Webis subsidiary partners with PMU
WatchandWager becomes the first US horse racing firm to offer odds on French racing
Webis Holdings California-based subsidiary WatchandWager has signed a deal with Pari-Mutuel Urbain to allow its US customers to bet on French horse racing.
The ‘direct co-mingling’ agreement allows American punters to bet into PMU’s racetrack pools, with French horse racing data and live streaming of races to be added to the WatchandWager site, when the initiative launches in mid-June.
Webis becomes the first horse racing operator to offer odds on French racing to its customers, covering eight Tote territories in total. The operator’s pari-mutuel operations director Ed Comins described the deal as “another feather in the cap” of the US subsidiary, which signed a deal to provide pari-mutuel betting and live streaming to the Churchill Downs racetrack earlier this month.
“The French have a heavy emphasis on compliance and wagering integrity, and to be granted the PMU rights demonstrates our commitment to these areas,” Comins said. “We look forward to promoting French racing in our core market through the summer and in the run up to the prestigious Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe meeting in early October.”
While horse racing remains the French operator’s core business, growth in its poker and sports betting operations helped the company post a 16% year-on-year rise in online gross gaming revenues in its full-year results for 2012. GGR rose to 270.1m, while amounts staked increased 22.8% year-on-year to 1.65bn.