Bullish BetEasy targets Aus market share
New brand founded by Sportsbet founder Matt Tripp will launch tomorrow with aggressive marketing strategy
Sportsbet founder Matt Tripp’s BetEasy brand will officially launch tomorrow with the aim of “winning the hearts and minds” of customers in the competitive Australian online sportsbook market.
Tripp acquired BetEzy.com.au earlier this year having seen out a three-year non-compete period, and is now planning to aggressively go after market share with BetEasy.
A new desktop site and iOS app will be released on Tuesday morning, with a tablet-optimised product set to follow in the coming months. BetEzy customers will be transferred to the BetEasy.com.au platform.
Speaking to eGaming Review this morning, Tripp said BetEasy would stand out in a competitive market by offering customers a “fairer go” than other bookies, with a focus on increasing turnover rather than profit margins.
“Punters won’t have carte blanche to do what they like, but I’ve always tried hard to find a balance between servicing the public and managing to keep the doors open by being profitable. Hopefully we can strike that balance again,” he said.
He called BetEasy “the last Australian operator on the shelf” and said the firm is likely to use the “run by Australians, for Australians” angle to attract customers.
“Australians are fairly parochial in the way they go about their purchasing “ people like to buy Australian,” he said. “And while all the other bookies send their profits offshore back to their homeland, we re-invest it into the Australian economy. I think there’s merit in that.”
Tripp, who will serve as CEO, said the firm faces a competitive market featuring “some very shrewd operators with deep pockets” but backed his new venture to stand out from the likes of William Hill, Ladbrokes and the Paddy Power-owned Sportsbet.
Tomorrow’s launch will be backed-up with generous offers including one which gives customers who download the app “ even those who do not deposit “ a free bet on Saturday’s AFL grand final.
“We’ve got some things up our sleeve which will certainly grab the attention and win the hearts and minds of the Australian public,” Tripp said.
The company has built its front and back-end sportsbook platform in-house over the past nine months, however Tripp admitted he expected to be up and running already, citing “minor setbacks” as the reason for the delay.
“We always wanted to be live by the Spring Carnival, although we thought we might have been live by now if I’m honest,” he said.
Tripp led his father’s Number One Betting Shop business for several years before it was sold to Sportingbet for AU$100m in 2002.
After seeing out a non-compete period, in 2006 Tripp took over Sportsbet, then a small Darwin-based bookie on the brink of bankruptcy for just AU$250,000.
Paddy Power acquired a 51% stake in Sportsbet in 2009 and took full control of the operator a year later in separate deals thought to be worth around £150m.