Boyle Sports has British retail betting ambitions

According to a recent interview with the Irish Times, Boyle Sports owner John Boyle is eyeing the British retail betting market after acquiring Tom Flood Bookmakers late in 2013.

Boyle appears to have set his company a five-year timeframe, within which he intends to penetrate the already competitive UK betting shop market.

Boyle Sports now boasts 192 retail betting outlets across Ireland, staffed by over 1,200 employees and delivering turnover in excess of a billion Euros a year.

In addition to retail betting shops the company is also active in the online and mobile markets, offering a variety of products through the full range of technology channels.

Boyle has certainly not diluted his Irish ambitions, however, and told the Irish Times that in his view there was still additional potential in Ireland, and that from a retail betting point of view the market could take up to 250 shops…around 40 of these in Dublin alone.

The Irish entrepreneur says that he has had his eye on the British retail market for the past five or six years, and at one time was interested in the Tote (now owned by Betfred) before political tampering and the recession got in the way.

Now, Boyle would be happy to look at UK acquisition opportunities as he moves toward a retail presence in the Brit market.

“If the right acquisition knocked on our door, we’re looking for opportunities over there, so we expect in the next five years to have a presence in retail,” he said.

“You don’t know what opportunities are going to knock on your door. There’s three, four, different companies that could become available over the next number of years, and if you can show that you are good at retail in Ireland, you can do it anywhere in the world.”

Related and similar