[May 9] Tax-free betting company
Sportingbet.com (UK) Plc
announced Tuesday the purchase of the Costa Rican online
betting service Betmaker.com,
bringing an additional 150 staff and $150 million in turnover.
The purchase of Betmaker.com, for an undisclosed sum, is a major
move for Sportingbet.com. It gives the company a base in
the Americas, with 25,000 customers in North, South and Central
America.
Mark Blandford, Sportingbet.com’s managing director, said
that the acquisition demonstrated that his company was really
serious about exploiting the global opportunity for sports betting.
“This is a value for money deal and coupled with the recent South
East Asian deal puts us in a strong position towards fulfilling
our ambition to become the dominant global player in online
bookmaking,” said Blandford.
The South East Asian deal referred to by Blandford brought
a massive marketing campaign from Singinvests Holdings Limited
in exchange for a percentage of Sportingbet’s earnings in the
region.
Blandford added that in the coming months Sportingbet will
launch several specific language sites, thus ensuring further
growth and diversification of its customer base.
Sportingbet’s latest acquisition, Betmaker.com, covers all
areas of sports betting, including North American football,
basketball, baseball, ice hockey, soccer and European sports.
In the coming weeks, Sportingbet.com will integrate Betmaker.com
into its main site. On doing so it will have a customer base
of over 43,000 registered customers.
Fully regulated under British law, Sportingbet.com is quoted
by OFEX, the London off
exchange trading facility. It is registered in the British
Channel Islands and enjoys a betting tax-free status.