Exclusive: Betfred.com spins off mobile development arm
Manchester-based agency Degree 53 will supply mobile apps to companies including sportsbook affiliates
British operator Betfred.com has spun off its mobile business in a move which will see the newly-formed agency act as a third party mobile app developer to both gambling and non-gambling clients.
Degree 53 will be headed up by Betfred.com’s ex-head of mobile Andy Daniels (pictured) and has already won several clients including a large sportsbook affiliate for which it has developed a horseracing results app for iOS and Android devices.
Daniels confirmed the company is in talks with a non-UK sportsbook operator to produce a mobile site but would not work with sports betting firms in markets where Betfred.com was a competitor.
However the agency will not be restricted to gambling applications and has begun working on a mobile site for a supplier of childcare vouchers. “We are building enterprise-level, high transaction apps which obviously we’ve had to do for Betfred.com’s betting products,” said Daniels.
The spin off comes after the operator’s mobile team built and launched its own mobile sports betting platform, bringing the entire function in-house for the first time.
“We’ve been basically acting as an internal agency to Betfred.com for the past 12 months while developing the mobile sports betting apps,” said Daniels.
“We realised we could provide this service to third parties and that it made sense to do this as a separate business, but we wanted to finish our own mobile sports betting platform first to show people we were capable of delivering a big project.”
Betfred.com’s in-house mobile sportsbook launch in April replaced its Mfuse offering, making it one of the first major bookmakers to manage the product entirely in-house.
Mobile now accounts for almost 50% of Betfred’s online turnover and around 60% of online profits. This year it has already launched standalone mobile apps for its Goals Galore, Lotto and Virtual Racing games, while work on the sportsbook app began in December 2012.