Sports betting technology provider Offside Gaming has expanded its deal with Worldstar Betting Uganda on a new mobile offering for feature phones. Offside already supplies online and mobile technology for Wolrdstar’s 70 betting shops in Uganda, but the new offering supports the Opera Mini browser that is believed to power an estimated 200m feature phones across the continent.
While operators in Europe and other developed markets have focused their development efforts on smartphones, BetTech Gaming CTO Ian Barnes has described feature phones as “the main – if not only – connection to the digital world” for hundreds of millions of Africans. Offside’s new mobile product plans to offer at least 100 live sporting events on a daily basis.
Worldstar managing director Michael Soze said the company was looking forward to further African expansion after getting a feel for the “massive appetite for sports betting” in Uganda. Ugandans are undeniably mad for betting, with sports score websites ranking only behind Facebook on the country’s lists of most trafficked sites. Offside Gaming CEO Matthew Alexander said the company was learning a lot about the continent via its Worldstar partnership and would be launching “a number of projects in Uganda, Nigeria and Ghana” with mobile and payment systems to follow in coming months.
Over in South Africa, BetTech Gaming has inked a deal to provide an online sportsbook for Van der Vyver Racing in KwaZulu-Natal province. The Playabets.com site will offer pre-match and in-play betting on over 30 sports – “from surfing to water polo and bandy to Aussie rules,” according to BetTech co-founder Mark Bosman – as well as pool betting and fixed-odds wagering on local and European horse races. Sports betting is the only form of online gambling currently permitted in South Africa but local parliamentarian Geordin Hill-Lewis plans to introduce legislation early in February in a bid to broaden the range of online options.
Sun International, South Africa’s second biggest hotel/casino operator behind only Tsogo Sun, launched its Sunbet online sports betting site in November, but things are far less rosy offline. Continued financial difficulties with its core operations have compelled the company to announce plans to trim its 7,000-strong domestic workforce by 1,700 employees. Sun International CEO Graeme Stephens said revenue from its South African operations had grown 17% over the past six years, but employee costs had risen 39% over the same period thanks to a 47% rise in the minimum wage.
