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Sports betting innovator launches brand-new start-up
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17 November 2021

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By Douglas Fraser

Business and economy editor, Scotland

Among Scotland's most successful technology groups is beginning again with a new firm - and has protected the greatest initial investment of any British start-up company.

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

The new firm has seed financing of $21m.

It intends to launch a new open source software platform, on which others can innovate in sports betting, in the first half of next year.
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The company is recruiting personnel 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 are in legal disagreement with FanDuel's later stage financiers over the method in which they structured a takeover, which left the Edinburgh group without a share of the rising appraisal.

Mr Eccles said that one thing he learned from the FanDuel experience was to select investors carefully.

He told BBC Scotland: "We took a great deal of lessons from that, among which was the value of who we choose as financiers in this brand-new company, to ensure their values are aligned with ours, that they take their fiduciary tasks properly, which they're the best partners for us."

The $21m seed financing for BetDEX includes stakes taken by 7 backers of US technology firms, including two large funds - Paradigm and FTX - which specialise in purchasing companies with crypto-currencies.

Varun Sudhakar, president of BetDEX, stated: "The sports betting wagering industry charges high prices for bad products and limits trades by its most successful users.

"BetDEX is diametrically opposed to this method. We will successfully complete versus incumbents with a considerably exceptional product and low charges, which is now possible with the development of the blockchain innovation."
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As chairman of the brand-new firm, Mr Eccles stated it might look familiar to retail punters utilized to existing online companies.

'Pool of talent'

However, he says that those who use its platform to run their own wagering companies will be able to innovate and develop a broader variety of sports betting products.

He stated the typical share taken by online bookies is 7% to 10% of a stake, but BetDEX ought to enable that to fall listed below 1%.

The company will develop its own sports betting apps to operate on the platform.

Mr Eccles stated these would take an "intelligent, thoughtful" approach to the method they are marketed to protect those who battle with problem gambling.

He stated the team of around 500 software engineers who assisted build FanDuel from Scotland showed that it stays the location to build a firm. BetDEX has the same head of technology, Stuart Tonner.
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"A lot of that [FanDuel] success was developed on an extremely experienced, very talented engineering group, that constructed this product that could process millions of bets and millions of users.

"There's a genuine skill pool of knowledgeable engineers who assisted us develop our item and that's what we wish to leverage for BetDEX too."

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Edinburgh
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Sports betting

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Published

20 November 2017
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