Online Betting Website Traffic Volumes
The number one spot is filled by the Hong Kong Jockey Club, a non-profit making government body which administers and regulates horse racing and betting in Hong Kong. For the year ending June 2004 total group turnover was HK$88 billion, with football accounting for HK$16.1 billion. The second placed site is Macauslot, which is run by STDM, one of the casino franchise holders in Macau. The company, which has a government franchise to offer betting on soccer and basketball states that 85% of its clients come from Hong Kong and Macau.
Although slipping back slightly in the rankings during the period under review, Betfair comfortably holds onto the title of most visited online betting website outside of Asia. In part, the sites dominant position can be attributed to the fact that its betting markets (and to some extent forums) remain a "must see" for every bookmaker and punter in the land (even if they do not all trade through the site :-).
Betfairs two main UK based rivals William Hill and Ladbrokes, also lost some ground during the period under review. Ladbrokes, who recently announced that in H1 2005 their sportsbook had seen a 1% decrease in active customers to 228,000, fell back 1706 places in the rankings.
Offshore sportsbook Bodog, which recently boosted its stateside profile through a radio and TV advertising campaign, debuts at number six in the table. The following graph reveals that following the ad campaign, visitors to the Bodog website have increased significantly in tandem with the opening week of the NFL season.
Sportingbets global reach is demonstrated by the presence of no less than five of the companys betting sites in the table; Sportingbet.Com,Sportsbook, SportingOdds, Sportingbet(Australia) and SportingbetUSA.
BetOnSports, which is also heavily exposed to the US sports betting market, also has two sites in the table, its mother site Betonsports.Com and Easybets (which affords the company Asian exposure), which it acquired in May 2005 for consideration of US$15m. BETonSPORTS recently reported gross profit up 23% to $28.6m and EBIT growth up 21% to $5.1m.
Aussie bookmaker Mark Read also performs well, with his two key websites IASbet.Com and Canbet.Com both well positioned in the rankings.
Amongst the sites most often associated with Scandinavian betting market, the biggest drop in rankings was recorded by Unibet. The Swedish monopolist provider Svenskapel also lost ground, however, with Expekt only recording only a marginal fall in the rankings during the period under review.
Unibet is also represented in the table by MrBookmaker.com, which it acquired for 75.9 mil British pounds in August 2005.
The big fallers were led by UKBetting and the Dublin based betting exchange Betdaq (increased commisions?); both of which came close to dropping off the table. Betdaq fell 29459 positions in the rankings, to 123917, during the period under review; whilst UKBetting fell 35329 places to 96218.
Betandwin, Unibet and Skybet also lost significant ground. Gamebookers.Com, acquired by Trident Gaming in July 2005 for 20 million pounds Sterling of convertible debt and over 9.3 million shares in Trident Gaming, also slipped backed in the rankings during the period under review.
Increased advertising spend at Frances PMU (;-)) has clearly paid off, with the companys website rising 9879 places in the overall rankings. Other notable improvers during the period under consideration were Stan James, Tote Sport and the Scandic oriented bettting exchange Betsson. Traffic to the latter companys website has increased significantly over the past six weeks.
An honourable mention to the little known Maltese based site, bet-at-home, which has successfully carved out a niche for itself targeting the likes of Poland and Slovenia. Now, if ever there was a company setting itself up to be taken over...
2005-09-12
