Chapter 1 – Introduction
Digital sportsbooks now appeal to millions of sport enthusiasts offering various rich media content
and all sorts of betting resources plus numerous promotions and bonuses on their websites and apps.
A considerable number of punters have also been attracted to betting exchanges that are based on
the idea of peer-to-peer betting.
Timeline for sports betting online
Year
Development
1921
First football betting in England.
1934
Football betting in Sweden.
1961
First legal bookies in England.
1974
Bet365 was founded (One of the oldest providers of sports betting).
1997
First online bookies Interwetten and Betandwin (now Bwin) launched.
1998
Online sportsbook Sportingbet launched.
1999
First betting exchange Betfair launched followed by Expekt.
2002
Bet2Go takes first online sports bet. Betsson and Mybet launched.
2005
Only four years after launching its online poker business, PartyGaming lists on the London Stock
Exchange with a market value of approximately £4.6bn.
2006
The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (‘UIGEA’) was passed by the Bush Administration,
attached to the Safe Ports Act. UIGEA rendered it illegal for US financial institutions to facilitate
payments between US residents and offshore online gambling sites. Share prices of listed online
gambling operators with significant US facing operations, like Sportingbet.com, Ladbrokes and
PartyGaming plunged overnight as a result.
2008
The European Commission began infringement proceedings against a number of EU member states
including France and Germany on the basis that their anti-online gambling laws were in breach of EU
‘Freedom to Provide Services’ provisions.
2009
Industry stalwart Bodog reached the milestone of signing its three millionth customer account.
2011
Industry giants Bwin and PartyGaming completed their merger and Betfred took over the Tote in the UK.
Betsson bought Betsafe.
2012
Hosting the Olympic Games boosted the British betting industry. Ladbrokes forecasted the sector would
turn over close to £80m for the two-week period, compared with £4m from the Beijing Games four years
previously, while research from Coral showed that 3m people planned to have placed their first ever
bet on the London Olympics. Betfair saw the total number of customers making bets during the Games
doubling to almost 100,000.
2013
William Hill bought out its joint venture Playtech for £424m.
Social gamer Zynga shelved plans to pursue real-money online gambling opportunities in the US.
2014
The UK introduced its controversial new licensing regime in November, requiring all UK-facing operators
to hold licenses issued by the UK Gambling Commission.
The great social media real-money gambling experiment came off the rails this year, as Paddy Power,
888 Holdings and Gamesys all yanked their underperforming real-money Facebook apps.
2015
UK-focused deals M&A deals exceeded £11bn in the 12 months up to November 2015, with planned
mega-mergers between Paddy Power and Betfair, and Ladbrokes and Gala Coral, designed to tighten
their grip on the UK market. If the tie-ups go through, 85% of UK online sports betting revenue will be
in the hands of the top five operators. GVC's £1.1bn takeover of bwin party will propel it into
London’s main stock exchange. Its bidding battle with 888 for bwin party, once a giant of the
industry, was one of the biggest stories of the year.
1.4 The digital sportsbook industry
The digital sportsbook industry is characterised by software companies and operators that are
exclusively sportsbook-oriented or have added sportsbooks to a portfolio of existing games. Such
Digital Sports Betting 15