Size matters
Even when compared to its closest competitors,
the most striking thing about bet365 is its size.
The Stoke-based operator, named number one in
eGaming Review’s Power 50 list for the fourth year
running, is flying both at home and abroad and is
showing absolutely no sign of slowing down.
Its competition has had to watch as bet365’s
unwavering focus has driven profits and revenues
to new heights. In the year ended 31 March 2013,
operating profits soared to £179m and amounts
wagered grew 57% to almost £20bn. The latter figure
is larger than William Hill and Ladbrokes, two of
its largest competitors, combined, and almost four
times Paddy Power’s.
And that’s against the backdrop of the rest of the
MONEY TALKS
HOW BET365 SIZES UP COMPARED TON CLOSEST COMPETITORS
NB:Bet365 figures relate to year ended 31
March 2013; William Hill relates to year ended
31 January 2013; Paddy Power relates to year
ended 31 December 2012
KEY
BET365
WILLIAM HILL
(ONLINE)
PADDY POWER
(ONLINE)
FY REVENUE
www.egrmagazine.com
FY PROFIT
BALANCE SHEET
top tier, growing rapidly themselves having invested
heavily in product and marketing in an attempt to
compete with bet365.
But can anyone really hope to catch up with
egaming’s number one, or will the biggest just keep
getting bigger?
For bet365, the blueprint for growth is and always
has been relatively simple. Product and customer
service come before anything else. This, coupled
with shrewd marketing and a keen eye on efficiency,
has proved to be a winning formula since the
company moved online back in 2000.
In recent years it has built a market-leading
product range, but co-CEO Denise Coates is happy
to admit that sportsbook is what bet365 is all about,
and that unlike at its competitors, gaming is treated
as a subsidiary business.
Much of the success from sports is down to
sticking to tighter margins than most, at around
3-4% compared to 8-10%. This attempt to be as
close to best price as possible as often as possible
means bet365 runs a low margin, higher volume
business as a result – hence the headline-grabbing
turnover figures.
And while all gaming content is sourced from
third party suppliers, the bet365 sportsbook
is famously entirely in-house, enabling the
operator to implement regular improvements and
innovations where others have struggled. The
scale and challenge of that facility should not be
underestimated – William Hill famously attempted
to swap to an in-house sportsbook model a few years
ago and failed – but it is clearly paying off.
Investment during 2013 has seen the in-play
betting product evolve with the addition of a
‘multi-view’ function, allowing customers to see an
overview of in-play events, and to tailor the view
of their own in-play markets. It has also invested
heavily in live streaming capabilities with the
number of events streamed now exceeding 40,000 a
year – an ever-larger number of which are available
on mobile devices.
That’s not to say gaming isn’t a hugely important
part of the business. While the 25% of overall
revenues it contributes might be far smaller than
some of its rivals, in cash terms it is an enormously
profitable operation.
However, as others have increasingly seen the
cross-selling of sportsbook customers into the
higher margin casino and slots games as the Holy
Grail of egaming success, bet365 takes a more
cautious approach. The reason, says Coates, is the
danger of diluting what has been the operator’s lead
product since day one.
“We have always acknowledged that our absolute
strength is in sports,” she says. “We don’t want to
be too aggressive with our cross-selling as we don’t
want to upset or put off our sportsbook customers.
We try to do it in way which is not going to damage
that relationship or feel like we’re pushing too hard
on them. You’ve got to look at what works for your
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P R O F I L E B E T 365
timeframes and then ensure you execute swiftly
and precisely. This is what we try and do, and I
believe this is what helps motivate everyone – seeing
ideas making the live platform quickly from their
inception,” she says.