Winamax is expected to offer sports betting alongside its French regulated online poker room in the near future.
Online poker in the French regulated market is a business that is hard to sustain with gaming taxes at the equivalent of 37% of revenues.
The company has been advertising for staff in several positions for its “upcoming launch and development of a Winamax sportsbetting center.”
Recruiting interviews start at the end of April, so launch may be a few months off—no public dates for the launch have been released.
Unlike poker, sports betting has been a profitable business line for French operators under ARJEL regulation. Q1 figures for 2014 show 22% year on year growth whereas poker continued to fall—down 12% compared to Q1 of 2013.
Full Tilt has also recently made the move away from being a pure poker site, having already launched casino games, with more to come. For the major gaming operators like Playtech, Betfair and bwin.party, poker revenues rarely represent more than a fifth of their business.
The addition of sports betting revenues, assuming that Winamax can make a success of the venture, can only help with the sustainability of its poker operations.
