UK-based online gambling operator Bet365 is opening its first satellite office outside its mammoth Stoke headquarters.
This week saw Bet365 announce plans to open a satellite technology office in Manchester’s Spring Gardens. The new office, which will open in early May, is currently interviewing candidates for 50 to 70 positions. Warren Hughes will serve as head of systems development for the Manchester office.
Bet365’s head of software development Dom Hawley said the company had found plenty of exceptional individuals in Stoke but “it’s difficult to recruit to one location when you have the demand for IT talent” that comes with being the world’s largest online bookmaker.
Hawley called Manchester the “obvious choice for establishing a blueprint for our growth” due to its “excellent reputation as a tech center and strong commuter links to the rest of the North of England.”
The Manchester staff will be put to work on back office trading applications, user interfaces, middleware and web development for the company’s sports and gaming products. Hawley said the new office will initially focus on areas in which the company has a backlog of work but will eventually “extend resource across each of our product areas.”
In other Bet365 news, the company announced last week that it is expanding its branded payment card deal with Australian payment processor Emerchants. Bet365 Australia inked a branded cash card deal with Emerchants last August and the relationship has gone sufficiently smooth to expand to Bet365’s home market.
The new UK deal is for a multi-year period, but other terms weren’t disclosed, including a date for when the product is to launch. Whenever it launches, the new arrangement will allow Bet365’s UK punters to instantly access their winnings as well as remit funds back to their gaming account.
