grows Laurent Lassiaz, CEO of Groupe JOA, discusses the acquisition of Casino de Besançon and JOA’s developments with Damien Connelly
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e are accelerating the development of Groupe JOA by making acquisitions of other casinos. On November 1, we completed the acquisition of Casino de Besançon from Groupe Lucien Barrière. We made this acquisition because it allows JOA to better serve the market in the newly created grande région Bourgogne Franche-Comté, which has a population of almost 3 million and whose major cities are Dijon and Besançon. Our acquisition of Casino de Besançon may also see JOA acquire some new Swiss customers, as the border with Switzerland is quite close. “The ambition of JOA is to be the brand that changes people’s minds about casinos. Within this, our objective is to develop Groupe JOA. We are developing Groupe JOA by both building new venues that allow us to have new conversations with consumers—such as you can see at Lac du Der—and through acquisitions. We have screened the market, and our acquisition of Casino de Besançon is our first acquisition. “Casino de Besançon is exactly the type of casino of interest to JOA as Besançon is a medium-sized casino that currently has 130 slots, 3 traditional tables and 3 poker tables. This acquisition also supports our neighbouring casinos in Luxeuil, Gerardmer, Lac du Der and Santenay. Besançon, Luxeuil, Gerardmer, Lac du Der and Santenay are
all close enough to complement and support each other, without being so close that they compete against each other. “This acquisition will result in more jobs being created in the ‘new’ Casino JOA de Besançon. We will remodel this venue to transform it into our JOA style, which will include the casino having a greater focus on our JOA live tables experience, as well as using the slot innovations we have learned throughout our 21 other casinos—and of course integrating Casino JOA de Besançon with our online products and loyalty club. We will introduce to Casino JOA de Besançon a greater focus on light and colour, as we find these tactics help change the ambience inside casinos that then helps us change people’s perceptions of casinos.”
Gaming Developments “France is the only European market which has a strong imbalance in revenues between tables and slots—typically, slots account for over 90% of French casino gaming revenues. We are seeking to find a better balance by using more live tables and more electronic table games. “Electronic tables allow us to show our customers—to educate our customers—how to play table games without the pressure of playing on a live table, which can make customers feel uncomfortable as they’re not confident they know how to play, say, blackjack or roulette. Electronic
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