Monthly Archives: February 2019

Poland’s leading bookmaker STS expands into 11 European markets

Poland’s leading betting operator STS is blazing a new trail by becoming the first domestic bookmaker to pursue international expansion.

On Friday, STS chairman Mateusz Juroszek held a press conference to announce that his company was launching online sports betting, casino, virtual sports and eSports operations – on a new BetConstruct platform – in multiple European markets under licenses obtained from regulators in Malta and the UK.

Juroszek said his company would look to target expatriate Polish communities in those target markets. Juroszek believes that “the awareness of our brand among these people is extremely high,” offering his company a “significant competitive advantage.”

STS is focusing on 11 European markets, including the UK, Germany and Norway. The UK online market has proven a tough slog for new entrants, but Juroszek claims STS’ brand recognition among the UK’s estimated 1m people of Polish descent is on par with local bookmaker William Hill. “We are a Polish company that Poles know.”

‘Cowboys’ won’t be eligible for Dutch online gambling licenses

Online gambling operators who ‘actively’ target Dutch gamblers will be excluded from the new regulated market, at least temporarily.

On Friday, Netherlands Justice Minister Sander Dekker provided his written response to three questions put to him by the Dutch Senate during Tuesday’s debate on the Remote Gaming Bill. Local publication Gaming in Holland posted the letter (read it here, in Dutch) and we’ll recap the highlights below.

To the question of which international operators will be eligible for a new Dutch online license, Dekker said he wished to exclude “illegal operators who continue to actively [emphasis by Dekker] focus on the Dutch market.” Dekker noted that his preferred terminoloy for such operators was “cowboys.”

Dekker appeared to define ‘actively’ as operators who offer customers the use of popular Dutch payment processor iDeal, use a Dutch domain name or market directly to Dutch customers.