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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

One of Scotland’s most effective technology teams is starting once again with a new company - and has actually secured the greatest preliminary financial investment of any British start-up business.

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

The brand-new company has seed financing of $21m.

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

The company is hiring staff from a base in Scotland.

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

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

Mr Eccles said that a person thing he gained from the FanDuel experience was to select investors carefully.

He informed BBC Scotland: “We took a great deal of lessons from that, one of which was the significance of who we choose as financiers in this new organization, to ensure their values are aligned with ours, that they take their fiduciary duties properly, which they’re the ideal partners for us.”

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

Varun Sudhakar, president of BetDEX, stated: “The sports betting wagering market charges high rates for bad items and limitations trades by its most effective users.

“BetDEX is diametrically opposed to this approach. We will effectively compete versus incumbents with a markedly superior product and low fees, which is now possible with the development of the blockchain technology.”

As chairman of the brand-new firm, Mr Eccles said it might look familiar to retail punters used to existing online firms.

‘Pool of skill’

However, he says that those who utilize its platform to run their own wagering companies will have the ability to innovate and develop a larger variety of sports betting products.

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

The company will establish its own sports betting apps to operate on the platform.

Mr Eccles stated these would take an “smart, thoughtful” method to the way they are marketed to secure those who fight with problem gaming.

He stated the team of around 500 software engineers who helped develop FanDuel from Scotland showed that it remains the place to build a firm. BetDEX has the very same head of technology, Stuart Tonner.

“A lot of that [FanDuel] success was developed on an extremely competent, very gifted engineering group, that constructed this item that might process countless bets and millions of users.

“There’s a genuine talent swimming pool of experienced engineers who assisted us build our product which’s what we wish to leverage for BetDEX as well.”

Related subjects

Edinburgh

sports betting wagering

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Published

20 November 2017
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