Sport is made for betting

Reports in the Sunday Times suggest the two firms are set for discussions regarding a merger, no doubt to keep in touch with the giant Party Gaming/bwin merger. On the face of it, it makes sense - both are huge organisations with healthy diversity, but their peak regions don't overlap - Unibet are strongest in Scandinavia, Sportingbet are strong in southern Europe and Australia. Sportingbet set for merger talks Sportingbet, the online gambling operator, is examining a merger with Swedish rival Unibet that would create a £600 million group, a newspaper claims. The companies are understood to have held preliminary discussions about combining the businesses, with further talks expected in coming weeks, according to The Sunday Times. There'd be one benefit of this for punters - most people can actually get a decent bet on at Sportingbet, few punters have that 'privilege' at Unibet.

Ladbrokes have joined the list of UK firms avoiding setting up in France under the current unviable licensing structure. Several firms have simply decided not to waste their time and money in a market which will deliver nothing for several years, and only if/after the French government water down the current prohibitive licensing and taxation structure. The last straw for Ladbrokes was when the French govt decided on top of extortionate turnover tax and sports rights levies, they would also have to pay VAT as well. Unibet however, who have a similar model to Bwin, of taking vast numbers of low-stake bets, are pressing on. The Betfair IPO is off to a good start. Conditional trading has the shares trading at around £15.30, after the initial valuation of £13. Tomorrow is the acid test for them though, when they become available to the public. Betsson is going from strength to strength as live betting pushes their revenues higher. Bwin, Hills and Sportingbet have released similarly h...

Europe's biggest and richest market, Germany, looks set for deregulation after the European Court of Justice (ECJ) yesterday ruled that "German rules do not limit games of choice in a consistent and systematic manner". The court stressed that "the holders of public monopolies carry out intensive advertising campaigns with a view to maximise profit from lotteries thereby departing from the objectives justifying the existence of those monopolies." Germany was a messy legal and regulatory system in relation to online gambling, as provincial governments held different attitudes toward the industry. Some licences existed in the days of East and West Germany, which the unified nation refused to recognise but the licenceholders (or those who had bought into them from outside Germany) were prepared to take them to court. Real Madrid and AC Milan had recently been either fined or forced to wear alternative strips to avoid prosecution from local authorities. Now it...

So now the Polish govt have decided to give exemptions on the online betting advertising in Poland to companies investing in sports sponsorship - but with a catch. A rather confused situation this. I imagine a discussion something like this behind closed doors.... "Let's ban all forms of betting unless they have a Polish licence" "Is that a good idea, that only leaves land-based casinos that rob our citizens blind?" "But they pay us lots of taxes" "Well, that's OK then.... What about the sports sponsorships? Unibet, Bwin and other companies pay a lot of money to sponsor sport in Poland, and have legal contracts as well..." "Hmm, we don't want our football clubs to end up like ones in Albania and Latvia that are being investigated for match-fixing... I know, how about we give them an exemption, so they can still spend their money, but reap no benefits from it?" "So you expect these companies to pay hundreds of thousands ...

And you thought your politicians/courts were hopeless! (Applies to just about every nation in the world) 'Rights Recognition' Lands Unibet €1.2m French Fine Unibet has become the first victim of the highly controversial ‘sports betting right’ which is yet to be formally adopted in France, but which has been retroactively applied to the online gaming and betting operator by a Paris court this week. As a result, Unibet must now pay €300,000 to the Roland Garros tennis tournament in recognition of the ownership right, in addition to a further €900,000 in penalties. So a law which hasn't been introduced yet and will never receive EU approval now says Unibet has to hand over 1.2m euro for something which happened in the past. Funnily enough, Unibet will be challenging the decision.

Expanding outside the Nordic regions has worked well for Unibet, with over 50% of revenue coming from outside the Nordic countries for the first time. Unibet overseas revenue tops 50% Unibet now sponsor Valencia in Spain, FC Brugge in Belgium and Ferencvaros in Hungary, as well as their cycling team sponsorship (which I assume is still going). A gross win of £66.2m in half a year is very good, however without a retail shop market, I'd say their profit margin on that won't be that high compared to Paddy Power or Ladbrokes for example.