‘QuickCall’ feature has been dropped by Ladbrokes Australia following pressure by the United Kingdom operator that forced the bookmaker to drop the in play-betting service based on an investigation on breaches in gambling laws that is currently underway by the Federal Police and (ACMA) Australian Communication & Media Authority.

William Hill, Bet365 and Ladbrokes Australia are the top three leading United Kingdom bookmakers in the market. Ladbrokes Australia will however be forced to withdraw the feature in its digital platform. But at the moment there is no response from the bookmaker on the matter and the actions they would take on it.

ACMA also made a statement that all Australian broadcasters and media channels will no longer be allowed to make advertisement on the controversial feature until the case at hand has been sorted out. Thus advertisement for ‘the call’ will be removed off the air. The feature was first launched by Ladbrokes Australia and William Hill in the month of April. Since its establishment it has brought controversy mirroring other live betting functions as it enables customers to be able to connect to team markets all through a microphone.

Other bookmakers in the UK have said that the mechanism they use is under the Gambling Act Provision of 2001, where the wagers by the customers are only processed if the customer approves of the selections they have made. ACMA responded to this by posting new guideline that the call feature did not involve other service providers that has customers using the normal telephone services which is a requirement according to the act.

In this month the ACMA proceeded to pass the investigation to the Federal Police with claims that it was a breach to the laws of the nation and they were the right force to handle this as the communication agency could not advise on the matter. With this the UK bookmaker will therefore be forced to drop the feature that it offers to its customers until the matter has been sorted out.

Licensed and operated by Gibraltar, BetVictor is launching its cash out service for its sports betting this week. Following its competitor’s bet365, William Hill and Skybet, BetVictor is the latest bookmaker to install acash out service, opening up a new solution developed by its in-house technology team.

To begin with, Cash out services will be made available to UK customers across all networksfor in-play betting and pre-match in five of the most popular football markets. This includes Win-Draw-Win, Correct Score, Both Teams to Score (BTTS), The Win &BTTS market and over/under goals.

Considering that BetVictor’s in-house technology team developed the service, they are qualified to make adjustments and developmentto the service more fastercompared to outsourcing the solution.

The launch of cash out service follows the release of the new version of BetVictor’s iOS app into the Apple’s App store, as the operator looks forward to enhancing its football offering at the start of the upcoming football session.

The company is planning to offer cash out in non-UK markets, as well as a variety of new markets across different sports.

The flowing statement was made by Head of BetVictor’ssports book product, Eoin Ryan regarding the service:

“The introduction of Cash Out to the Sports book is a major milestone in terms of our development.

“It’s a crucial product that the modern day bettor expects to have access to, and we know that it will help us continue the sustained growth and progress we have seen, especially in our football business, over the past few years.”

The firm pointed out that over the coming months they will continue to make better the initial launch of their product and will swiftly look towards extending their scope to house more sports and markets and bring in new functionalities.

The English Premier League is the most watched football league around the world, with a broadcast of 4.7 billion people in over 200 countries. On the other hand, La Liga may have Real Madrid and Barcelona but fans find it predictable. In contrast, the premier league’s title can change often. This is evident by the championship victories in the past three years by Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea.

English Premier League is an intensely competitive league. This is what makes it even more engaging for its fans, who can even enhance their experience through betting on outcomes of various games. This is the main reason why the partnership of sports betting operators and football clubs is on the rise these days. The latest footballclub partnership is Aston Villa who has agreed to work with Betfair and Bet365.

New concept of co-exclusive betting rights

Aston Villa begun its partnerships with the two sports betting companies on 1 July,2015. This partnership will go on until the end of the Premier league season. However, the unusual bit about the partnership is that Aston Villa will be dividing responsibility between bet365 and betfair. This means that the two companies have co-exclusive rights for the club. This as a result, has changed the way the entire Premier league will do business in future.

Aston villa officially announced that bet365 and betfair have the right to be associated with them and both companies will appear on the Club’s interview backdrops and LED screens.

Aston Villa has a history of joining forces with betting operators. It previously partnered with Dafabet and William Hill. Dafabet was its official betting partner for the last two seasons.

Charlie Wijeratna, who is the chief commercial officer of Aston Villa, said that the co-partnership deal from Betfair and bet365 will have a significant commercial increase compared to last year’s partnership.

AFL Club Essendoncalls time on betting partnerships

While English football clubs are welcoming betting partnerships, An Australian team called Essendon does not share that spirit.

Xavier Campbell, the chief executive of Essendon acknowledges that gambling partnerships are highly lucrative. However, the team believes that sports betting have negative impression in Australia. In addition to that, he said that the decision of not partnering with sports betting would cause “short-term financial pain” to the club regardless of the club posting its revenue record for most of its financial year.

It is claimed in the 2001 Australian Interactive Gambling Act that ‘click to call’ service is against the law. However, this did not hinder bet365 based in Australia in initiating the service. This comes even it is clear that the service has brought in a lot of controversies and has prompted the federal police to undertake a thorough investigation on the matter.

Bet365 becomes the third Australian based betting company to activate the project after Willian Hill and Ladbroke Australia had earlier opened the service to their platforms in April. The three betting firms claim that the service falls within the jurisdiction of the 2001 Australian Interactive Gambling Act.

The so called ‘click to call’ service is designed in a manner that a gambler can activate his microphone where he can have a conversation with betting firm’s agents who would in turn place a bet with clients authorization and on his behalf.

The three UK betting companies belief that the service will act as a telephone conversation between a bettor and a betting agent from which they claim would not have violated in betting rules. However, national operators argue otherwise as they claim that the service which has been offering clients live betting as a breach of law.

This prompted the Australian Communications & Media Authority (ACMA) to review the rules and in end it handed the investigation matter to the federal police who would have the rights to conduct the investigation and get the real evidence.

This is a piece that will take you through some of the humble beginnings of online betting from Antigua to the current state and level of its sophistication. During these times, insane stunts from PR were taken and royal baby betting, as well as, endorsements in the industry happened often.

This online betting industry is worth in excess of $1 billion according to Statista which is a sum equal to the GDP of Netherlands.

A Journey on Online Betting

In 1994, Antigua and Barbuda approved of free Trade and Processing Zone Act which allowed offshore licences for online betting providers.

1996 saw intertops.com become the first sports book where a Finish puncture known as Jukka Honkavaara made the first wager and this was on a match between Tottenham Hotspurs and Hereford United. In this same year, The United States of America set a record in making wagers worth $60 Million on online gaming and betting platforms.

Activities and Growth of the Industry

It was in 1998 when Senator Jon Kyl brought to the floor and Internet Gaming Prohibition Act but the bill was not successful. The House of Representatives did not pass this bill in 2000 when it was presented again. It was in this same year when William Hill was launched as the first UK company offering online betting services. At this same period, a report was published by Frost & Sullivan and indicated that online gambling revenues made a top of $830 million.

As online betting was in its journey to grow; there was this doomsday prediction in 2000 where bookmarkers provided odds of 500-1 and the bet was that all real-world betting shops will comes to a close in 10 years. At this time, Europe saw another betting online store come to existence; Ladbrokes which was established by The Hilton Group. Another UK betting exchange by the name Betfair came to existence and they saw 36 bets on the first day. The company had a great time in their operations and in 2013, they registered an income of £70 million.

I would say that this evolution for online betting has come a long way and steadily. 2003 was when the first mobile betting platform was brought to action by sporting Index. This was the first UK mobile betting application. This same year reports were released by ORC International indicating that online betting had grown by 46% and offline betting from betting shops had gone up by 46%.

2004 saw the online betting fray joined by PaddyPower Sport.

2006 saw the USA ban betting after passing the UIGEA. This made it illegal for banks and companies offering credit to process any financial transaction related to betting sites. This saw a host of sites withdrawing from the market.

Graham Calvert lost £2 million at William Hill Casino in 2008 and sued them for this but he lose the lawsuit.

Technological advancements

Even though the US market was still unregulated, online sports betting wagers came to $50 billion in 2009.

2010 saw more celebrity endorsements after Ray Winstone “Sexy Beast” became the voice of bet365 advert campaign as he offered advice on live and in play odds.

From Statista betting it was found that the online sports betting market was worth $74 billion. This was in 2012. In 2013, Jason Neubauer launched YouBetMe and this was the first special networking betting application and it made it possible for members to bet against each other and not bookmarkers. This was the same year were match fixing madness came to play. Europol suspected the fixing o 380 European football matches and the illegal betting market that was fuelled by Asian crime syndicates which was estimated to be worth £306 billion.

2014 was when bitcoin came to play as a means of exchange and BetVIP was the first licensed bitcoin only sports book and launched just before the World Cup. SoftSwiss which was the Bitcoin Software company claimed that $10 million was the worth of wagers made each month.

2015 was when 11.1 million searches were made every month on Google for the term bet365 which was more than the 9 million searches Nike gets. At this point in time, online betting brings a contribution of $74 to $100 billion in the sports betting industry which is worth between $700 and $1,000 billion which is the same case with the GDP of Netherlands.