Uri Poliavich, Soft2Bet CEO & Founder, sits down with Gaming Expert’s Will Underwood to review his faith, family and the international trip that has actually led him to his present position as a magnate.
The most effective area to start is, commonly, the beginning. For Uri Poliavich, the starts were simple. Birthed in Ukraine in 1981, Poliavich has actually come a long way – a reality he is reflective of, as he clears up right into his home-from-home in the Soft2Bet Limassol office for our conference. Behind Poliavich stands a giant Batman porcelain figurine which peers over the immaculately designed space bathed in a Cypriot sundown. Over the past eight years, Poliavich and his spouse have developed Soft2Bet from the ground up, transforming it into among one of the most recognisable vendors in the market. Full of pc gaming and business materiel, the Maltese office is currently one of numerous Soft2Bet locations around the world, a fact that is agent of Poliavich’s driven approach to both life and service.More Here https://gamingamerica.com/magazine/12655/soft2bet-playing-the-long-game At our site
I ve always walked around a lot from a young age, Poliavich tells Betting Insider. I’ve stayed in Ukraine, Israel, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova and currently Cyprus. I assume when you do that button and begin taking a trip, you realise the amount of fascinating locations there are around. For me, that started when I left Ukraine at 14-years-old, and my family transferred to Israel. That’s where I completed secondary school and did my 3 years of national military solution, as everyone carries out in Israel, and then I went and obtained myself a level in legislation and continued to become a legal representative.
Although the globes of gaming and legislation are, of course, deeply linked, Poliavich’s initial ventures into the working world revealed no indicator of bridging the gap in between both. Without a doubt, his route from one profession to the various other was, while extremely interesting, possibly a little non-traditional. After operating in business and property law for a short stretch, Poliavich reviews the distinct sensation of requiring a significant adjustment, I recognized that what I was doing was not for me. Poliavich jokes regarding the tests of legislation and the long functioning hours of the work, claiming: Someday, I located myself just sleeping on the hill of folders, and I thought I need to do something various. I ended up job browsing on Google and, eventually a setting popped up – a lawyer was required to run some company activity in Kyrgyzstan. Before I knew it, I found myself leaving the workplace and moving to an entirely brand-new country that I had never ever visited in my life!
FROM THE BOOKS TO THE Bookmakers Kyrgyzstan
s relationship with gaming was, until extra recently, relatively uneventful. 2012 saw the country location a blanket restriction on the technique, just to re-regulate once more in 2021. Poliavich’s time was before all of this, though, as he remembers that, upon his arrival, gambling wasn t precisely on his mind. Kyrgyzstan as a nation is a little bit out in the middle of nowhere. The country itself is very little and surrounded by hills. There is a great deal of sunlight and it’s really cold. It s really stunning, yet as I claimed, it s a bit out in the middle of nowhere. It’s not Asia, it s not Eastern Europe, it was a whole lot to stroll in to. In spite of running a handful of procedures for WK Group in Kyrgyzstan, including colleges and construction organizations, it was the adrenaline of the betting store experience that reeled Poliavich in, thus giving him his first taste of life in the gaming industry.
Quickly, I knew I liked the wagering shop business the most due to the fact that it was such high energy, many individuals in the shops, so many feelings, a person is winning, someone is shedding, individuals are experiencing a complete range of emotions in the room of seconds. When you see it taking place before your eyes, it really clicked with me.
The firm had around 100 workers and I was just a manager. I was a sergeant in the army, so I had some transferrable managerial skills, yet that was it. I landed there from Israel to run the whole thing and, as a person that was 31-years-old, to run this standalone business with 100 workers and around 100 cashiers? It was impressive – and a wonderful education and learning for me.
A WHITE-LABEL DEBUT
As firsts go, presenting the first-ever white-label pc gaming platform to Kyrgyzstan is something so particular niche only Poliavich can flaunt the feat. Yet after introducing the first white label to the country for BetConstruct, Poliavich chose that after two and a fifty percent years, his time in Kyrgyzstan was concerning an end – but not before the nation made its final contribution to his life’s trajectory. Right before I left the country, I met the love of my life and we obtained wed! We currently have two kids, three and one years old – that were birthed right here in Cyprus. Poliavich s time in Kyrgyzstan was eventful, to state the least. Together with getting married, he became very closely included with Playtech, which had a major advancement in the country. We obtained the permit for the nationwide lottery game and what happened is I was charged with discovering the supplier, and also with bringing in some financial investment. I was meant to do it myself, however things went wrong. It was a very long process. We checked out different cities in the country, travelled to various, extremely remote villages in the mountains. Since it’s a nationwide lottery, it s expected to get to as wide as possible. What that implies is that your distribution network is meant to be as huge as possible. Subsequently I did a lot of research there – and visited parts of the country also the Head of state has possibly never ever been to! Poliavich recalls his first ever see to ICE London, in 2010, throughout which he information steering the hectic roads of Camden with the business strategies of the Kyrgyzstani state lottery game packed into his knapsack
This was around the time when laws start coming in one after another. Regulated markets, managed services. The UK obtained controlled, Spain, Greece, Portugal, one after another. By 2012, nevertheless, Poliavich and his other half aimed to transfer someplace closer to the European hub. After landing a job to handle white tags for a gaming company in Moldova, Poliavich was still searching for providers and agreements while establishing his own system. After sourcing an office in Moldova, he made his initial hires – one of which, he states, is still sitting in the following space in the Soft2Bet Cyprus workplace, he and his family members have actually been taking a trip with us for many years
! I was likewise integrating this job with a sales placement for Playtech where I was re-selling their software program. This was an additional great education for me, to comprehend how to manage an industry. Playtech was then – and is currently – a massive equipment. It’s a significant ship, so it’s more difficult to make those sharp moves. If you intend to change the course of an organisation like that, it takes years. By this point I had actually chosen, I need to do something myself. Functioning two tasks for two years in Moldova brought about the development of a system. That is no mean feat, though Poliavich remains simple regarding the achievement. We called it a platform. It was not a platform. It was an enrollment and some location to place thumbnails of the video games, no greater than that. That’s how we started,’that s how everyone begins. Yet, once more, I found myself trying to find financial investment.
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ME, MY BETTER HALF AND THE DOG
Poliavich lovingly reviews transferring back to Ukraine with his spouse, Yael, and the family pet dog, and a number of chairs from the neighborhood Ikea. He remembers reaching out to some prior get in touches with at Practical Play to pitch them the platform, describing that the call worked out. They informed me, You recognize what? When you have a permit, send it to me and we will get going.’ Within two weeks of arriving in Kyiv in 2016, Poliavich and his better half released their very first brand.
Therefore, Soft2Bet was formally released and delighted in significant success within its first four years, increasing into larger workplaces in the Ukrainian funding to house the 350 staff members the company had already handled to accumulate. It was time for us to transfer to a bigger place. After deciding to expand the range even more, Soft2Bet’s modern technology arm was introduced in Cyprus in 2020 in a move that sought to well and truly present the business on a worldwide stage. That s just how we made the jump from Ukraine to Cyprus, which has actually been a remarkable place for us. The local authorities have done whatever to support us. It’s possibly the one nation I can advertise for life. They did us a huge favour by permitting us to relocate our group and their families to Cyprus. Providing state permits, work authorizations, aiding get all the children right into schools – everything. Having our two children here – that are aged one and three – they have their home here with our (now 2) Labradors!
Needless to say, it s also impacted the business. We needed to relocate quicker since the costs right here are a lot more than in Ukraine – to make sure that gave us an excellent push. While I’m saying all this, we can’t fail to remember Malta- our HQ! We developed Malta in 2018 and that s our home, truly. Where the heart is!
The opening of Soft2Bet’s new Malta HQ, which presently fits over 200 staff members, was commemorated in April 2025. The ceremonial ribbon cutting of the brand-new complex, located in between St. Julians and Mdina, was, certainly, gone to by the firm’s CEO. For a person as well travelled as Poliavich, the culture of internationality, variety and incorporation is one he has managed to foster within his organization; while his CFO and CBDO were hired to stay in Malta, Poliavich check outs regularly. However, the ideology of a generally comprehensive, worldwide company culture is one that originates from his developmental years. I constantly seemed like something of a stranger. As I was Jewish, I felt I was stranger in Ukraine. After that, as a Ukrainian, I was a stranger in Israel. I would certainly get this feeling of being a traveler mostly all my life. Specifically with all the travelling. That’s why, being a worldwide business, unlike a lot of various other firms that have one identification, we intend to see to it we have a combined identity. For Soft2Bet, the entire organization is developed around diversity. This blend of individuals and cultures is what truly permits us to have a really worldwide identification, which originates from valuing others, finding out a great deal about various other cultures and various other strategies. It’s the only means for me.
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