Thanks to New Gambling Laws, Swedish Unibet Moves into French Market

It’s a good time to be Unibet. As the new French gambling laws come into full effect, company representatives announced that the Sweden-based online gambling provider has signed agreements with France Pari and Ongame, plus a letter of intent with Zeturf. The arrangements are in place to provide sports betting, poker, and horse racing, respectively. 

Unibet would appear to have positioned itself particularly well in the newly liberalized French online gambling market with the France Pari agreement, as this company is the former government-run monopoly for sports betting in the country and will still do a majority of the business in this area. 

The current business plan calls for Unibet/France Pari to release a sportsbook offering as soon as the market is officially opened, presumably on the planned June 11th date, while French poker rooms and horse racing will be available on Unibet.fr by October 2010.  

Meanwhile, the troubled Bingo.com has announced its successful full transition to the Unibet network, thereby allowing the Swedish company to provide bingo under the Unibet name across Europe and in 21 languages. 

“It has been our vision to have the gaming liquidity on Bingo.com pooled and supported in multiple currencies and languages,” stated Bingo.com CEO Tarrnie Williams, who went on to say “We’re already seeing an increase in registrations and player conversions from the additional languages we now support.”  

Founded in 1997 and originally providing Internet betting in Sweden, Stockholm-based Unibet today has expanded to over 4.4 million customers in 100 countries. Unibet most recently acquired Travnet Live Racing for Scandinavian horserace betting and Maria, provider of Internet bingo in Sweden.