ARC, the owners of Newcastle and Sunderland greyhound tracks and the media provider for their own and GMG content, today announced that they had bought a controlling interest in the Athens based gaming/gambling provider Vermantia writes Star Editor Floyd Amphlett.
The two companies agreed a business relationship last year and today ARC Chief Executive, Martin Cruddace, said: “ARC has established itself, along with its media partner At The Races, as the number one UK and international horse and greyhound content rights’ holder and distributor in the international market. The acquisition of Vermantia fits perfectly with our existing rights portfolio of traditional trusted BAGS greyhound content and premium international content.”
So what does it all mean?
Basically – when ARC and SIS decided to go head-to-head with rival plans to provide coverage to the domestic betting market, greyhound racing gained considerable expertise and contacts in the international betting and gaming industries. But in buying Vermantia, ARC have further extended their reach by acquiring a company with a significant portfolio including 20 major gambling partners and clients in 31 different countries, mainly in Eastern and Southern Europe and parts of Africa.
(While some European countries have betting shops very similar to those in Britain and Ireland, in others, gambling takes place in sports betting areas in bars or casinos. In other regions they rely on video linked betting machines – Vermantia have 40,000 of these ‘points of sale’ – and at more basic levels, in parts of Asia and Africa, the ‘betting shops’ comprise a computer, a TV screen and a box of cash.)
In addition to their greyhound and horse racing deals with ARC, Vermantia offer betting on a variety of live sports channels which include football, basketball and tennis plus an array of ‘virtual’ sports and games.
With so much betting content already available worldwide – why would anybody want UK greyhound racing?
To quote one source within ARC: “They might already have virtual racing, but with the exception of the quality of the graphics, it varies little and ‘it is what it is’. There is an appetite for live content, but although horse racing has a heritage in certain parts of the world it is a very complex product to explain to someone who isn’t from that background. Greyhound racing is a lot more user-friendly as an introduction to live racing.”
In today’s release Chief Executive Cruddace also states that the ARC strategy makes “the old business model which relied on unconnected third parties, outdated. In our view rights’ holders no longer need to give away value to those third parties and our deals with horseracing and greyhounds in the US, Australia and South Africa demonstrate that proposition” – which some might translate as a claim that more money will come back to the greyhound industry than in a deal with SIS’. . . .
Whatever your interpretation, today’s announcement is not an instant jackpot. Some countries would require changes in legislation to allow betting on greyhounds. In others, there is no history of betting on greyhound races, and the concept may never catch on.
But with the opportunity to increase income and be less dependent on the UK betting industry, today’s announcement can only be good news and another step in the right direction – might there be more steps to come?
