SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
The last 12 months have shone a light on the need for unification of the French gambling market and highlighted reasons why there needs to be an expansion to areas of regulation.
That’s according to David Ozararat, who became President of SoftConstruct’s French division in February. He told SBC News that the market is on an upward trajectory with online gambling becoming the key driver for growth of the industry in 2021.
“The French Market has a big potential as it is growing very fast,” he explained. “Of course during the pandemic, the land-based sector faced massive shutdowns, but the online found an outlet for progress.
“To be honest, I can say that 2020 gave a better view on the industry and a good push towards unifying the market and expanding the areas of regulation of gambling in France.
“Back in 2016 when we just started considering our expansion in the region, the circulation was five times smaller than today. Now it is growing continuously and we would never want to miss out on an opportunity to witness the course of events on-site.”
The potential for growth, Ozararat shared, was the primary reason for why SoftConstruct required boots on the ground to track wider market developments.
He continued: “Industry advertising, the online’s edge over betshops and players’ protection are the highlights of the local market. It will be interesting to follow the further development of these issues in France.
“To closely follow these activities and remain on a firmer footing, we needed a France-based branch which has been a step forward in the development of our company. Additionally SoftConstruct group will have a chance to show to the French Authorities our will to contribute locally in terms of taxes and long-term investment.”
By establishing a France-based branch, SoftConstruct has positioned itself to drive additional interest in gambling software from its BetConstruct subsidiary, which already services PasinoBet.fr, BarrierBet.fr and Vbet.fr.
The PasinoBet.fr brand was initially launched on the BetConstruct platform back in September 2019 via its parent company, Partouche, giving bettors access to more than 75,000 pre-match and 45,000 live events for sports and horse racing each month.
Ozararat believes that this agreement has delivered steady growth for the platform provider, and will continue to do so throughout the five-year extension to the partnership.
He concluded: “The partnership with Partouche has come from years ago. Unofficially, our collaboration began in 2016 when we’ve just started envisioning any of our future joint endeavours.
“Then it took a year to apply for the French Licence and another one to gear up for the project to go live in 2019. After two years of operations we’ve achieved stable growth together that prompted a further five years extension of our contract and partnership.”
