Sportech signs Longitude pools deal
Deal allows Vernons.com and Sportech Racing owners to exclusively distribute Longitude's single pools product in Europe and India for sports pool betting.
On and offline pools specialist Sportech has signed a strategic services agreement with technology and data company Longitude to “bring to market a new and exciting complementary pools offering”, the company announced to the market this morning.
The deal will allow the Vernons.com and Sportech Racing owners to exclusively distribute Longitude’s single pools product in Europe and India for sports pool betting.
Longitude’s technology, originally developed in the securities business, has been modified for sports pool betting and “should yield a number of benefits to Sportech”, it said in a staement. Longitude technology uses parimutuel principles to aggregate liquidity and produce “fair and efficient prices” for applications in a diverse range of industries, a section reads on its website.
“Single pools are a way of building liquidity by offering multiple bet types based on a single pool, which should generate larger, deeper and more liquid betting pools on football and cricket,” it said.
“Sportech believes that this will enhance its suite of products and technical functionality and, following certain technology integration work, anticipates bringing new products to market in the second quarter of 2013.
“The combination of Sportech’s extensive industry expertise and Longitude’s groundbreaking technology, which will be available primarily in tablet, mobile and online formats, will develop a compelling offering to existing customers, whilst fostering a dynamic new suite of products to create a new and younger customer base,” it added.
Ian Penrose, chief executive of Sportech said the business’s significant international presence, particularly in North America under its Racing brand, “enabled this alliance to be forged”.
“As we have previously said the constant evolution of the customer experience and development of new products is a priority for management, and working with Longitude will add considerably to our digital products and technical capabilities, initially focused on football,” he added.
Tom Ascher, managing director of Longitude said: “We are delighted to have been selected by Sportech to collaborate on our first deployment of Longitude’s single pool technology for sports pool betting. As an established industry leader and international Group that has changed dramatically over the years, Sportech is a forward-looking innovator and we are excited to work with them to expand their business in this exciting new direction.”
Announcing its first half results in August Sportech said it has experienced a minor rise in sales in the first six months of 2012 with increased online investment continuing to bear fruit.
The Liverpool-based business saw overall revenues rise to £57.7m for the six months to 30 June 2012 from £57.4m in the same period last year, while earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) increased to £12.6m from £12.4m.