January Betting Industry News

Rumours of Blue Square sale or closure – January 10th

There are currently strong rumours of Blue Square either being closed down or being sold on by parent company Rank. Blue Square have again failed to make a profit and have been heavily subsidised by the Rank Group (owners of successful brands such as Mecca Bingo as well as the Grosvenor Casinos). After a big push in the early 2000′s, Blue Square have struggled to compete with the big boys of bet365, Paddypower, William Hill and Ladbrokes, with no shops to underpin success like the latter three they have found the going increasingly tough.

Blue Square account holders needn’t panic. The company with a trust score of 350 is extremely well run  and any closure or sale will be handled as one would expect in an organised and professional manner.

Ladbrokes confirm talks to buy Betdaq – January 7th

Ladbrokes have confirmed that they are currently in talks to buy the loss making betting exchange Betdaq from Irish businessman Dermot Desmond. The figure for the sale is believed to be in the region of around £30 million. The two companies have a very close working relationship already with Ladbrokes using Betdaq for hedging business. Dermot Desmond is also rumoured to hold around about a 2% stake in Ladbrokes. Betdaq is currently the number two bet exchange in the world behind Betfair. The deal would see Betdaq sit side by side with Ladrokes offering Ladbrokes customers an exchange offering alongside an already strong Sports offering.

Ladbrokes has been the subject of a number of failed acquisitions over the past 18 months with failure to agree a deal with both 888 Sport and Sportingbet in the past. Because of the close ties involved with the current acquisition, this deal is deal is described as highly likely to go through though.

Ladbrokes currently have a very strong trust rating score of 400 with Betdaq with another very strong score of 350.

December Betting Industry News

Bet Islands Close down

It was announced in late december that the bookmaker formerly known ashttp://www.betislands.com were closed. Bet Islands were previously rated with a trust score of 130. They depart with what is believed to be £1 million in player funds outstanding.

Websites such as Bet Islands that offer a service to customers based in the USA always run the risk of being closed by the US FBI. The Bet Islands closure is believed to be for financial reasons. Rumors from Costa Rica say that the run of results in the NFL regular season have been the major contributing factor to the closure.

We at The Bettor Analysis ask users to proceed with caution when using any company with a trust score of less than 200 and with extreme caution for any companies with a score of less than 100.

William Hill near completion of £485 million Takeover of Sportingbet – 21^st December 2012

www.sportingbet.com have reached an agreement with www.williamhill.com over the sale of the company. The agreement will see www.williamhill.com pay £485million for full control of the company. William Hill released a statement on December 20^threleasing full details of the takeover. This can be found athttp://www.williamhillplc.com/media/press-releases/2012pr/2012-12-20b.aspx .www.williamhill.com currently has a trust score rating of 350 whilstwww.sportingbet.com has a trust rating of 375.

Full details of the takeover will be posted here as soon as they are in the public domain.

Paddypower.com announces Management Changes – 20^th December 2012

www.paddypower.com today announced several management changes today. The changes will see Jimmy Mangan, Head of Irish Retail & Dial-a-Bet retire in July 2013. Jimmy has run Irish Retail since the formation of Paddy Power in 1988. The second change will see Andy McCue, Head of UK Retail since 2006 appointed Head of Retail (UK & Ireland), effective January 2013. The third change will see Charlie Kelly appointed Head of Irish Retail in July 2013. Charlie has been withwww.PaddyPower.com  since 1999 joining as Group Financial Accountant and Company Secretary, before moving into his current role of Head of Retail Operations in Ireland in 2005.            In the final change Dan Thomson has been appointed Head of UK Retail. Dan joined Paddy Power as Head of Retail Gaming in 2008 and is currently Head of UK Retail Operations.

The changes are not expected to have a major bearing on any of the day to day operations of www.paddypower.com who currently have a bettoranalysis.com trust rating of 375.

Betfair withdraw from unregulated markets – 12^th December 2012

Betfair’s recently appointed Chief Executive Officer Breon Corcoran has announced that the company will no longer operate in jurisdictions in which the Betfair exchange model is not financially viable. The main countries to be affected are Greece, Germany and France). The news comes on the back of disappointing financial results results for the 6 month period ending in October. Breon who was appointed CEO in August following a number of years with Paddy Power said that ‘the company had suffered a number of setbacks due to regulations in a number of countries’.