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Sports betting innovator launches brand-new start-up

17 November 2021

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By Douglas Fraser
bet9ja.com
Business and economy editor, Scotland

Among Scotland's most successful technology teams is starting again with a brand-new company - and has protected the most significant preliminary investment of any British start-up business.

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

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

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

The company is hiring personnel from a base in Scotland.

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

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

Mr Eccles stated that one thing he discovered from the FanDuel experience was to thoroughly.

He told BBC Scotland: "We took a lot of lessons from that, among which was the significance of who we choose as financiers in this new business, to ensure their values are lined up with ours, that they take their fiduciary duties responsibly, which they're the best partners for us."

The $21m seed funding for BetDEX includes stakes taken by 7 backers of US innovation firms, including 2 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 market charges high rates for poor items and limits trades by its most effective users.

"BetDEX is diametrically opposed to this approach. We will effectively contend versus incumbents with a considerably exceptional item and low fees, which is now possible with the introduction of the blockchain technology."

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

'Pool of skill'

However, he says that those who use its platform to run their own sports betting firms will be able to innovate and develop a broader series of wagering products.

He said the typical share taken by online bookmakers is 7% to 10% of a stake, but BetDEX should permit that to fall listed below 1%.

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

Mr Eccles stated these would take an "smart, thoughtful" technique to the method they are marketed to safeguard those who fight with problem gaming.

He said the team of around 500 software engineers who assisted construct FanDuel from Scotland showed that it stays the location to construct a firm. BetDEX has the very same head of technology, Stuart Tonner.

"A great deal of that [FanDuel] success was built on an extremely knowledgeable, very skilled engineering group, that developed this item that might process millions of bets and countless users.

"There's a genuine skill swimming pool of skilled engineers who assisted us construct our product which's what we want to leverage for BetDEX too."

Related topics

Edinburgh

Sports betting

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