For the residents of France, this year has been far from baguettes and frogs legs. If it wasn’t the sports news pages being filled with the kind of mutiny last seen in the times of pirates then criticism for France’s new gaming legislation was coming thick and fast. Even the French were bagging the new legislation with its highly exorbitant tax rates.
The company who came out to unequivocally criticize the legislation, BetClic Everest, has today announced that the president of the group will be changing. Founder and former chairman of the group, Stephane Courbit, will be handing over the reigns to the founder of BetClic, Nicolas Béraud.
After starting up Betclic in 2005, Béraud later sold the company to Courbit’s Mangas Gaming group, and has been CEO of the BetClic Everest group since March 2010. He will be tasked with controlling the four companies under the BetClic Everest banner: Everest Gaming, BetClic, Bet-at-Home and Expekt.
Courbit, now the former President of the group, won’t have his influence completely diminished though. His company, Lov Group, retains a 50% stake in the group’s holding company and he has worked alongside the group’s new chairman, Jean-Laurent Nabet, since 2008.
As for the criticism that Courbit leveled at the French market, don’t expect the opinions to dissipate, which is thanks to the 50% stake he still holds.
