Online bookmakers reap World Cup benefits
News on 17 Jul 2014
News on 17 Jul 2014
In the aftermath of the World Cup football in Brazil, media reports around the world are beginning to give an indication of how massive the betting bonanza generated by the once every four years event really was.
Australian media claim that punters Downunder wagered around A$ 287 million with the five largest betting operators, with Tabcorp reportedly far exceeding its anticipated A$125 million, although it has yet to release official numbers.
Betfair’s Aussie operations handled A$52 million in World Cup wagers, whilst the three Australian online subsidiaries of William Hill (Tom Waterhouse, Sportingbet and Centrebet) took in bets worth A$24 million.
Sportsbet, the Aussie online sports bookie owned by Paddy Power, appears to have been the most successful, reporting A$74 million in World Cup wagers, and the Tatts Group claimed A$17 million.
The numbers could have been a lot higher, but in-play betting is verboten in the land of Oz, and this very popular form of wagering was not legally available.
An indication of how big a difference that might be was given by Betfair, which revealed that on an international basis the highest volumes of betting emanated from nations where in-play betting is allowed.
Betfair handled around GBP 2.26 billion globally, and although William Hill and Ladbrokes – the UK giants – have not released detailed numbers, spokesmen have confirmed that the results were better than their high expectations.
On Wednesday GVC released its second quarterly results, commenting that World Cup betting had enabled it to return record numbers, whilst Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment reported strong sports betting results which offset weak performances in other verticals.
Even mighty Macau was humbled by the distraction caused by World Cup betting – for the first time in five years its revenues declined, if only by 3.7 percent.
Streams of police raiding reports, mainly from China, Malaysia and Thailand indicated that billions were being wagered illegally throughout Asia on the World Cup.
Even in Vegas itself, millions of dollars were bet illegally through a gambling ring that allegedly used SBOBet and was rather cheekily set up by Asian facilitators in three suites at Caesars, which the police took down.
