Black Sunday
Week 13 of the NFL football season has been dubbed "Black Sunday" in the sports betting industry. A record-breaking run of NFL favorites were victorious Dec. 6 and 7, leaving the bookmaking industry out millions of dollars in payouts to football bettors. Out of 16 games played that weekend, 12 favored teams won and covered the spread.
"In my time in the industry, I have never seen a Sunday like it," said Anthony Munnelly, vice resident of sports and events at online sports book Sports Interaction. "It's very unusual to see that many favorites cover at any one weekend, especially in this era of parity. I'm happy for our customers. They won their money fair and square and good luck to them. But when I'm writing my letter to Santa later this week I'm going to ask for some underdogs to starting biting before I end up on standing on the street wearing a red hat and ringing a bell."
Betfair This and That
Online betting exchange Betfair has suspended the accounts of five customers pending an investigation into a possible betting scam. Suspicions that the five-man ring may have been tipped off by an insider at the phone company arose when the bets came in minutes before the winner was announced on ITV's reality show "X Factor." Betfair froze £45,000 of the winnings and called in the police, but the winners had already withdrawn £60,000. British Telecom (BT) supplies the phone lines for the reality shows, but they are operated by Harvest Media. A BT spokesman said they are urgently investigating the matter.
"There is arguably no law against it, but we felt that it was for the police to decide that and not for us," Betfair's Mark Davies said. "There's no law against insider trading on betting, and you could argue that the person (by backing outcomes) was facilitating people who wanted to lay outcomes (bet against the outcome, for example), but we felt it was worth them looking at it in case they decided that the level of inside information constituted fraud."
The final report of the 2004 Sporting Options bankruptcy, published Nov. 18 by administrators Menzies Corporate Restructuring, confirms that Betfair stepped in immediately with a rescue offer to take on the majority of the failed betting exchange's jilted clients; 44 percent of the clients accepted Betfair's reimbursement offer. By Nov. 8, 2005, 69 percent of those customers had been fully compensated.
Two of Australia's biggest corporate bookmakers, IAS Bet and Centrebet, could follow newly licensed Betfair's lead by introducing betting exchanges in Australia. Mark Read, managing director of IAS Bet, said he was ready to give Betfair a run for its money in Australia, while Centrebet CEO Con Kafataris said he is looking at a betting exchange model to offer his overseas clients. "Betfair is an indisputable member of the marketplace," Read said. "To bury our heads in the sand and say we're going to ignore it is ridiculous."
Buying More Players
Sports betting company Gamebookers.com, owner and operated by Trident Gaming, announced in November that it is sponsoring European basketball player Vladimir Petrovicfor Greek League 1 team Aris and will pay his wages for the club. Now, Gamebookers' North American sister company, BetBug, is joining in the fun. In the words of Anthony Novac, president of Trident-owned BetBug, "Due to the phenomenal publicity this campaign received across Europe for our sister brand Gamebookers, BetBug will be looking to replicate this type of deal in the U.S. and are currently in talks with various NBA, NHL, MLB and NFL teams regarding sponsorship and possible player purchases and expect to announce a significant deal in early 2006."
Matching in the USA
Following a successful trial run, U.S.-facing online betting exchange Matchbook.com has officially opened its doors. "Matchbook is a book maker's nightmare," boasts Tom Ramsey, Matchbook's vice president of development. "Exchange betting has already shaken up the $30 billion European sports betting marketplace, and now the North American market is experiencing a similar transformation."
Unloading
British betting group William Hill announced Monday that it has struck a deal to sell 48 of its betting offices to its state-owned rival, the Tote, for £20 million. The deal follows the Office of Fair Trading's demand that William Hill unload around 50 of the 624 betting offices it acquired from Stanley Leisure in May. The sale, expected to be completed within the next two weeks, will bring the Tote's land-based estate to more that 500 offices, including betting outlets at each of the 59 racecourses in Britain. The Tote's chief executive, Trevor Beaumont, said in July following the first sale that the purchases enabled the group to grow in parts of the United Kingdom where it was not previously represented.