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Sportsbook: not just bookmakers; more than just shopfi tters W


come a long way in a short time. Joint directors Wayne


ith two dozen staff on the payroll, Sportsbook has


Stevenson and Gavin Ferguson opened their fi rst shop, at Hope Farm Precinct in Great Sutton, near Ellesmere Port, in September 2008. Last year they opened three more within the space of six months and branched out with a full turnkey shopfi tting service. The second shop, at


experience. “With that experience behind me, I wanted a new challenge so I left Betfred in 2007 and became a director of a new company in London called Betster. “We got up to seven shops


Moreton, Wirral, began trading in June last year, followed in November by one at Bowerham, near Lancaster, and a month later by their headquarters unit in Bromborough, also in Wirral. Sportsbook have recently applied for a fi fth licence, in Burscough, between Liverpool and Ormskirk, and hope to open in the new year. And they will look to expand further if the right place comes up in the right location where they feel they can make an impact and grow the business. Having used an external company to fi t out the Hope Farm shop, they decided to do the job themselves at Moreton, liked the result, did the others themselves and have not looked back. Now Sportsbook Estates, the shopfi tting arm, trades alongside Sportsbook Bookmakers as two


independent companies with Gavin and Wayne at the helm. Wayne has a wealth of


experience of the bookmaking industry, having started out in 1989 as a trainee manager for Ladbrokes. He left Ladbrokes in 1994 and joined Betfred as a betting shop manager. “I’d worked for Fred Done for three years when, in 1997, he promoted me to development manager. From 1997 to 2007 was a period of rapid and successful expansion for Betfred. As a team we opened over 600 shops in ten years. It was through Fred Done and the Betfred company that I learned everything I know and I’m grateful to him for the


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but while I was doing that I came across the Hope Farm site, which was ten minutes away from my home. I’d been waiting for a site to come up on that precinct for years and when it came, I thought ‘I want to do this myself ’. “As I was still with Betster I needed someone on board to help me with the opening up of Hope Farm. Gavin did that and got the venture up and trading. When the time was right to expand the company and move it forward, it was decided that I’d cut ties with Betster and become a hands- on director of Sportsbook.” In contrast, Gavin had no connection with bookmaking, having been an electrician all


Sportsbooks’Allport lane, Bromborough shop


his working life. “I fancied a change,” he


says. “The electrical business is great but it’s largely the same thing day in, day out. I’m one of those people who can’t


Picture: Supplied


sit still; I’ve got to be doing something all the time and I was happy to get involved with Wayne, even though I couldn’t contribute anything from the betting side.





The interior of the Allport Lane, Bromborough shop


Picture: Supplied BOS Magazine November/December 2011 5


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