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Sports betting innovator launches brand-new start-up
17 November 2021
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By Douglas Fraser
Business and economy editor, Scotland
Among Scotland's most successful innovation teams is beginning again with a brand-new company - and has actually secured the biggest preliminary financial investment of any British start-up company.
BetDEX is being led by Nigel Eccles, who co-founded fantasy sports betting wagering site FanDuel in 2009 in Edinburgh.
The brand-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 wagering, in the very first half of next year.
The business is recruiting staff from a base in Scotland.
FanDuel was offered to Flutter - previously named Paddy Power Betfair - in 2018 and is now worth more than $30bn.
However, Mr Eccles and other co-founders are in legal conflict with FanDuel's later over the method which they structured a takeover, which left the Edinburgh team without a share of the rising appraisal.
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Mr Eccles stated that one thing he learned from the FanDuel experience was to choose financiers carefully.
He informed BBC Scotland: "We took a lot of lessons from that, one of which was the value of who we choose as financiers in this new business, to guarantee their values are aligned with ours, that they take their fiduciary responsibilities responsibly, and that they're the right partners for us."
The $21m seed funding for BetDEX consists of stakes taken by seven backers of US innovation companies, consisting of two big funds - Paradigm and FTX - which specialise in investing in business operating with crypto-currencies.
Varun Sudhakar, chief executive of BetDEX, said: "The sports betting wagering market charges high prices for bad products and limitations trades by its most successful users.
"BetDEX is diametrically opposed to this approach. We will successfully complete against incumbents with a markedly remarkable product and low charges, which is now possible with the introduction of the blockchain innovation."
As chairman of the new firm, Mr Eccles stated it could look familiar to retail punters utilized to existing online firms.
'Pool of skill'
However, he states that those who use its platform to run their own sports betting firms will be able to innovate and create a wider range of sports betting products.
He said the common share taken by online bookmakers is 7% to 10% of a stake, however BetDEX should enable that to fall below 1%.
The company will establish its own wagering apps to operate on the platform.
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Mr Eccles said these would take an "intelligent, thoughtful" technique to the way they are marketed to secure those who battle with problem gaming.
He stated the group of around 500 software engineers who helped construct FanDuel from Scotland revealed that it remains the location to build a company. BetDEX has the same head of innovation, Stuart Tonner.
"A lot of that [FanDuel] success was constructed on an extremely competent, very gifted engineering group, that built this product that might process countless bets and millions of users.
"There's a genuine skill pool of knowledgeable engineers who assisted us construct our product and that's what we want to leverage for BetDEX too."
Related topics
Edinburgh
Sports betting
More on this story
Paddy Power purchases dream sports betting website
23 May 2018
FanDuel founder leaves company
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Published
20 November 2017
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Sports Betting Innovator Launches Brand new Start up
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