Betfred has decided to part ways with 25 of its betting shops, selling them to competitor Stan James for a tidy sum of £5 million. The decision to sell these shops stems from what the company says are ‘competition concerns’ resulting from their purchase of Tote last year.
The deal also came after the UK Office of Fair Trading made a ruling saying that there were 25 locations that “offered a significant reduction in choice of betting shops from consumers.”
It should be pointed out that when Betfred won the rights to Tote after a bid of £265 million, it also acquired 517 of the latter’s shops. Of this number, the OFT identified that 25 of these shops lay in close proximity to Betfred betting shops, thus phrasing it in the context of having a significant reduction in choices for consumers. Having Betfred and Tote shops be skipping distances away from each other apparently isn’t conducive to fair competition for other betting shops.
The transaction between Betfred and Stan James is still subject to public consultation, but it shouldn’t come across any setbacks from the OFT who has already said that it is “minded to accept the proposal put forward by Betfred”, according to Totallygaming.com.
Meanwhile, not everybody appears to be weeping over the results of Euro 2012. Betting exchange Betfair, for one, is all smiles after announcing that it had enjoyed an increased revenue of 18% from core operations in the past two months. It’s a number that was piggy-backed by the enormous amount of action laid on Euro 2012, accounting for about a third of the spike in revenue.
Betfair interim chief executive Stephen Morana divulged that Euro 2012 saw more betting action than the company imagined, even eclipsing betting activity taken during the 2010 World Cup. Morana pointed to the strong interest generated by the tournament while also explaining that action was heavily aided by the convenience of mobile betting that came as a result of Betfair producing its own Euro 2012 mobile app.
As quoted on Totallygaming.com, Betfair chief technology officer Tony McAlister said: “There is a substantial uplift per customer because they bet more with their mobile products than they do online.”
“Sitting in front of one of these Euro 2012 matches with your iPad on your lap really increases the betting that customers are doing,” he adds.
Maybe BetVictor should’ve thought about doing the same thing; at least instead of waging their lot on a promotion that hinged on the premise that the tournament favorites – and defending champions – weren’t as good as the betting company thought it would be.
