Soft2Bet
Managing Growth, AI, and Compliance Acquiring businesses and licences at a rate of knots, spare a thought for Soft2Bet’s legal
department. Eran Dekel, Senior Legal Director at Soft2Bet, discusses the comprehensive role of legal teams, the cautious adoption of AI tools and the need for strategic planning to manage anticipated growth in M&A activities.
Eventually locating one another on the gargantuan Soft2Bet stand, we begin our interview by fleshing out what the legal department is concerned with relative to the compliance team. It’s put to Eran that ‘legal’ and ‘compliance’ are terms often conflated and interchanged.
Eran explains that, yes, both legal and compliance teams address regulatory matters, but the former's responsibilities extend to areas such as labour laws, data protection, financial considerations like taxation, intellectual property rights and appropriate corporate structuring.
“At Soft2Bet, the legal and compliance teams collaborate closely, ensuring that compliance insights are integrated into agreements and operations. Tis partnership is crucial especially when entering new markets, as it ensures adherence to local regulations while balancing business objectives.
“When we're entering new markets a big chunk of the workload is down to compliance, but what we have that is unique to the legal team is a 360- degree overview,” says Eran. “We give advice to the commercial teams that extends beyond these regulatory aspects. For instance, we advise on whether a price point makes sense because we have oversight on all the deals and transactions across the business. As such, we can judge whether something does or doesn’t make sense from a commercial perspective.”
In 2024, Soft2Bet expanded its global presence by securing licences in several regulated markets, entering Ontario and Mexico with B2C licences and expanded in Sweden with three new B2C licences. Te company also obtained B2B licences in Greece and Romania and additional licences in Sweden. A couple of days after our interview it was announced that Soft2Bet has acquired an unnamed Spanish gaming operator, thus securing another European licence via that route.
In 2025, Eran anticipates even more M&A activity. 56
“M&A transactions aren't as routine as a licence agreement, for example - it's not like buying off the shelf software which is quick to deal with. Every M&A transaction has its own uniqueness, and you need to deeply understand how it will integrate into the business and what would be the implications on the business from a commercial, tax, corporate, labour and regulatory perspective. Each deal requires a lot of attention, resources, and time. As the number of these deals increases, our challenge this year will be hiring and training more people to deal with the added complexity and workflow.”
B2C-B2B BALANCE
In B2C operations, Soft2Bet manages its own licences and operations, interacting primarily with regulators and players. In contrast, B2B operations involve providing critical services to other operators, necessitating alignment between Soft2Bet's risk appetite and that of its partners. Tis, Eran explains, requires careful balancing to ensure mutual profitability and compliance.
“Tere are different checks and balances we need to consider depending on whether it’s a B2B or B2C operation. When operating our own B2C operations, we do everything in-house because we are responsible for our own licence and operation. Te main functions that we need to be responsible for is the regulator and players on one hand, and our shareholders, on the other.
“When it comes to B2B operations, we are then responsible for the operation of another party, that of the B2C operator. While they’re the licence holder, we are providing them with critical services which exposes both us and them. Why? Because it is often that both parties’ risk appetites, policies and procedures are not aligned. Te way we implement our policies and procedures in our own B2C operations may differ from the B2C operator’s risk appetite and how they would like to see their operations running. We need to factor in that a more
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