Sports betting innovator launches new start-up

17 November 2021

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By Douglas Fraser

Business and economy editor, Scotland

One of Scotland's most effective innovation groups is starting once again with a new company - and has secured the most significant preliminary financial investment of any British start-up .

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

The new firm has seed financing of $21m.

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

The company is recruiting personnel from a base in Scotland.

FanDuel was offered to Flutter - previously called Paddy Power Betfair - in 2018 and is now worth more than $30bn.

However, Mr Eccles and other co-founders remain in legal disagreement with FanDuel's later phase investors over the method which they structured a takeover, which left the Edinburgh team without a share of the increasing evaluation.

Mr Eccles stated that one thing he gained from the FanDuel experience was to pick investors thoroughly.

He told BBC Scotland: "We took a lot of lessons from that, one of which was the value of who we select as investors in this new company, to guarantee their values are aligned with ours, that they take their fiduciary tasks responsibly, and that they're the right partners for us."

The $21m seed funding for BetDEX consists of stakes taken by 7 backers of US innovation companies, including two large funds - Paradigm and FTX - which specialise in investing in business operating with crypto-currencies.

Varun Sudhakar, primary executive of BetDEX, said: "The sports betting wagering industry charges high rates for bad items and limitations trades by its most effective users.

"BetDEX is diametrically opposed to this method. We will successfully compete against incumbents with a considerably exceptional product and low costs, which is now possible with the development of the blockchain technology."
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As chairman of the new company, Mr Eccles said it could look familiar to retail punters utilized to existing online companies.

'Pool of skill'
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However, he says that those who utilize its platform to run their own wagering firms will be able to innovate and develop a larger series of wagering products.

He stated the common share taken by online bookies is 7% to 10% of a stake, however BetDEX needs to permit that to fall below 1%.

The business will develop its own wagering apps to run on the platform.

Mr Eccles said these would take an "intelligent, thoughtful" technique to the way they are marketed to protect those who battle with issue gambling.

He stated the team of around 500 software application engineers who assisted develop FanDuel from Scotland revealed that it stays the location to build a company. BetDEX has the same head of innovation, Stuart Tonner.

"A great deal of that [FanDuel] success was constructed on an extremely proficient, very talented engineering team, that constructed this item that could process millions of bets and millions of users.

"There's a real talent pool of knowledgeable engineers who helped us construct our product which's what we want to take advantage of for BetDEX also."

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Edinburgh

Sports betting

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20 November 2017