Unibet moves onto Relax poker network in France

Unibet Poker will undergo a period of transformation in the French egaming market as it migrates to the Relax Gaming poker client.

The Unibet Poker product in France was previously run on Playtech’s iPoker network, but Unibet has become the first operator to join the France-facing Relax Gaming client as the supplier prepares to launch in the French market in Q2.

Relax Gaming already powers the Kindred’s poker offering in most key markets.

Kristoffer Bergvall, head of poker at Kindred, told EGR Intel: “Relax is a company we have been working with for a long time and they have been doing an excellent job on the .com platform and the opportunity came up so the French team seized it.

“It means the team can influence the direction of the platform a bit more and have the same focus that Unibet.com has on tailoring to players and trying to make poker as fun as possible.”

Unibet will be the first operator to go live on the Relax Gaming poker platform in France but other operators will be able to join the client in the future.

Speaking at a launch event for the network on Saturday, Unibet Poker manager Fabrice Arrondeau said: “The software does not look like what is found elsewhere as it has been modernised with a very fun gamification element.”

Players can design their own avatars and unlock personalisation features through on their performances on the poker tables, which now feature on a new grid format called HexaPro.

Unibet has also launched the new platform without tracking capabilities to prevent “bum-hunting”.

“One of the problems of poker operators is that some players drain liquidity,” added Arrondeau. “They are almost too good and do not give recreational players time to have fun.

“Even for big grinders, it’s a bad thing since the players do not come back to the tables anymore. It is for these reasons that we decided that without a tracker, recreational players will feel better.”