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Sports betting new start-up
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17 November 2021
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By Douglas Fraser

Business and economy editor, Scotland

Among Scotland's most successful innovation teams is starting again with a new firm - and has actually secured the greatest preliminary investment of any British start-up business.

BetDEX is being led by Nigel Eccles, who co-founded dream sports betting website FanDuel in 2009 in Edinburgh.

The new firm has seed financing of $21m.

It aims to release a new open source software application platform, on which others can innovate in sports betting wagering, in the first half of next year.

The company is recruiting staff from a base in Scotland.

FanDuel was offered to Flutter - previously named Paddy Power Betfair - in 2018 and is now worth more than $30bn.
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However, Mr Eccles and other co-founders are in legal conflict with FanDuel's later stage investors over the method which they structured a takeover, which left the Edinburgh team without a share of the increasing appraisal.

Mr Eccles said that a person thing he discovered from the FanDuel experience was to choose financiers thoroughly.

He informed BBC Scotland: "We took a great deal of lessons from that, among which was the importance of who we choose as investors in this brand-new company, to ensure their worths are aligned with ours, that they take their fiduciary duties responsibly, and that they're the best partners for us."

The $21m seed financing for BetDEX consists of stakes taken by seven backers of US innovation companies, consisting of two big funds - Paradigm and FTX - which specialise in purchasing companies running with crypto-currencies.

Varun Sudhakar, chief executive of BetDEX, stated: "The sports betting wagering market charges high costs for poor products and limits trades by its most successful users.

"BetDEX is diametrically opposed to this technique. We will effectively compete versus incumbents with a noticeably superior item and low fees, which is now possible with the arrival of the blockchain innovation."

As chairman of the brand-new company, Mr Eccles said it could look familiar to retail punters utilized to existing online firms.

'Pool of talent'
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However, he says that those who use its platform to run their own sports betting companies will have the ability to innovate and develop a wider range of wagering products.

He stated the normal share taken by online bookmakers is 7% to 10% of a stake, however BetDEX ought to allow for that to fall below 1%.

The company will establish its own wagering apps to run on the platform.

Mr Eccles stated these would take an "smart, thoughtful" approach to the way they are marketed to safeguard those who have problem with problem gambling.

He said the team of around 500 software engineers who helped construct FanDuel from Scotland revealed that it stays the location to construct a firm. BetDEX has the same head of technology, Stuart Tonner.

"A great deal of that [FanDuel] success was developed on a highly knowledgeable, extremely skilled engineering team, that constructed this item that might process countless bets and countless users.

"There's a genuine talent pool of knowledgeable engineers who assisted us build our item which's what we wish to leverage for BetDEX as well."

Related topics

Edinburgh

sports betting wagering

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Published

20 November 2017