Questions abound for the French giant following revelations by Le Monde and ABC News on the controversial Anjouan B2B licence of Relax Gaming and whether the tech unit has serviced unlicensed operators.
Reports this week revealing that Relax Gaming had obtained a B2B license from the jurisdiction of Anjouan in November 2025 have shone an uncomfortable light on the FDJ United-owned B2B subsidiary that was included in the French group’s €2.5bn acquisition of Kindred Group.
Why does this matter?
Anjouan is part of the Comoros Islands and has become a major licensing hub for offshore operators in recent years. Its growth as an iGaming jurisdiction has been accelerated by the regulatory uncertainty coming out of Curaçao, also a major hub for offshore operators, which has been roiled by recent talk of clampdowns following pressure from the Netherlands, of which Curaçao is part.
Pressure has also been exerted on Malta by EU member states such as Germany or Austria wanting operators licensed by the Mediterranean island to stop targeting their citizens as they do not hold local licences.
Reports published on Wednesday by the Dutch affiliate website Casinozorgplicht and French newspaper Le Monde revealed that Relax Gaming obtained an Anjouan license so that it can supply operators that are also licensed on the island. FDJ United, its parent company, assured Le Monde that Relax Gaming was a B2B intermediary operating “solely as a service provider to businesses”, which does not “amount to commercial activity aimed at the general public”.
Smoke & Mirrors
Despite the assurances, Le Monde wrote that the “response ignores its (Relax Gaming’s) participation in an ecosystem that is high-risk in ethical, legal and human terms” and that Anjouan’s regulatory infrastructure is in fact “fictitious”. “This mirage does not stand up to scrutiny,” the paper added, and Anjouan’s “so-called Gaming Commission” website “appears to be managed by a private company, Anjouan Licensing Services Inc. (ALSI)”.
Speaking of ALSI, the Australian media outlet ABC News reported in December that Anjouan licenses a range of financial institutions, as well as “a thriving industry of black-market gambling websites, including several known to be illegally targeting Australian customers”.
The key problem? “None of the licences – financial or gambling – are worth the (virtual) paper they are written on” and in 2023 the Comoros Central Bank warned that “several Anjouan regulators – and the firms selling their licences – were ‘fictitious structures’”, ABC revealed.
Entities selling Anjouan licences for iGaming include the Anjouan Offshore Finance Authority (AOFA), which is run by a company called Anjouan Corporate Services and led by UK nationals called Ronnie and Adam Dvorkin and Toby and Elliot Sorksy. Meanwhile, ALSI appears to have been established in May 2023 by a Costa Rican company called Fast Offshore, which was then renamed Overseas Business Services, and is run by a Canadian citizen called Ron Mendelson, according to ABC.
The rise of jurisdictions like Anjouan, Vanuatu and more recently Nevis in the Caribbean was outlined by the journalist Philippe Auclair during AFJEL’s general meeting last November. During his presentation, Auclair said the crypto-gambling operator BC Game had “migrated” from Curaçao to Anjouan at the end of 2024 and also named Ron Mendelson as a key figure in this licensing system.
The issue of Relax Gaming supplying its products to illegal operators that target major regulated markets has come to the fore in the past two years and was highlighted in Gaming&Co‘s in-depth piece on Evolution’s UK licence review at the start of 2025.
Key questions for FDJ United
Why not simply revoke Relax Gaming’s Anjouan licence, or refuse to work with operators licensed there since those companies operate without licences in the markets that they target? What kind of control does the FDJ exercise over its subsidiaries? Are there other Kindred subsidiaries licensed in jurisdictions similar to Anjouan?
In response, FDJ United told SBC-G&Co that Relax Gaming “operates within a demanding internal compliance framework and enforces strict contractual obligations and a ‘restricted territories’ policy with its customers” prohibiting the use of its games and content in the relevant jurisdictions.
Before entering into any commercial relationship, a significant number of due diligence procedures are carried out through regular audits of its customers and, if non-compliant use is identified, “Relax Gaming applies a policy of deactivating content to prevent its use in restricted territories. For example, this policy applies to France.”
If Relax Gaming, like Groupe Barrière or JOA Groupe, is “also regularly subject to fraudulent use of its brand and logo”, the licences issued by Anjouan or jurisdictions such as Kahnawake allow it to “maintain a contractual relationship with B2C operators who hold licences there. These operators are subject to the same strict obligations and contractual framework imposed by Relax Gaming on all its customers.”