iGaming Business – French-licensed operators ZEturf and Winamax are gearing up for the Brazil World cup kick off next month with the planned launches of their respective online betting offerings.

The two operators are number 2 in horse racing pari mutuel and number 1 in online poker respectively in France and plan to cross-sell their football offerings to their horse racing and poker players with the longer term view of diversifying their product base.

ZEturf’s fixed odds offering will operate from the domain name ZEbet.fr and will run on the technology provided by operator France Pari’s b2b division Sportnco.

For its part Winamax would not say if it will run its sports betting offering under the a distinct brand name or whether it had licensed the technology from a provider or developed it in-house.

The news came out last week with regulator ARJEL’s update that it had authorised Winamax’s sports betting software platform and granted it the relevant licence.

However, France’s online poker market leader denied it had anything to do with the French poker market struggling badly for the past two years. “Tournaments are doing very well, cash games are struggling across the board but we are able to get the most out of ours,” a spokesperson said.

Zeturf also received confirmation of its online betting licence last week and will go live at the end of May. Chief executive Emmanuel de Rohan Chabot commented: “We are constantly looking to improve our players’ experience. We decided to set up ZEbet because it answers the demand from our clients and the long term trend for the online betting market.”