Sports betting innovator launches new start-up
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17 November 2021

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By Douglas Fraser
bet9ja.com
Business and economy editor, Scotland

Among Scotland's most effective innovation groups is beginning once again with a brand-new firm - and has protected the biggest preliminary investment of any British start-up business.

BetDEX is being led by Nigel Eccles, who co-founded fantasy sports betting site FanDuel in 2009 in Edinburgh.

The new firm has seed financing of $21m.

It intends to release a new open source software platform, on which others can innovate in sports betting, in the first half of next year.

The business is recruiting personnel from a base in Scotland.

FanDuel was offered to Flutter - previously called Paddy Power Betfair - in 2018 and is now worth more than $30bn.

However, Mr Eccles and other co-founders are in legal dispute with FanDuel's later phase investors over the method which they structured a takeover, which left the Edinburgh team without a share of the rising valuation.

Mr Eccles said that one thing he learned from the FanDuel experience was to select investors carefully.

He informed BBC Scotland: "We took a lot of lessons from that, among which was the value of who we choose as financiers in this new organization, to guarantee their values are aligned with ours, that they take their fiduciary responsibilities responsibly, and that they're the best partners for us."

The $21m seed funding for BetDEX consists of stakes taken by 7 backers of US technology firms, including 2 big funds - Paradigm and FTX - which specialise in buying business running with crypto-currencies.
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Varun Sudhakar, president of BetDEX, said: "The sports betting wagering industry charges high rates for poor products and limits trades by its most effective users.

"BetDEX is diametrically opposed to this technique. We will effectively compete versus incumbents with a markedly exceptional item and low charges, which is now possible with the arrival of the blockchain technology."

As chairman of the brand-new company, Mr Eccles said it might look familiar to retail punters utilized to existing online companies.

'Pool of skill'

However, he states that those who use its platform to run their own wagering companies will have the ability to innovate and produce a wider variety of sports betting items.

He stated the common share taken by online bookmakers is 7% to 10% of a stake, but BetDEX must permit for that to fall listed below 1%.

The business will develop its own sports betting apps to run on the platform.

Mr Eccles said these would take an "smart, thoughtful" technique to the method they are marketed to safeguard those who fight with issue gaming.

He said the group of around 500 software engineers who helped build FanDuel from Scotland revealed that it remains the location to develop a company. BetDEX has the same head of technology, Stuart Tonner.

"A great deal of that [FanDuel] success was developed on a highly skilled, very gifted engineering group, that built this item that could process countless bets and millions of users.

"There's a real talent swimming pool of skilled engineers who assisted us develop our item and that's what we desire to take advantage of for BetDEX also."
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Related subjects

Edinburgh

sports betting wagering

More on this story

Paddy Power buys fantasy sports betting website

23 May 2018

FanDuel founder leaves business

Published

20 November 2017
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