The bookmaker has signed a three-year tie with the league and will broadcast a raft of live matches for its clients through its streaming technology.

The focus on in running betting was emphasised by Sportingbet as punters would be able to watch the whole match on the website with a view to increasing the number and frequency of bets on the event. The offering will come in 22 different languages.

Sportingbet chief executive Andy McIver said: “The renewal of this contract reflects the success both companies have enjoyed from this partnership in the past three years. We are happy to offer our clients all these matches exclusively.”

Jordi Bertomeu, chief executive of Euroligue, commented: “We’re delighted to continue our collaboration with Sportingbet. This commercial relationship allows us to grow our brand and develop our brands internationally.”

The new Barrière-FDJ business entity will apply for a licence with the French Online Gaming Authority (ARJEL) once the law is voted through by the Senate later this year and must be approved by the European Commission. There has been no comment from Barrière and FDJ, but it is understood they will both hold 43,8% of the shares on the company, with the remaining 12,4% going to a company called Online Gaming 3D.

Online Gaming 3D is gaming offshoot of the French cinema and video games developer MK2, which also developed Barrière’s online gaming offering, including its 3D casino Lecroupier.com.

The Liverpool-based offline betting company already operates in Italy, Cyprus and Poland and lodged an appeal with the French State Council, France’s highest judicial court, in August 2009 to overturn the FDJ monopoly on offering bets through land-based outlets.

Stanleybet has already achieved major legal breakthroughs in Europe through the Gambelli and Placanica rulings of 2003 and 2007, which recognised the right of sports betting businesses legally established in one European Member State to offer those services in another Member State.

However, Stanleybet deputy managing director Adrian Morris told iGaming France that the circumstances surrounding his company’s action in the French courts were different.

“This position is different to Gambelli and Placanica because they were individual intermediaries in Italy and we have no intermediaries in France. Our application for a licence in France is about an unjustified monopoly and if the State Council considers that it cannot decide on it without guidance, then it is in its power to refer a question to the European Court of Justice,” he said.

French land-based betting outlets revolve around a café-bar set up, compared with the UK model of the high street betting shop, and Morris said his company’s model of setting up outlets in France should it be successful in the French courts would be flexible. “We would prefer a partnership with a local entity, although it is too early in the proceedings (to be considering this question yet),” he said.

Continental European offline betting patterns were also very different to those in the UK, Morris added, as punters tended to bet mainly on football rather than horse and dog racing. Even if France does have a strong racing culture, it is not as high in other European markets. This means set up and hardware costs and the need for fast-changing information to go with each new race were not as high.

Stanleybet will also make use of the ECJ finding in the Santa Casa-Bwin case it ruled on in September 2009 that online gaming presented an increased risk of problem and addiction gambling than its offline equivalent. If that is the case and online gaming is set to be regulated in France in the coming months, the company believes there is no reason why offline betting should not be open to competition for private operators.

France is known for its protectionism with regard to its gambling monopolies, and when asked if he felt Stanleybet had a good chance of winning this case, Morris said: “Up to 17 EU Member States already allow licensed offline betting and more are in the process of regulating this sector of the gambling industry. We see no reason why the French State Council cannot reach a verdict that is compliant with European Law without a referral to the ECJ. But it should refer the case to the ECJ if it has a doubt about the compliance of the FDJ monopoly with European case law. Our view is that the monopoly is unjustified.”

Morris had no specific timeframe as to the next judicial step in the procedure.

Le Monde newspaper reported yesterday that Bouygues, one of the biggest industrial groups in France, had taken over the management of SPS as a result of major disagreements between key decision makers at the company. Bouygues is also close to an agreement to get SPS to join Francaise des Jeux and Barriere in launching an online poker site for the French market, according to the newspaper.

Disagreements between Patrick Le Lay, former chief executive of TF1, the largest commercial TV channel in France which is part of the Bouygues conglomerate; and Nonce Paolini, his successor at the  channel, lay behind the move by Bouygues. In December, Paolini asked TF1 majority shareholder Martin Bouygues to remove Le Lay from the channel’s board, a request that was agreed to even though Le Lay had only joined the board in June 2009.

TF1 then agreed to buy out investment fund Serendipity’s stake in SPS Betting, one of the SPS backers which is headed up by Le Lay, “as a consolation prize”, according to sources at the TV channel. Although Eurosportbet’s turnover is not significant because it only operates in the UK, it has around 70 employees, with 15 traders based in Paris.

Le Monde speculated that TF1 might in fact be in discussions with potential partners with a view to selling the business or alternatively could simply close it down.

Eurosportbet obtained an Alderney licence in June 2009 and was set up by Le Lay in order to compete with major European operators such as Bwin, Unibet and Betclic. It has been gearing up for a French launch in preparation of the upcoming regulation there later this year.

However, Le Lay recently revealed that Serendipity backers Artemis and Bouygues had found the idea of setting up an online betting company « bizarre ». Both Artemis and Bouygues refused to consider taking over existing operators as they believed them to be illegal in they eyes of the French authorities.

SPS Betting were unavailable for comment at the time of writing.

Maxifoot.fr recently signed key sponsorship deals with Bwin, Unibet and Mybet for the next 12 months, and Pakula said that although advertising and marketing budgets will increase, TV and radio stations with live coverage of sports events will reap the lion’s share of advertising revenues.

« The market opening will inevitably dilute advertising budgets towards more offline exposure. TV and radio stations that have live coverage of sports event, and French football in particular, will be the main winners. Some online media outlets will be disappointed, the sums available are not limitless.
« Sports sites such as ours will remain central to bookmakers’ marketing strategies although some will be disappointed. In the medium term, our advertising revenues from online gaming operators could well reach half our overall turnover, which is considerable, » Pakula said.

Maxifoot has existing relationships with a number of online betting companies, but Pakula said his company would limit itself to five partnerships with such companies as a way to increase the value of both Maxifoot’s and the operators’ brands.

Zeturf chief executive Emmanuel de Rohan-Chabot told La Tribune: « €10m will be part of a capital raising exercise and the rest will come from Austrian and Maltese shareholders. »

The level of taxation on French-licensed sports betting operators is sure to come back to front of stage as the market nears regulation. Operators will only be allowed a maximum pay out ratio of 85% and tax levels for fixed odds bets set at 7.5% plus 1% to go towards sports funding. Tote operators will be taxed the same 7.5% but will have to add another 8% on top of that as funding for the horse racing industry.

New market entrants will also have to contend with PMU’s huge and exclusive offline reach in retail outlets and hippodromes across France. PMU recorded an online turnover of around €600m to go with its €9bn offline turnover and will mingle both liquidities under the new regulation.

Commenting on the accessibility to points of sale and the huge difference in liquidity between PMU and private operators, Mangas Gaming chief executive Isabelle Parize told iGaming France: « If a million players stake €1 on PMU’s website, it means more or less €1m in prize pool. Whereas a private operator with 10 players staking €1 will only have €10 to offer as winnings (and will have to build up their liquidity from scratch). Is this not a classic case of unfair competition? »

One option could see private operators co-mingling liquidities. Sajoo.fr reportedly tried to engage PMU about such an issue but was unsurprisingly rebuffed by the state-licensed company. It might instead look to Zeturf and Mangas-owned Betclic to build up their player base and have a competitive offering in French pari mutuel horse racing betting.