Winamax unveils new player chat functionality
French operator says the launch of Winachat earlier this month is part of a wider move to focus on building a poker community
French online poker operator Winamax has unveiled a new chat functionality on its desktop client as part of the firm’s ongoing community-led poker strategy.
Winachat, which launched at the start of the month, appears as a separate tab in the lobby, and enables players to communicate with other Winamax account holders outside of individual poker games.
The operator’s business development manager Jimmy Le Tissier told eGaming Review the move was in line with the firm’s focus on the community aspect of poker.
“These values are an integral part of our DNA [and] they allow us to stay in permanent contact with our players, who let us know their opinions and desires, meaning we can get feedback direct from the source,” he said.
“It’s thanks to their input that we improve our product on a daily basis,” Le Tissier added.
The release of Winachat comes after the operator launched sports betting on mobile in December. The operator first launched an online sports betting product in June on its France-facing poker site just one week before the start of the football World Cup in Brazil.
Winamax built the product in-house and revealed just weeks after the desktop launch that it planned to develop a mobile sports betting product after recording 50% of sports stakes through mobile or tablet devices.