24 December, 2024 | JAN FEB 2025

CEO Special: Soft2Bet CEO Uri Poliavich – Feeding the fire

Uri Poliavich, Soft2Bet CEO & Founder, sits down with Gambling Insider’s Will Underwood to discuss his faith, family and the global journey that has led him to his current position as a business leader.

The best place to start is, typically, the beginning. For Uri Poliavich, the beginnings were humble. Born in Ukraine in 1981, Poliavich has come a long way – a fact he is reflective of, as he settles into his home-from-home in the Soft2Bet Limassol office for our meeting. Behind Poliavich stands a giant Batman figurine which peers over the immaculately designed room bathed in a Cypriot sunset. Over the past eight years, Poliavich and his wife have built Soft2Bet from the ground up, turning it into one of the most recognisable suppliers in the industry. Full of gaming and company paraphernalia, the Maltese office is now one of many Soft2Bet locations across the globe, a fact that is representative of Poliavich’s driven approach to both life and business.

“I’ve always moved around a lot from a young age,” Poliavich tells Gambling Insider. I’ve lived in Ukraine, Israel, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova and now Cyprus. I think once you do that switch and start travelling, you realise how many interesting places there are out there. For me, that started when I left Ukraine at 14-years-old, and my family moved to Israel. That’s where I finished high school and did my three years of national army service, as everybody does in Israel, and then I went and got myself a degree in law and continued to become a lawyer.”

Although the worlds of gaming and law are, of course, deeply intertwined, Poliavich’s initial forays into the working world showed no indication of bridging the gap between the two. Indeed, his route from one profession to the other was, while highly interesting, perhaps a little unconventional. After working in commercial and real estate law for a short stretch, Poliavich reflects on the distinct feeling of requiring a major change, “I understood that what I was doing was not for me.” Poliavich jokes about the trials of law and the long working hours of the job, saying: “One day, I found myself just sleeping on the mountain of folders, and I thought ‘I need to do something different.’ I ended up job searching on Google and, after a while a position popped up – a lawyer was needed to run some business activity in Kyrgyzstan. Before I knew it, I found myself leaving the office and moving to a completely new country that I had never visited in my life!” 

FROM THE BOOKS TO THE BOOKIES 

Kyrgyzstan’s relationship with gambling was, until more recently, relatively uneventful. 2012 saw the nation place a blanket ban on the practice, only to re-regulate again in 2021. Poliavich’s time was before all of this, though, as he recalls that, upon his arrival, gambling wasn’t exactly on his mind. “Kyrgyzstan as a country is a little bit out in the middle of nowhere. The country itself is very small and surrounded by mountains. There is a lot of sun and it’s very chilly. It’s very beautiful, but as I said, it’s a bit out in the middle of nowhere. It’s not Asia, it’s not Eastern Europe, it was a lot to walk in to.” Despite running a handful of operations for WK Group in Kyrgyzstan, including schools and construction businesses, it was the adrenaline of the betting shop experience that reeled Poliavich in, thus giving him his first taste of life in the gambling industry.

“Straight away, I knew I liked the betting shop business the most because it was such high energy, so many people in the shops, so many emotions, someone is winning, someone is losing, people are experiencing a full range of emotions in the space of seconds. When you see it happening in front of your eyes, it really clicked with me.

“The company had around 100 employees and I was just a manager. I was a sergeant in the army, so I had some transferrable managerial skills, but that was it. I landed there from Israel to run the whole thing and, as someone who was 31-years-old, to run this standalone business with 100 employees and around 100 cashiers? It was amazing – and a fantastic education for me.”

 

A WHITE-LABEL DEBUT 

As firsts go, introducing the first-ever white-label gaming platform to Kyrgyzstan is something so niche only Poliavich can boast the feat. But after introducing the first white label to the country for BetConstruct, Poliavich decided that after two and a half years, his time in Kyrgyzstan was coming to an end – but not before the country made its final contribution to his life’s trajectory. “Just before I left the country, I met the love of my life and we got married! We now have two kids, three and one years old – who were born here in Cyprus.” Poliavich’s time in Kyrgyzstan was eventful, to say the least. Alongside getting married, he became closely involved with Playtech, which had a major breakthrough in the country. “We got the licence for the national lottery and what happened is I was tasked with finding the provider, and also with bringing in some investment. I was supposed to do it myself, but things went wrong. It was a very long process. We visited different cities in the country, travelled to different, extremely remote villages in the mountains. Because it’s a national lottery, it’s supposed to reach as wide as possible. What that means is that your distribution network is supposed to be as large as possible. Subsequently I did a lot of homework there – and visited parts of the country even the President has probably never been to!” Poliavich recalls his first ever visit to ICE London, in 2010, during which he details manoeuvring the hectic streets of Camden with the business plans of the Kyrgyzstani state lottery stuffed into his backpack

“This was all around the time when regulations start coming in one after another. Regulated markets, regulated businesses. The UK got regulated, Spain, Greece, Portugal, one after another.” By 2012, however, Poliavich and his wife looked to relocate somewhere closer to the European hub. After landing a job to manage white labels for a gambling firm in Moldova, Poliavich was still searching for providers and contracts while developing his own platform. After sourcing an office in Moldova, he made his first hires – one of which, he says, is still sitting in the next room in the Soft2Bet Cyprus office, “he and his family have been travelling with us for years!”

“I was also combining this job with a sales position for Playtech where I was reselling their software. This was another good education for me, to understand how to deal with a big business. Playtech was then – and is now – a huge machine. It’s a huge ship, so it’s more difficult to make those sharp moves. If you want to change the route of an organisation like that, it takes years. By this point I had decided, I need to do something myself.” Working two jobs for two years in Moldova led to the development of a platform. That is no mean feat, though Poliavich remains humble about the achievement. “We called it a platform. It was not a platform. It was a registration and some place to put thumbnails of the games, no more than that. That’s how we started out, that’s how everyone starts out. Yet, once again, I found myself looking for investment. 

We want to ensure Jewish children and families worldwide have the opportunity to connect to Jewish tradition and identity

ME, MY WIFE AND THE DOG 

Poliavich fondly reflects on relocating back to Ukraine with his wife, Yael, and the family dog, “and a couple of chairs from the local Ikea.” He recalls reaching out to some prior contacts at Pragmatic Play to pitch them the platform, detailing that the call went well. “They told me, ‘You know what? Once you have a licence, send it to me and we will get started.’” Within two weeks of arriving in Kyiv in 2016, Poliavich and his wife released their first brand. 

Thus, Soft2Bet was officially launched and enjoyed huge success within its first four years, expanding into larger offices in the Ukrainian capital to house the 350 employees the company had already managed to amass. “It was time for us to move to a bigger location.” After deciding to broaden the scope further, Soft2Bet’s technology arm was launched in Cyprus in 2020 in a move that sought to well and truly introduce the company on an international stage. “That’s how we made the jump from Ukraine to Cyprus, which has been an amazing place for us. The local authorities have done everything to support us. It’s probably the one country I could advertise forever. They did us a huge favour by allowing us to move our team and their families to Cyprus. Giving them state permits, work permits, helping get all the kids into schools – everything. Having our two kids here – who are aged one and three – they have their home here with our (now two) Labradors!”

“Needless to say, it’s also affected the business. We had to move faster because the expenses here are much higher than in Ukraine – so that gave us a good push. While I’m saying all this, we can’t forget Malta – our HQ! We established Malta in 2018 and that’s our home, really. Where the heart is!”

The opening of Soft2Bet’s new Malta HQ, which currently accommodates over 200 employees, was celebrated in April 2024. The ceremonial ribbon cutting of the new complex, located between St. Julians and Mdina, was, of course, attended by the company’s CEO. For someone as well travelled as Poliavich, the culture of internationality, diversity and inclusion is one he has managed to foster within his business; while his CFO and CBDO were hired to reside in Malta, Poliavich visits frequently. However, the ideology of a universally inclusive, international business culture is one that comes from his formative years. “I always felt like something of a stranger. As I was Jewish, I felt I was stranger in Ukraine. Then, as a Ukrainian, I was a stranger in Israel. I would get this feeling of being a tourist almost all my life. Especially with all the travelling. That’s why, being an international company, unlike so many other companies that have one identity, we want to make sure we have a mixed identity. For Soft2Bet, the whole business is built around diversity. This mixture of people and cultures is what really allows us to have a truly international identity, which comes from respecting others, learning a lot about other cultures and other approaches. It’s the only way for me.” 

 THE NEXT STEPS 

The big questions after a certain amount of time becomes: how far can this go? For Poliavich, the constant pushing of boundaries is precisely what Soft2Bet has become about. Prior to the number of expansive moves Soft2Bet has managed to manoeuvre over the course of 2024, Poliavich was recognised at the start of the year for his exceptional leadership in 2023. This recognition came in the form of a Global Gaming Award Executive of the Year nomination, off the back of a 2023 which saw Soft2Bet move into seven new markets, alongside a tripling of the company’s EBITDA. Expansion is, it would seem, always on the mind. Poliavich name-checks Scandanavia as having become a key European region for growth for the company in recent years, with his sights now set on Denmark as the next step. Indeed, Soft2Bet launched CampoBet in Denmark in April, soon after it opened its new Malta office. The brand’s Danish launch follows its successful ventures into the Swedish and Maltese markets – however, European expansion isn’t the only thing on Poliavich’s mind. Keen industry observers will know that Soft2Bet’s expansion into New Jersey is also something that has been in the works for some time.

“The North Star for us is New Jersey. We’re quite sure it’s going to happen now. We’ve already got all the KYC and the approvals we need from the regulator. We signed market access deals and everything else is in place.

“Now, it’s just certification of the platform. It takes time but we’re almost there. I believe that in Q1 we’ll finalise everything and, in Q2, we will go live with the first brand in New Jersey. We’re live in Ontario already. New Jersey, for me, has been a personal task and a personal challenge. This is because I see a lot of European companies that move to the US market and, after a while, they come back. They close offices and admit defeat. For me it’s a personal challenge to ensure that doesn’t happen.”

The rapidly developing landscape in the US is stringent for operators for many reasons, differing regulations from one jurisdiction to the next pair with widely fluctuating consumer habits and cultural nuances that have proved tricky for gambling companies to navigate in recent years. However, Soft2Bet is now established in Ontario, which is a vital and thriving North American market that has proved to be a safe introductory route for many suppliers entering the landscape. “We want to fill the market, to understand its needs, establish an office, hire all the personnel that we need to grow there. The goal is to showcase our product as a B2C and then expand into B2B. States are opening one after another. We see huge potential once again. It will be a lot of blood sweat and tears, but we’ll get there.” 

Straight away, I knew I liked the betting shop business the most because it was such high energy, so many people in the shops, so many emotions

MAKING IT HAPPEN 

Motivations are an interesting human concept; they differ from person to person, they change, multiply, fade and then materialise again out of nowhere over the course of a lifetime. When asked about the complexities of his own motivations, business and personal, Poliavich states that, for him, it’s actually quite simple: “My father was a coal miner in Ukraine. Not an easy job, we had very limited resources, so to speak. I remember my family were collecting money to go on summer vacation to the seaside. In the 1990s in Ukraine, it was very tough times. My mother and father were collecting for two or three years to take us for away to the seaside one week somewhere else in Ukraine. Every day we would walk down to the seaside for 30 minutes and, on the beach, there was a kiosk selling bananas and potato chips. And that was our choice, one of the two, bananas or chips. I still remember this moment when I said to myself: let’s get to a position where I don’t have to worry about making this kind of choice. It’s still a big motivation for me.” 

Feeding this fire despite having come so far is exactly what separates the weak from the strong in today’s gambling sector. However, translating this kind of motivation to the now hundreds of Soft2Bet employees scattered across the globe is a different kind of challenge entirely. Finding people that can handle the pace, Poliavich believes, is the key. “It’s very hard to keep yourself hungry and to keep people around you hungry. That’s maybe one of the main challenges now, not just to find the right people. We always look for people who can grow fast; things move very quickly here. This year, I think we broke a record by acquiring three licences in two days. People have to be able to keep up, which is a motivator in itself, really.”

Fostering a culture of innovation starts with leading by example for Poliavich, as well as encouraging employees to feed off the energy of their peers. Poliavich specifies this as the reason Soft2Bet opts for a 100% in-office working culture, with no remote or hybrid-remote working. “There are some exceptions, of course. However, I do believe in having people next to me, seeing them face to face and resolving things in the office. It can be much more helpful than having thousands of calls, If I don’t feel the people beside me, I don’t feel the energy and it will never work. Having this exchange, this energy in the room with designers and art leads – that’s what motivates us, too.” 

 

THE YAEL FOUNDATION 

“Being Jewish outside of Israel. I suffered from having no education, being a stranger, having zero support and zero understanding when it came to things like our customs, our holidays, our culture. That means that you’re losing your own identity, really, as a Jewish boy or girl. Sometimes, it feels as though everyone knows you’re Jewish except yourself.” That’s why, in 2020, Poliavich and his wife Yael founded the Yael Foundation, a philanthropic initiative currently working across four continents, 35 countries and impacting 13,500 Jewish students starting even earlier in 2017. Currently, the organisation provides financial grants to Jewish communities worldwide with education projects, and supports 47 day schools, 15 Sunday schools, 15 after-schools, 10 kindergartens and two proud Founders.

The 1990s in Ukraine were very tough. My mother and father were collecting for two or three years to take us to the seaside

“We want to ensure Jewish children and families worldwide have the opportunity to connect to Jewish tradition and identity. Whatever they need, some kosher food, schools, kindergartens, after school, Sunday schools all over the world. We are active nowadays with around 90 projects. Right now, we are involved in five big construction projects all over the world. The latest ones are Georgia in Tbilisi at kindergarten. We are building a high school in the old city of Rome. Here in Limassol, we have a huge project to build a school from scratch for 1,200 kids that will open in 2027. We have a school in Ukraine which we are renovating; it’s in South Ukraine so it is taking a bit of time because of the war.” 

 TWO WORDS; WHAT’S NEXT? 

Being CEO of a modern-day multinational gaming supplier requires a certain knack for making tough decisions on the spot, so when asked how he would sum up his Soft2Bet journey in two words – Poliavich is surprisingly stumped for a moment, before settling on the phrase; ‘what’s next?’ It’s a fitting sentiment for a company that has expanded so much, so quickly –especially one with a CEO that displays no intention of resting on his laurels. “What’s the next challenge? The next licence? The next continent? The next feature? The next technological advancement, what will happen next quarter, next year? When thinking about Soft2Bet, this question is probably by far the one I have asked myself the most in my life. So that’s how I would sum it all up – what’s next?”

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