Opinion: Hitting the ground running in Australia

After months of planning and meeting over 385 compliance requirements, Betfred Australia is now fully licensed by the Northern Territory Gaming Commission.

The strategy around the launch was to test-market the Betfred product to the Australian public and ensure that our offering, customer service and marketing would gain traction rather than invest millions from day one bombarding the Australian public.

Every brand has a different entry strategy, clearly acquisition is the quickest route to critical mass but as we all know valuation and expectation don’t often add up. Taking over an existing brand even after due diligence more often than not turns up a few unknowns, including hidden costs and hidden agendas when earn outs are in place, and there is always a risk that those synergies you paid a multiple for never materialise.

Paddy Power was the first super power to enter the fight. They spent a long period of time getting to know the market, weighing up their options and speaking to every local operator before encouraging Sportsbet to buy IAS then snapping them both up. They gained overnight market share and this was a stepping stone to the market leading position they occupy today.

On a smaller level Unibet bought out Betchoice and have been struggling with the challenge of trying to offer the best of Australia and Europe. Having gone through three country managers in three years and a new ad agency, they may now finally have the right offering and staff to make a dent in the market.

Sportingbet, Centrebet and the new kid on the block Tom Waterhouse were openly up for sale for some time trying to attract a European suitor before William Hill came along like a giant Pac-Man and gobbled up all three in a matter of months. Industry rumour suggests they are currently working out which brands to promote and which to drop before their full on assault kicks off.

Ladbrokes supported their launch with significant media buys both on and offline and very aggressive double the odds promotions around the racing carnival last year.

In an attempt to differentiate themselves and cut through the media noise, clutter of money back specials and extra value offers, Ladbrokes introduced a cash out card which enables their punters to withdraw from any ATM in the country. This is a genuine point of difference and definitely gave the brand talkability.

With no significant brands left to buy and with most of the key media assets tied up on long term deals by competitors who are happy to over pay to keep others out, how do we launch Betfred.com.au and build a solid business?

We need to make sports fans fall in love with us. We want them to love us because we take the trouble to entertain them, not sell to them and we must offer them something different. We have decided that product and customer experience will be where we challenge the market.

We have successfully introduced products from the UK that will separate us from our rivals such as Goals Galore, Double Delight / Hat-Trick Heaven and have adapted them to the Australian local sports such as Rugby League and AFL. We will also be introducing totally new products to the Australian market that are currently in development.

I’m not naive enough to think that if these ideas take off our rivals won’t emulate them; I adopted a similar strategy of innovation at Centrebet with the ‘Pick Your Own Line’ for sports and ‘Pick Your Own Field’ for racing. Both were copied within months of launch but Centrebet were seen by the public as innovators and that legacy remains today.

Until we go live with a full website and racing offering, we will not be investing heavily but instead use this time to experiment with different strategies and fine tune our approach by listening to our customers and filling in the gaps before we take our place in the ring.

We will start to test market into the World Cup and continue to refine our product. Like Captain Cook, we didn’t discover Australia but we plan to become one of its biggest names and part of its gambling history.