CrownBet drops plan to re-badge as Sportingbet following Paddy Power Betfair court action
Major Australian online sports betting business CrownBet has rowed back from its proposed change of name to Sportingbet following a court action by Sportsbet owner Paddy Power Betfair.
Instead, it is expected that the company will re-introduce its popular BetEasy brand to service reportedly hundreds of thousands of Aussie punters signed up with William Hill Australia and CrownBet.
InfoPowa readers may recall that CrownBet acquired William Hill Australia recently and was itself acquired by The Stars Group in a A$150 million deal earlier this year. The company is headed by prominent bookmaker and former head of Sportsbet. Matt Tripp.
In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald Tuesday Tripp said having to drop the Sportingbet brand initiative was a disappointment, but that the extensive research the company had carried out regarding the new identity indicated that BetEasy will resonate with customers.
Tripp said he supported the introduction of tougher consumer-protection measures, but couldn’t “sugarcoat” the fact that the challenges for bookmakers in Australia were greater than ever before, with fierce competition, tough laws, increasing taxes and difficult advertising arrangements.
However he remained optimistic, saying that William Hill had given the group scale, and that the ownership of The Stars Group was a major market advantage.
InfoPowa readers may recall that back in 2005 Tripp acquired a small Darwin-based online sports betting company titled Sportsbet for A$250,000 and turned it into a major player in the Australian online gambling industry before selling it in 2011 to Paddy Power for A$380 million.
