Skip to main content

Paddy Power buys Sportsbet Australia

This has been in the pipeline for a while but I was asked to keep quiet on it to protect my source.

Paddy Power take control of Sportsbet

Ireland's leading bookmaking firm Paddy Power, mooted to be a bidder for TAB licenses in Australia, has purchased a 51 per cent stake in Northern Territory-based Sportsbet.

Racing Post reported that Paddy Power had paid an initial €27.2 million for the majority stake in the company established by the Tripp family.


The tricky part here is that Sportsbet own nearly 20% of IAS, who are up for sale as well. It's all go in the Australian betting market at the moment.

Sportsbet, based in Darwin, was the original sports bookmaker in Australia. It was founded in the late 80s by Bryan Clark who sold the business a decade later. It has since changed hands a couple of times before the Tripp group purchased it and improved it significantly. And now they've been able to cash in on their hard work.

Paddy Power buys Sportsbet stake, shares rise

It sounds like a wise strategic move for them - the UK and Ireland is a very competitive market, tax in Ireland has just gone up and the Australian market has just been deregulated.

Here's the presentation that Paddy Power has passed onto shareholders. There's one serious flaw in it - the awareness of the name. Australia has TAB Sportsbet (the monopoly sports operator in most states) and there is Sportsbet (often listed as Sportsbet NT or Sportsbet Australia). Ask those same people who said the awareness was 78% to differentiate between the two and it would fall flat on its face!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

It's all gone Pete Tong at Betfair!

The Christmas Hurdle from Leopardstown, a good Grade 2 race during the holiday period. But now it will go into history as the race which brought Betfair down. Over £21m at odds of 29 available on Voler La Vedette in-running - that's a potential liability of over £500m. You might think that's a bit suspicious, something's fishy, especially with the horse starting at a Betfair SP of 2.96. Well, this wasn't a horse being stopped by a jockey either - the bloody horse won! Look at what was matched at 29. Split that in half and multiply by 28 for the actual liability for the layer(s). (Matched amounts always shown as double the backers' stake, never counts the layers' risk). There's no way a Betfair client would have £600m+ in their account. Maybe £20 or even £50m from the massive syndicates who regard(ed) Betfair as safer than any bank, but not £600m. So the error has to be something technical. However, rumour has it, a helpdesk reply (not gospel, natur

Betdaq.... sold...... FOR HOW MUCH???

So as rumoured for a while, Ladbrokes have finally acquired the lemon, sorry, purple-coloured betting exchange, Betdaq. For a mind-boggling €30m as 'initial consideration'. That's an even more ridiculous price than Fernando Torres for £50m, or any English player Liverpool have purchased in recent seasons! As I've written previously there are no logical business reasons for this acquisition. from Nov 29, 2012 The Racing Post reported this week that Ladbrokes are nearing a decision to acquire Betdaq. This baffles me, it really does. Betdaq are a complete and utter lemon. Their only rival in the market has kicked so many own goals over the years with the premium charge, followed by an increase in the premium charge, cost of API and data use, customer service standards which have fallen faster than Facebook share value, site crashes and various other faults. So many pissed off Betfair customers, yet Betdaq are still tailed off with a lap to go. Around the world, Betfair

lay the field - my favourite racing strategy

Dabbling with laying the field in-running at various prices today, not just one price, but several in the same race. Got several matched in the previous race at Brighton, then this race came along at Nottingham. Such a long straight at Nottingham makes punters often over-react and think the finish line is closer than it actually is. As you can see by the number of bets matched, there was plenty of volatility in this in-play market. It's rare you'll get a complete wipe-out with one horse getting matched at all levels, but it can happen, so don't give yourself too much risk...