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sports betting wagering innovator launches new start-up

17 November 2021

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By Douglas Fraser

Business and economy editor, Scotland

One of Scotland's most successful innovation teams is starting again with a new company - and has actually secured the most significant initial financial investment of any British start-up business.

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

The brand-new firm has seed funding 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 company is recruiting staff from a base in Scotland.

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

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

Mr Eccles said that one thing he gained from the FanDuel experience was to choose investors thoroughly.

He told BBC Scotland: "We took a great deal of lessons from that, among which was the value of who we choose as investors in this new organization, to ensure their worths are lined up with ours, that they take their fiduciary responsibilities responsibly, and that they're the right partners for us."

The $21m seed funding for BetDEX includes stakes taken by 7 backers of US innovation companies, consisting of two large funds - Paradigm and FTX - which specialise in buying business operating with crypto-currencies.

Varun Sudhakar, president of BetDEX, stated: "The sports betting wagering market charges high rates for poor items and limits trades by its most successful users.

"BetDEX is diametrically opposed to this technique. We will successfully compete versus incumbents with a markedly remarkable item and low costs, which is now possible with the development of the blockchain technology."
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As chairman of the new company, Mr Eccles said it might look familiar to retail punters used to existing online firms.

'Pool of skill'

However, he says that those who utilize its platform to run their own wagering firms will have the ability to innovate and develop a larger variety of wagering products.

He said the common share taken by online bookies is 7% to 10% of a stake, but BetDEX ought to enable that to fall listed below 1%.
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The business will establish its own wagering apps to run on the platform.

Mr Eccles stated these would take an "intelligent, thoughtful" technique to the way they are marketed to protect those who battle with problem sports betting.

He stated the team of around 500 software engineers who helped develop FanDuel from Scotland revealed that it remains the place to construct a firm. BetDEX has the same head of technology, Stuart Tonner.

"A great deal of that [FanDuel] success was constructed on a highly experienced, extremely talented engineering team, that this item that could process millions of bets and millions of users.

"There's a genuine talent pool of skilled engineers who helped us build our product and that's what we wish to leverage for BetDEX too."

Related subjects

Edinburgh

Sports betting

More on this story

Paddy Power purchases fantasy sports betting website

23 May 2018

FanDuel creator leaves business

Published

20 November 2017
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