Italian Olympic betting beats France; Betway sponsoring Mirror Fantasy Football

news in brief may 2

Italy pipped France to-the-post over London 2012 with €19.7million bet on various sports during the games. The amount bet was across a number of different sports with the figures contributing to a total increase in turnover, across all mediums of betting, of 83 percent to €42.1m.

Volleyball was the surprise at the top of the betting with €5.8 million worth of bets placed and football coming out in second with €5m of bets placed. That was only online betting and football came on top when shops were taken into account but it’s certainly a big deal in Europe when football is beaten by anything. Lower down the list came tennis, with €2.9m bets placed, basketball with €2.6m and then water polo in fifth after €130,490 was wagered on Italy’s gold medal defeat against Croatia. Offline betting accounted for 53 percent of the total at €22.4m.

Betway have been announced as the title sponsor of one of the UK’s largest newspaper’s fantasy football game. Trinity Mirror Fantasy Football will be branded with Betway’s name for the next three years and as part of the deal users will have direct access to Betway’s sports betting services.

Richard Akitt, managing director of The Betway Group, told The Drum: “We are delighted to be working with Trinity Mirror to bring its users a new and improved fantasy football experience. We believe we have the fastest, most innovative and easy-to-use fantasy football game in the market. Our site enables customers to seamlessly update their fantasy football team and place bets all within the same site. In addition, for the first time it is possible for players to create their first team for free.”