Sky Betting and Gaming
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 | |
| Industry | Gambling |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Isleworth, London and Leeds,West Yorkshire |
| Products | Sports betting, online poker,online casino and online bingo. |
Sky Betting and Gaming is a British-based gambling company, and a subsidiary of BSkyB, with offices at Sky's headquarters in Isleworth, London and in Leeds, West Yorkshire. The company consists chiefly of five websites and two TV channels.
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[edit]Sky Bet
Sky Bet is the sports betting division of Sky Betting and Gaming, with the majority of its operations run from Leeds. The company allows betting via its website, telephone, mobile phone (WAP) and interactive television through Sky. It remains one of the few sports betting companies in the UK not to operate traditional high street shops. The company uses the slogan 'It matters more when there's money on it'.
Sky Bet is licensed and regulated by the UK Gambling Commission.
[edit]History
Sky Bet's origins lie in BSkyB's acquisition of Sports Internet Group in July 2000[1] which included the small telephone and online sports bettingbased company Surrey Sports alongside two other companies; Planet Football and Opta Index. Surrey Sports was rebranded in July 2002 to create Sky Bet. The company grew in December 2006 when established online betting companies totalbet and ukbetting were consolidated into Sky Bet after BSkyB's purchase of 365 Media Group[2]. Sky Bet features heavily (through advertising and shared content) on the former 365 Media Group sites, as well as skysports.com thanks to their common ownership and proximity (they are based in nearby Leeds). Sky Bet's success has prompted Sky to branch out within the betting and gaming industry.
[edit]Sky Vegas
Sky Vegas is the company's online casino division. It currently offers an online casino website with a dedicated TV channel of the same name (Sky channel 864, which was formerly called 'Sky Vegas Live'). The company's online casino offering is distinguished from the majority of its competitors in that it now plays in-browser rather than requiring a software download (currently being flash based, formerly distributed on CD). The company uses the slogan 'All the best games, all in one place'.
Sky Vegas is licensed and regulated by the Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) (GCB).
[edit]History
'Sky Bet Vegas' was created in March 2003, initially with only 3 fixed odds casino-style games called 'Juicy Jackpot', 'Top Spin' and 'Super Keno'[3]. As its name indicated, it was then part of Sky Bet but has since been made more separate been rebranded to simply 'Sky Vegas' (SkyBetVegas.com is still running, although it is gradually being amalgamated into SkyVegas.com). When limitations on broadcasting Casino games through IDTV were lifted, the company began to offer games through its interactive facility alongside the Sky Vegas Live channel, which shows betting opportunities such as Virtual Horse and Greyhound races. Both the online casino and the television channel re-branded as Sky Vegas in January 2008.
[edit]Sky Poker
Sky Poker is the company's online poker division, which allows users to play poker on their website and screens selected hands from various games and tournaments (on a slight delay) on its television channel of the same name. Like Sky Vegas the company offers its service in browser rather than with downloadable software. The company uses the slogan 'Where Poker Comes Alive'. The channel Sky Poker launched in February 2007 with a program entitled "The Open", which is a (£10 entry) poker tournament. Since then the channel has expanded to show more content from the site, as well as the Sky Poker UK Tour (SPUKT). On the TV, Sky Poker typically has a presenter and an analyst, with occasional studio guests. Each hand shown is analysed by both the presenter and the analyst.
Sky Poker is licensed and regulated by the Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) (GCB).
[edit]Tournaments
- The Open - A £10 buy-in, and the most popular tournament. Special Open tournaments include the Saturday Night Invite, where Sky Poker regulars play in the studio with a bounty on their head, and the Sunday Showdown, where 3 Sky Poker presenters and analysts play in the studio with a bounty on their head.
- Primo - A £55 buy-in, which can mean a prize pool of £25,000
- Velocity - A £5 buy-in, with extremely fast blinds
- The Five-OO (previously The Five-O) - A £22 buy-in, which is also shown on Sky Sports 2. Ex-sportsmen are invited into the studio to play in this 500-exclusive tournament.
Players can also "satellite" into a tournament, which means qualifying through a series of smaller tournaments, for a small amount of money.
[edit]Other Programmes
- The Club - A humorous daily magazine show presented by Sky Sports News presenter Dan Lobb and Matt Broughton, alongside Penguin. Regular features include "Hand Request", where a viewer sends in a hand they played and Matt and Dan analyse it, and a guest comes in to talk about their current poker lives. Regular guests include Flush magazine editor Dave Bland, and WPT Poker magazine editor "Hairy" Jon Young.
- Stacked Up - A show dedicated exclusively to cash games. A team of 3 enters a cash game and have 90 minutes to win as much as possible. 8 teams battle it out weekly to try to get to the top of the leaderboard, based on total % profits or losses.
- Sky Poker Unlimited - A show highlighting the current nights tournaments, with many different hands analysed.
- In Poker - A weekly poker news programme presented by Dave Compton, Tony Kendall and James Hartigan.
[edit]Sky Bingo
Sky Bingo is the company's latest venture, an online bingo division run from their Isleworth office. Sky Bingo is offered via a website and interactive television through Sky.[4] The company uses the slogan 'Believe in Better Bingo', echoing BSkyB's 'Believe in Better'.
Sky Bingo is licensed and regulated by the Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) (GCB).
[edit]Oddschecker
Oddschecker is an odds comparison website, which compares the odds offered by the most popular betting companies that cater to British customers, including Sky Bet. It forms part of the betting content of some other sites, such as Bettingzone and The Guardian[5]. The company also offer reviews and comparison of online gambling websites through its 'Casinochecker', 'Pokerchecker' and 'Bingochecker' sections.
[edit]Acquisition of GoldBet
In April 2004, 365mediagroup or ukbetting as it was known at the time, the UK’s leading sports content and online gaming business, announced the acquisition of GoldBet SportWetten GmbH (“GoldBet”), the European online sports betting company, for a maximum consideration of €4.5 million, dependent on the achievement of certain performance criteria. For the year ended December 2003, GoldBet had recorded EBITDA of €260,000 on revenues of €8.5 million, with a net asset value of €246,415, and no bank debt.
Trevor Beaumont, ukbetting’s Managing Director of Gaming, believed Europe represented a significant growth opportunity for ukbetting and sought to leverage the European market, a market that he was familiar with as former Racing and Trading Director of Corals and Managing Director of Eurobet.
BSkyB then owned GoldBet in December 2006 after the purchase of 365 Media Group.[6]
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