The Australian Government and lobbyists have been discussing banning free bet incentives in bookmaker advertising. The bans would likely cover all types of media including all print and TV.
When doing some study on the topic I came across an article from a leading newspaper. Its talks about banning free bet incentives from ads and includes comments from Centrebet’s Neil Evans saying “Its the right thing to do”. After reading the article I noticed on the right of the page was a completely contradicting advertisement from Centrebet which made me laugh out loud, check it out here! It features Neil Evans promoting a promo for a “free betting bank”. The banner goes on saying that a $100 free bet will be given!
The ad is randomly placed on different pages of the newspapers site and slaps all what the article has to say in the face.
I really can’t see the government stopping the adverts anyway. The current economic headaches and the downturn in advertising revenue to Australia’s major media outlets has seen bookmakers fill the gap and in some cases hold the industry up.
The issue of free bets in advertising originated from the recent relaxing of advertising laws for corporate bookmakers. Bookies can now advertise in Victoria and NSW to the disgust of TabCorp. The TAB have said that “A national ban on the advertising of free bets is needed”. This is obviously a money grab on their behalf with corporate bookies slowly but surly taking a large share of the TAB’s market.
Senator Nick Xenophon has also commented on the issue saying that he would introduce a private members bill in the next few months to stop the practice of free bet incentives altogether. Little does he know that there are 1000′s of bookmakers outside Australia that welcome Australian residents and offer free bets. As they operate outside Australia there is nothing the Government could do to regulate this. If the bill did make it to Government they would be crazy to allow it and watch the gambling dollars fly out of the country, tax free.
Personally I think free bet offers are good. I’ve had some nice wins from them and its a great way to sample the services of the bookmaker. The main reason that free bets were originally introduced is that the competition between bookmakers become very fierce as they all try to outdo each other for your business. I can only see this as a win for the consumer and can see the offers only getting better for punters in the future.
The Top 3 Biggest Offers are
- IASbet: A $100,000 Betting Bank to play with on Sydney Cup Day and keep the profit of the day!
- Canbet: $1000 Free Bet
- Bet365 $500 Free Bet
Here’s your chance to be an online bookmaker! Australia’s IAS (International All Sports) is up for sale and the well know betting icon is yet to seal any hand over deals.
Mark Read’s IAS Board have looked at expressions of interest from rival companies including Sportsbet and Centrebet which has caused some big movements in the share price.
Early this year Centrebet made a hostile bid of near 22 Million dollars for a 90% part of IAS at 33 cents per share. At the time this seemed to me to be a generous offer considering that the shares were only worth 16 cents and increasing losses gave IAS a bleak outlook. The offer was officially rejected by IAS along with Centrebet’s other offer of 28 cents for a 50% slice of the company. The IAS directors stated that the offer significantly undervalues the shares of IAS but would continue to look at interests from other companies.
With this interest the Darwin based bookmaker saw the share price rise. Another rival company Sportsbet in late February and early March bought a little over 12.3% of IAS at this raised price of an average of 35 cents per share. This lead to Centrebet announcing that they are out of the hunt and wouldn’t make any counter offers. Matthew Tripp owner of Sportsbet commented about the acquisition “The company had bought the stake to have an influence on IAS’s future”.
That’s exactly what happened, around the same time IAS announced its half year results which gave a much brighter picture and the shares topped a high of 42 cents. Currently IAS shares stand at 35 cents and are showing to be much more stable.
IAS now has around 40,000 customers on both it’s IASbet and Canbet sites and turned over $524 million last financial year. They continue to stay very competitive with other Australian bookmakers with aggressive incentives to new players. Currently IAS give new customers a $100 free bet just for making $50 worth of bets on their websites.
Check out both IAS’s sites below
IASbet.com.au
Canbet.com.au
More information on the IAS sale checkout their corporate section here
The tender for the 2012 Victorian Government betting licence is heating up with confidential tenders submitted to the government.
The new outlines for Victorian betting licence have been released and will no doubt shake the gambling industry considerably with betting exchanges and massive tax cuts to entice hype and competition for the betting license.
Betting exchange will be allowed to operate in Victoria formerly only allowed in Tasmania and Betfair (the world’s biggest and leading betting exchange) has already announced that it has not submit a tender for the betting licence. But they say they are very keen to operate a betting exchange in Victoria for the new licence holder. Instead of the usual TAB style outlets Betfair may essentially have the ability to open betting exchange outlets around Victoria. This alone could change the face dramatically on how we currently place bets in Victoria.
There will also be tax cuts to betting of 60% which is a staggering 1 billion dollars over the 12 year life of the licence which will be held by the new company. This will most likely see much better odds to the end user and the ability to match or beat the corporate bookmakers at their own game.
There are a few companies that have announced that they are interested. Tatts who currently own Unitab are trying to continue their Tote dominance around Australia including the upcoming Tasmanian Tote licence. Intralot the new lotto licence holder have said that they have submitted a tender and Irish gaming giant Paddy Power have also announced that they too have lodged a bid. The TAB was reluctant to comment if they had made a bid to the Government but are very likely to want to continue what has been a very profitable business for them. With big international companies bidding it may make it difficult for Tatts and Tabcorp to compete with the amount of push these companies have and may see the tender go off shore.
Whoever wins the licence will be paying a fortune for the privilege and the winners out of all this will be the gambling public. This will give people many more options over the phone, internet and outlets with a much better return than the previous TAB system.
It will be an interesting time for the Victorian gaming industry and the rest of Australia will be taking notes and no doubt will follow the lead of Victoria in years to come as the competition increases between bookmakers and the Tote.
For more information on Betfair and how betting exchanges work check out the Betfair website.
