SBC News BOS Speaker Profile - Valery Bollier - Oulala - Making fantasy moves

BOS Speaker Profile – Valery Bollier – Oulala – Making fantasy moves

Valery Bollier is the CEO of Oulala, a company that is fast making tracks in DFS and has recently announced a move into India and Australasia via a deal with Cardinal House GroupValeryOulala#1

Valery is speaking on a panel at Betting on Sports 2016 (September 15-16) on the topic of how DFS operators and bookmakers can work together for mutual benefit.

SBC: Can you talk us through the recent deal with Cardinal House Group and how this came about?

Valery: Our goal has always been to expand our Fantasy Football Network globally; therefore offering our DFS platform to Asia and Australia is a logical step for us. We are very pleased to be signing a partnership with Cardinal House Group since people at the company, including a former member of Oulala’s board of directors, Graham Martin, possess extensive knowledge and experience in operating, acquiring, developing and building businesses within the gaming sector in that part of the world.

Under the agreement, our partner will initially offer national and international customers the opportunity to play daily fantasy football via Oulala’s DFS platform, with the options to play for free, or alternatively to compete in real money contests.

SBC: Oulala is moving more into a B2B white label offering, where are you at with this currently and why was this decision made?

Valery: After setting up our company in 2013 and following a test period of our free-to-play game, we launched a monetized B2C version in October 2015.

Our initial strategy had always been to become the first DFS network in European football, however, we believed that in order to convince iGaming operators to adopt DFS we first needed to succeed with our B2C offer. Therefore, we were pleasantly surprised by the reaction to our press release announcing our B2C monetized game, where we received numerous calls from iGaming operators showing immediate interest for a white label version of our game.

We thus decided to limit our marketing efforts on Oulala and to mainly focus on offering the best DFS BtoB solution.

After several months of preparation, we are now deploying our first partnerships. We have also just announced an agreement we have closed with an Italian partner (Game Interaction group). Additionally, numerous other partnerships will be officialised within the next few weeks.

The iGaming sector is now fully convinced that DFS is the next big thing and many operators are now actively seeking a white label solution. Needless to say, this is a very stimulating period for Oulala.

SBC: Will you be doing a marketing push ahead of the new domestic season, and what do you make of the entrance of FanDuel?

Valery: We will, of course, continue to promote our game, as well as the whole DFS sector, but our main efforts will be focused on the promotion of our B2B offer. Having solid experience in the iGaming sector, our technical and marketing team were able to build an efficient solution, including a plug and play white label or API, and we are officially starting its commercialisation. Up until now, we have only been responding to operators that have come to us.

FanDuel’s arrival is, of course, great news for the DFS sector in Europe, just as Draftkings’ arrival was. Both companies possess a huge marketing budget, and there is no doubt that they will rapidly increase the level of awareness on our sector. Healthy competition is always beneficial for a sector.

SBC: How much value do you see in fantasy sports in Europe outside of football?

Valery: Unlike in the US, where American football takes the lead while other sports also have their own fair share of attention, football is undoubtedly the number one sport in Europe, and far ahead of any other sport.

Our sector is still at a very young stage, therefore at this point in time, we believe that it would not make sense to offer other daily fantasy sports for the European market. However, I am certain that as the sector becomes more diversified, fantasy versions of other sports will soon follow.

SBC: What can attendees expect from your panel discussion alongside Mondogoal’s Shergul Arshad?

Valery: An entertaining moment where Shergul and I will discuss our rising market and our respective visions and strategies!

Interested in how operators can work with daily fantasy sports, or the bridge between wider sports in general and the betting industry? Make sure you’re at the largest sports betting conference of the year; Betting on Sports 2016 (September 15-16) #BIGnBOS

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