Sports betting technology supplier Kambi has extended its deal with Bulgaria’s national lottery operator to prepare for its entry into the Moldovan market this summer.
On Wednesday, Kambi announced that it was enhancing its existing relationship with National Lottery JSC, Bulgaria’s leading private gaming company, which operates locally under the 7777.bg online lottery and gaming brand. The two parties first hooked up in July 2017 after 7777 decided to add sports betting to its product mix.
The expanded deal, which replaces the parties’ original pact, will see Kambi support National Lottery JSC’s push into Moldova, which recently awarded the Bulgarian firm an exclusive 15-year contract to run its national lottery product and a new online and retail sports betting service. The new monopoly operation is a public-private partnership with Moldova’s Public Property Agency.
Kambi’s plan is to roll out the online sports betting product in Moldova “in the next few months.” Retail betting operations will be rolled out initially via “local stores” and eventually via a network of dedicated betting shops.
The 7777 brand’s online sportsbook didn’t launch in Bulgaria until early 2018 but the brand is already among the country’s top-three online sportsbooks. National Lottery JSC managing partner Milen Ganev said Kambi had helped his company achieve its goal of becoming a local market leader “well ahead of time.”
Kambi CEO Kristian Nylén said 7777’s success was “testament to the quality” of both Kambi’s product and National Lottery JSC’s “marketing expertise,” and Nylén predicted similarly epic results from the new Moldovan venture.
Kambi is set to report its Q1 financial results on April 24, and the year-on-year gains promise to be impressive. Kambi has made serious inroads into the nascent US legal sports betting market, and was named Sportsbook Platform Provider of the Year and Sports Betting Supplier of the Year at this month’s eGR North America Awards 2019. Kambi is preparing the opening of its first US-based office in Philadelphia in the current quarter.
