Centrebet head of marketing leaves for new challenge
Luke Brill, Centrebet's long-serving head of marketing and gaming is to leave the business tomorrow after four and a half years at the Australian operator.
Centrebet’s long-serving head of marketing and gaming is to leave the business tomorrow after four and a half years at the Australian operator.
Brill is perhaps best known for striking Australia’s first shirt sponsorship deal between a bookmaker and a major professional sporting club in 2008 with Centrebet’s logo on the shirts of A-league football team Newcastle Jets.
Brill, who also famously bought, sponsored and named a greyhound Centrepet as part of a marketing stunt only to see it die of a heart attack before it ran a race, sent an internal email to staff today announcing that Friday would be his last day at the company.
“The past four and half years have been fantastic and I have enjoyed every moment, we rebranded and re positioned Centrebet within the Australian market which lead to the sale of the business to Sportingbet for $184m.”
Egaming Review has since learned that one of his last acts at Centrebet has been to register a horse in the name of Centrepet. “Forget the dog this one’s a winner and due to race in January,” Brill told eGR.
The former global marketing director and UK managing director of Gamebookers, and head of sports marketing at PartyGaming, following its sale to Party, is known to have done well from the company’s sale to Sportingbet in May this year. Following the Sportingbet acquisition earlier this year his position is known to have been absorbed by the newly enlarged company, while it also changed from being a global role to just Australia facing. Brill is on gardening leave until February.
Sportingbet agreed terms for its acquisition of the Australian online bookmaker on 26 May this year, funding the deal by raising £130m through the issue of new shares and a convertible bond.
Sportingbet chief executive Andrew McIver said at the time that the acquisition would make it the leading corporate bookmaker in the “fast-growing” Australian market.
The acquisition increased the enlarged group’s proportion of net gaming revenue (NGR) received from regulated markets from approximately 22% to 30%. Regulation in its key markets of Greece and Spain would move this closer to 60%, however it has since acquired two Danish bookmakers taking this to around 70% in January when the market regulates.
Paddy Power took full control of Australian operator Sportsbet earlier this year, while Bet365 is currently awaiting news of whether its licence application there has been successful before opening a new office with between 50 to 100 employees.