Basketball package Betting


NORBERT TEUFELBERGER WITH EUROLEAGUE BASKETBALL’S JORDI BERTOMEU


Bwin has launched a ‘You won’t get closer’ package includes a range of features which will enhance the experience of this year’s Euroleague Basketball, including the live streaming of all games on the Bwin website, special competitions to win tickets and signed merchandising, hospitality packages for the Final Four in Istanbul and the chance to vote for the special Bwin fan MVP.


BETTINGBRIEFS


RECORD AUGUST FOR WORLDSPREADS


Boyles takes over Hill’s remaining Irish shops


Boyelsports has stepped in and taken over the 15 Irish betting shops that remained in the William Hill portfolio.


IRELAND B


oylesports, Ireland’s largest independent bookmaker, has announced that


it is to invest 1.5m euro (£1.3m) to take over 15 shops from William Hill, saving a total of 65 jobs in the process. In January this year, the Irish firm also acquired 17 shops from Celtic bookmakers, helping to avoid 100 redundancies. Boylesports said that it continues to play a pivotal role in saving retail betting jobs and reinvesting money back into the Irish economy. The latest acquisition will see Boylesports estate grow to 176 shops, employing almost 1,100 people. In terms of locations, the acquired shops range from Dublin City Centre to Galway and Boylesports hope to have the William Hill estate re-launched with Boylesports branding by


mid December 2011. John Boyle, Boylesports CEO and founder, com- mented: “We are delighted to announce that we will be acquiring 15 new shops and saving an additional 65 jobs. Times are difficult for every- one in these recessionary times and we at Boylesports are thrilled that we can help save jobs and continue to show our commitment to the Irish retail betting industry. This latest takeover will com- plement our existing shops and further cement our posi- tion as the largest independ- ent bookmaker in Ireland.” The sale sees William Hill’s exit from the Irish LBO market, a sector it entered almost by chance back in 2005 when it acquired the Stanleybet betting shop estate. Hills continued to operate the 50 Irish shops it inherited through that deal with a gradual attrition of numbers in what is a majorly


competitive market until this year when it closed 20 shops. However, William Hill will continue to operate in Ireland through its very suc- cessful William Hill Online Irish website, www.williamhill.com, which won the online opera- tor of the year prize at the Irish betting awards. The bookmaker is now entering a consultation period with the 65 shop employees affected by the sale.


“The time came for us to either expand our retail estate in Ireland or to con- centrate our efforts on our thriving Irish online and mobile betting businesses,” said Brian McColgan, regional operations con- troller at William Hill. “We took a lot of time to consider our options and decided the restrictive nature of the Irish retail betting sector would have made expansion finan- cially unviable. We’d like to


thank our staff for all of their help over the last seven years and we’d like to wish them the best of luck in the future.” William Hill said that it anticipates incurring approximately £2m of exceptional costs in respect of the disposal in the 2011 financial year, net of cash consideration.


In the meantime, Lad- brokes has seen an improved performance from its Irish retail estate, where it said OTC amounts staked were 6.6 per cent higher year on year across the period, although this was just up 0.5 per cent at con- stant currency. Regardless of the exchange rate, OTC gross win margin increased a percentage point to 14.0 per cent, driving a 13.9 per cent increase in total Irish revenue - a figure that drops to 8.5 per cent at constant currency.


Coral to move HQ to Stratford C


RELOCATION


oral has announced it is to move its head office to Strat- ford, London, E20, where it will become the first corporate occupier of Westfield’s One Strat- ford Place office development. Coral is relocating its head office from Barking and will occupy approximately 31,000 sq ft across the seventh and eighth floors of the 130,000 sq ft building, which was launched earlier this month. Coral are expected to take occupation by early 2012 based on a 15 year lease. Coral’s head office has been based in Barking for over thirty years but for over a decade employ- ees have been spread across three different sites - Glebe House, Mar- itime House and Wigham House. Coral chief executive Andy


14 BettingBusinessInteractive • NOVEMBER 2011


CORAL WILL BE SETTING UP HOME AT ONE STRATFORD PLACE


Hornby said: “This is a truly excit- ing development for Coral. A com- bination of quality office space, excellent transport connections and proximity to world-class sporting facilities, makes Strat- ford Place an ideal fit for our new headquarters.”


Coral will retain Glebe House in Barking where a number of support functions will continue to operate as well as Coral’s tele- phone betting call centre. The Coral remote business will con- tinue to operate out of offices in Gibraltar and Woking, Surrey. One Stratford Place is the first phase of offices to be delivered at Westfield Stratford City and is now ready for occupation for require- ments of 10,000 sq ft to 60,000 sq ft.


A further 1m sq ft of office space is available on a pre-let basis, offer- ing flexible, high specification office space which can be deliv- ered post-Games, offering some of the largest and most immediate pre-let opportunities available in the capital.


The building occupies an iconic location adjacent to the Stratford underground and train station at the end of the pedestrian foot- bridge which leads into the Olympic Park and commands views across the entire Olympic site, the City of London and Canary Wharf. It is also the only Grade A specification office accommoda- tion within the Olympic zone that will be suitable for occupation in time for the 2012 Olympic Games.


ANALYSIS


This deal underlines John Boyle’s confidence in the Irish market,


although at 100,000 euro per shop, the company has not exactly paid a premium for the sites. Boylesports and, inevitably, Paddy Power were originally linked with acquiring Stanleybet’s Irish shops when it sold up to William Hill, so it is quite appropriate that the firm has picked up what remains of the estate. But Ireland is a tough market for an LBO operator - 245 shops have closed in the past three years - and even the biggest operator in the market Paddy Power revealed a 44 per cent drop in Irish retail profits for the first half of the year.


JOHN BOYLE: ‘TIMES ARE


DIFFICULT FOR EVERYONE’


Spread betting firm World- Spreads has revealed that August was the busiest trading month in the history of the company. The firm said it has continued to enjoy increased levels of business, as represented by active clients and trade numbers, in the six months up to 30 September, driven partly by higher levels of volatility in the financial markets.


It added: “The company has continued its interna- tional expansion during the period and is now seeing positive returns from the investment it has made in these markets. The company is pursuing a number of new opportuni- ties both internationally and in the UK which the board expects to con- tribute to top and bottom line growth in the current financial year.”


BEST ODDS ACCUMULATORS


Concierge betting service Bet Butler is to offer accu- mulative betting odds across all major sports, giving its customers the ability to combine the best values available - resulting in the highest returns on fixed odds sports betting without the need to shop around. The best price on Outcome 1 from Book- maker A can be put into an accumulator with the best odds on Outcome 2 from Bookmaker B. Managing director Toby Denne com- mented: “Bet Butler cus- tomers are already accessing 60 bookmakers round the world, to get the best price through one account. Now they can place accumulator bets through multiple bookmak- ers for even better returns, still through one single Bet Butler account.”


HILLS HITS THE BULLSEYE


William Hill has been con- firmed as the title sponsor of the 2011 Grand Slam of Darts, which will be held at the Wolverhampton Civic Hall from November 12-20. “We’d like to welcome William Hill as the new title sponsors of the 2011 Grand Slam of Darts and look forward to working with such a well-known and respected brand,” said PDC chairman Barry Hearn. “This tournament brings


together the greatest players in darts, who have qualified by virtue of their achievements in major tournaments over a two- year period, and in William Hill we have a sponsor whose stature reflects that.”


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48