French giant FDJ signs Orange media deal ahead of regulation
La Francaise Des Jeux (FDJ), the French national lottery operator and the second largest lottery operator in the world, has signed a three-year deal with Orange that will see Orange incorporate online sports betting into its French online, mobile and television portals.
LA FRANCAISE Des Jeux (FDJ), the French national lottery operator and the second largest lottery operator in the world, has signed a three-year deal with Orange that will see Orange incorporate online sports betting into its French online, mobile and television portals.
Orange.fr will link to the FDJ’s sports betting website at ParionsWeb.FDJeux.net within the domain’s sports and gaming section from next month, with links to lottery games to follow.
Orange mobile subscribers will be given access to FDJ’s sports betting and lottery services from this summer, while viewers of the Orange Sport and Orange Sport Info channels are scheduled to be able to bet with the operator before the end of 2010 if licences are approved.
A company statement read: “This three-year partnership is in line with the group’s network publisher strategy, which is designed to enable content editors who have a partnership with Orange to benefit from the interactive capabilities of the group’s networks.”
Monopolies in France, one of Europe’s three largest economies, are increasing their brand recognition and product offerings ahead of the legalisation of online sports betting expected this summer after France’s National Assembly yesterday passed a bill to regulate online gambling.
As reported on EGRmagazine.com, late last month FDJ acquired LVS, the betting software supplier that FDJ in January signed to provide its fixed-odds sports betting platform.
FDJ’s counterpart monopoly Pari Mutuel Urbain (PMU), the largest horse racing monopoly in Europe, also signed a business-to-business (B2B) deal for PartyGaming to provide it with an online poker product.