Mystic Chief

What is Mystic Chief?

On 27 August, Merkur signed a put option agreement with GPG Groupe Philippe Ginestet and DOFA, enabling the purchase of Casigrangi.

Casigrangi is the parent company of the Le Stelsia casino group, which operates seven small to mid-sized casinos across France along with related hospitality, restaurant and entertainment businesses. 

Key casino locations include Megève, Granville and Mimizan. Additionally, Casigrangi controls SFC, which itself operates casinos in Châtel-Guyon, Collioure, Gruissan and Port-la-Nouvelle.

What is Mystic Chief?

Van Bruggen told the gambling committee that both Meta and Google were open to maintaining a dialogue with the government on this.

She said the government would receive a report every six months on illegal gambling advertising across these platforms. 

The KVA’s statement mirrors a broader European regulatory trend where authorities are increasingly scrutinising how major internet platforms facilitate traffic to unlicensed gambling services.

How to play Mystic Chief

“That dual value is really the point of the deal,” he explains. “Owning a leading local operator gives us direct, ground-level insight into regulatory developments, player behaviour and payment infrastructure across several African markets, insight that is very difficult to build from the outside.

“Over time we expect that knowledge and local presence to help us open conversations with other operators looking to enter or expand in Africa, in the same way our historical B2C experience in Europe underpinned our platform proposition there.

“So this is not an either/or. It is a B2C acquisition that we expect to strengthen our B2B pipeline on the continent.”