It’s only the beginning, but it”s gonna be big: the wave of online sports betting is now reaching French shores. The legalization in France, programmed for early 2010, of some gambling and betting games online (Poker and Sports betting will be first) has started to attract large numbers of investors and big media groups. Backstage, partnerships are taking place and everyone wants a part of this lucrative cake.
On Beterz, a new sports betting community site which launches in France and the UK is part of that wave. User will be able to use the community in order to share a prognostic, learn the best tactics or simply try to imitate the nest betters.
Members get to challenge each other. They can bet on numerous sports like football, rugby, tennis, basket, Formula 1, boxing etc.
Most of French-based betting sites use virtual money and gifts for prizes. If you are a French company based in France (and not in the UK or Malta for example), you can’t promote and offer betting with real money; not yet. But the idea is to test the ground and try to seize a spot in this very competitive market. When legalization comes most players hope their model model will be ready and then the real money can flow in.
Beterz is well executed and makes you want to spend some time and earn or lose some virtual money. The site offers many features; a forum, article (although i would like to see a real section with user generated content on sports related news), a blog, Facebook Connect and, of course, a Twitter account. The potential is here: now they will have to create a true community with a lot of users to impose their presence on the market.
Beterz is edited by The Gaming Bridge, a startup created in November 2008 by three friends from the HEC school; it has been Financed by Oleg Tscheltzoff et Patrick Chassany (co-fonuders of Fotolia).