Irish bookie focus on internet betting growth

John Boyle, the colourful founder and head of Irish land and online bookmaker Boyle Sports has his eyes set on an expanded internet operation, having built a successful land empire, reports the Irish Times.

Speaking at a children’s charity function this week, Boyle explained how he had built a betting business that generates Euro 1.2 billion a year. One of his many successful deals started as a simple phone call:

“William Hill rang me up one day last year and offered me 15 shops,” he recalled. “I thought, well I’ll have them. The last day we talked they gave me a Euro 500,000 discount [on the price]. The return on that has been 17 percent in three months. That has been another good deal.”

Having achieved his immediate goals on land, the Irish entrepreneur is now focusing on the expansion of his internet operations, he revealed.

“I didn’t embrace it [internet activity],” he admits. “Technology scared me. I’m old school, pen and paper. It’s been a slow learning curve and it’s only now that we’re cracking it.”

He revealed that his online staff will initially expand into Asia, launching a carefully crafted and localised internet product in time for the next English Premier League season.

“What they like out there is basketball and football,” Boyle remarked, adding that the project involves the investment of several millions of Euros.

Manchester United is hugely popular in the East, and that is a football brand with which Boyle Sports would like to partner, Boyle said, although he noted that at the end of the day that would be the football club’s decision, and other teams were also being considered in the Boyle plans.

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