Crownbet chief reports progress of online gambling firm

A 220 percent increase in the player base in just a year is pretty good going, Matthew Tripp, CEO of Aussie online betting group CrownBet, told the Australian Finanacial Review this week.

The gambling executive said that the company, formed late 2014 from what was left of BetEzy (see previous reports), is performing beyond expectations and now has 150,000 active gamblers on its books.

He acknowledged that the company benefits from its ties with Crown Resorts’ Signature Club membership rewards program as well as its sponsorship deals with AFL and Racing.com.

“We broke even on a monthly basis in November and have kept that up every month since,” Tripp said in the interview. “While that’s only been four months, I think we will be profitable for the rest of the year. That is ahead of where we thought we would be.”

CrownBet is still taking a cautious approach to in-play betting due to its uncertain legality in Australia….but if government clarifies the format’s legal status via the Interactive Gaming Act, Tripp says that he has prepared a compelling offer and will introduce the genre.

“We’ve been ready for it for a couple of years and we’re really confident that the technology we have and the offering we would put out there would be very popular,” he told the AFR. “We are very confident about the legality of it as well, but we will wait for an indication of where things could head from the report.”

Tripp used the opportunity to scotch speculative rumours that CrownBet is considering presenting a bid for the Western Australia TAB, which the provincial government plans to sell (see previous reports).

He said that such a bid was unlikely, and that CrownBet is currently not in a position to take on the retail obligations that such an acquisition would entail. However, he said that it would be something that he could “look at.”

“We would look at it, but I’m not sure we are geared up enough at this stage to take on a retail operator as you would have to in that situation. Maybe in the future,” he said.

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