Exclusive: BuddyBet to launch sports betting network
Isle of Man licensee in talks with sports news sites - first deal signed with FootyMad.
Cash-based social betting operator BuddyBet has secured the participation of more than 180 sports news sites as it sets in motion plans for a sports betting network which its chief executive hopes will make it “a global social platform for gambling.”
The Isle of Man-licensed operator upgraded to a network licence in the jurisdiction with the cooperation and strong support of its advisors SMP, and has signed its first partners for the new venture in the form of an integration with football community FootyMad.
The platform operates off a global user database and is re-skinned to appear like the partner sites. This approach gives users accessing the site the potential to bet against other forum/news site members without leaving their traditional news site.
BuddyBet will retain its own flagship B2C offering, which allows players to wager for real-money, virtual credits and forfeits/dares, as well as extending its B2B offering for a number of sites in preparation for the 2013-14 European football season.
By that time the company expects to be able to offer live betting across a wide variety of global sports – including soccer, basketball and American football – as well as betting on politics and showbiz events.
Chief executive Jarrod Epps (pictured) told eGaming Review: “There is always the issue of people trusting a start-up for their first deposit, but within our partners’ websites their players will be able to go to their own ‘Fan vs Fan’ section which retains their branding but is in fact just a reskinned version of BuddyBet.”
Epps also revealed plans to launch forums for those partners lacking such an element, with an added social feature. “In forums you typically have ‘reply’ and ‘like’ buttons, but with ours you also have a ‘bet me’ button, where if you get involved in an argument with someone you can bet against them and put your money where your mouth is,” he explained.
BuddyBet remains in discussions with a number of skill games providers looking to integrate with BuddyBet to allow P2P gambling on those titles, while expansion into other gambling verticals such as poker remains in the pipeline for the core B2C site.
“One of our main challenges is making the site really sticky, and we hope to solve this through the integration of a number of P2P games which haven’t traditionally included gambling,” said Epps.
(Photo courtesy of Dana Chapman)