Sporting Options the Sussex-based betting exchange, which went into administration yesterday afternoon, faces potential police investigation for misuse of punters accounts.
While is common among betting exchange start-ups to use part of their marketing budgets to boost bets volume, we believe Sporting Options may have been forced to use customers funds to support weakening markets after the company reported a loss of £1m for the financial year ending 2003. The administration comes three months after Blue Square, a UK online bookmaker owned by Rank’s group, ended discussions with Sporting Options, over a possible £4m acquisition, during the due diligence phase. The potential fraud case could be extremely bad to the reputation of the betting exchange industry. “The events of the last 24 hours have been regrettable but the actions of one company, whatever they turn out to have been, should not be used to damn a whole industry”, Rob Hartnett, managing director of Betdaq, said.
“The demise of Sporting Options shows why we urgently need the new Gambling Bill, not only to regulate online bookmakers but also to update regulation for the wider betting industry so that all punters are properly protected”, Stephen Hill, CEO of Betfair, said.
Sporting Options was launched four years ago by former City traders Robert Byrne and Kevin Griffiths. Byrne, who left the firm some months ago, declined to comment.
Betfair, the world’s largest betting exchange, has already said it will cover 95% of owed customer money.
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