Unibet acquires EurosportBet France

According to the CEO of Unibet Henrik Tjärnström the acquisition permits Unibet to re-enter the French market at a limited cost to take advantage of the longer-term opportunities. Tjärnström also revealed that Unibet plans to quickly rebrand the two sites as Unibet.fr If the deal is approved by French igaming regulator ARJEL.

“This strategic acquisition gives Unibet immediate access to the French market with a technical platform that is already licensed offering sports betting, poker and horse racing. We will rebrand the business quickly to Unibet.fr. The combination of Unibet’s strong brand, the efforts already made to build a significant market share for EurosportBet, and the difficult decisions taken by management to control costs give the best opportunity to be successful in a very difficult market,” said the CEO of Unibet Henrik Tjärnström.

“Even though we recognise that it will be difficult to generate profits in the short term under the current terms and conditions, we consider that over the medium term France will develop a more sustainable model that will better achieve the goals of player protection, fair competition and reasonable taxation," added Tjärnström.

Solfive acquired SPS Betting from Television Francaise only few months ago in a operation that saw the EurosportBet management team take over the company after months of quarrels with the company's founders.

Television Francaise, in partnership with investment fund Serendipity, had initially planned to launch betting sites under the Eurosport trademark in several European markets, but cut down on its ambitious plans after the Alderney licensed eurosportbet.co.uk closed within one year from its launch with losses for over 20 million euros.

Players and affiliates reported delays receiving payments from eurosportbet.co.uk and several months after the site's closure many remained unpaid.

Date published: 23 November 2011