Sky betting on a boom in business after move to Leeds

Richard Flint, managing director of Sky Betting and Gaming, said the gross margin – the amount customers lose to the company – is expected to increase from 65m to 130m by 2015 as it increases market share and takes advantage of new developments in technology.

The firm, which operates a range of betting and gaming services under the Sky Bet, Sky Poker, Sky Vegas and Sky Bingo brands, currently has less than 10 per cent of the market share.

It plans to increase this through a combination of market growth and taking business from bigger and more traditional players such as William Hill and Ladbrokes.

Developing new technology is the main key to unlocking potential growth, and Sky Betting and Gaming has invested in more staff to develop new ways of making betting more accessible.

"We see mobile technology as a real growth area," said Mr Flint. "It opens up a whole range of possibilities, such as people betting in stadia and betting on the way to stadia."

Perhaps surprisingly, Sky Bet, the betting arm of Sky, doesn't currently have a smart phone app, although it does have a site that can be used with a mobile phone.

Mr Flint said: "We haven't got an app because Apple wouldn't allow it for a period of time. They do allow it now, so we're developing one at the moment."

The company is also starting to look at overseas expansion, particularly European countries such as Italy, which have begun to regulate betting activities.

Football is the biggest growing betting sport and this summer's World Cup was the most profitable World Cup to date for bookies.

"People bet on England matches and it can be very profitable, but we also find people bet on other matches to make them more exciting."

Sky Betting and Gaming, which employs 220 staff, moved from Harrogate to 2 Wellington Place, in Leeds, last month. It joins skysports.com and the Sky customer contact centre, which are also based in the city.

"We felt that Leeds offered close proximity to other Sky businesses, particularly skysports.com," said Mr Flint.

"There is also a good amount of high quality office space where we can all get on one floor, the transport links to London are better and there is a good pool of young graduate talent."

Sky Betting and Gaming is growing its revenues by up to 25 per cent a year. It has undergone a restructuring process after reducing the size of its call centre and expanding its technology team.

Mr Flint said: "We've recruited 30 people on the IT side but some of that involved replacing people who didn't want to relocate from Harrogate and reducing the call centre by about 20 people."

The company's customer base is also growing by about 30 per cent a year, with around 400,000 customers currently actively placing bets or playing games.

Sky Betting and Gaming customers are typically aged between 20 and 45 and bet an average of 5-10 at a time. There is also a slight north/south divide – with the north of the UK betting more than the south.

"The fact that there is quite a lot of horse racing and betting history in Yorkshire leads to slightly more betting in Yorkshire compared with other parts of the country," said Mr Flint.

The betting industry has come under close scrutiny over the last week after the Pakistan spot-fixing scandal was revealed.

"For me, it is a strong argument for a properly licensed regulated betting industry in Pakistan like we have in the UK," said Mr Flint.

"We don't offer bets on "no balls" in the UK. We do offer bets on runs per over but the limits on those bets are quite low and if there were any concerns about people placing bets with inside information, there is a full audit trail and we would then work with the sporting authorities to give them that information so they can investigate."

Because betting is closely regulated in the UK, Sky has certain responsibilities to its customers.

Mr Flint said: "Millions of people bet every week and hundreds of thousands bet online. The number of people who have problems is a small proportion of that.

"But there are people who exhibit signs of addiction and struggle to control their betting. The UK industry is very closely regulated and there are lots of things that we have to do to make sure the risk of people having problems and under-age betting is reduced."

Sky's winning formula

Sky's betting and gaming business was founded in 2000 when BSkyB acquired Sports Internet Group in a deal which included telephone and online sports betting company Surrey Sports, along with Planet Football and Opta Index.

Surrey Sports was rebranded in July 2002 to create Sky Bet.

In 2006, online betting companies totalbet and ukbetting were consolidated into Sky Bet after BSkyB's purchase of 365 Media

Group.

It remains one of the few sports betting companies in the UK not to operate traditional high street shops. The company uses the slogan "It matters more when there's money

on it".

Its success has prompted Sky to branch out within the betting and gaming industry under the Sky Bet, Sky Poker, Sky Vegas and Sky Bingo brands.