David Attenborough, CEO of Tabcorp, speaking to the Australian Financial Review described the up-coming launch of Sun Bets in the U.K. with partner Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.
Attenborough said the new site will be poised to crack into the U.K. market and that Tabcorp is responding to a changing international market.
Attenborough said three factors are shaping global wagering markets: tighter tax regimes; increasing responsible gambling initiatives; and tougher anti-money laundering measures.
He told the Review that the combined impact of these trends will result in greater costs for operators.
Tabcorp, however, still plans to base the new site in the U.K.
“Our philosophy is very much that you set yourself up appropriate to the market,” he says. “It will be one of things with News that we will point out is that we are set up wholly onshore”.
While other U.K. gambling operators use a third-party software system, Sun Bets will use a Tabcorp-owned system that allows it to offer customers unique products. This will help keep costs down.
“It’s a very efficient model,” Attenborough told the Review.
The UK remains a crowded market and Attenborough says Sun Bets will combine Tabcorp’s gambling expertise with News Corp’s content and customer base, especially as it relates to Newscorp’s The Sun newspaper.
“It’s the combined delivery of content and betting in a very integrated way across The Sun we believe can create something pretty special,” says Attenborough. “There is advantage that comes in that over 50 per cent of the betting market in the UK engage with The Sun. They engage with The Sun because it gives them the sort of information that is relevant to betting such as the gossip around teams. If you can do that in a way that allows people to seamlessly make a betting decision it should be successful.”
