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Betfair has acquired the customer database of loss-making online sportsbook Blue Square from owner Rank Group for £5m, the betting exchange confirmed this morning.
Blue Square customers are now being redirected to Betfair to access their funds, marking the end of Blue Square as a standalone brand. The acquired players will be used by Betfair to drive growth of its fixed-odds sportsbook and gaming operations alongside its core betting exchange. Blue Square’s poker room operated on the same network, iPoker, to which Betfair Poker began to migrate operations in January.
Betfair’s acquisition of the Blue Square customer base – 120,000-strong in the six months to 31 December – follows Rank announcing a review of the business in January of this year with a view to cutting its losses from Blue Square and focusing on its multi-channel Grosvenor and Mecca brands.
A Rank spokesperson confirmed to Casino Choice that while this was the end of the line for the Blue Square brand, its interactive division would continue to support 888Sport, a B2B white label of Blue Square which relies on its technology platform and trading team, until the end of May 2013.
888 in turn emphasised that it remained business as usual at 888Sport. “We are not subject to this deal and will continue on the platform for now. As we have previously stated, we are in the process of finding a solution and will make an announcement in due course”, a spokesperson told Casino Choice.
Blue Square managed a 25% year-on-year uplift in customers during the last six months of 2012, but the increased acquisition spend failed to translate into higher customer visits and saw Blue Square’s operating loss widen to £4.8m from £1.7m, triggering the review.
The sportsbook brand, which launched back in May 1999 with a press conference held at Goodwood racecourse, claimed to be the UK’s first online bookie, and was one of the pioneers of the irreverent and stunt-led style of marketing now deployed to great effect by Paddy Power.
In 2001, after an outbreak of foot and mouth disease caused the cancellation of the Cheltenham Festival, Blue Square organised the first-ever hamster drag-racing series. This was broadcast live over the internet and resulted in high levels of exposure for the brand after being featured on live news reports by Sky News and BBC London and in newspapers around the world, including full-page stories in The Sun and Daily Mail.
The business acquired by Rank for £65m from the Intercapital Group Ltd in 2003 however went into endemic decline in recent years, with its parent company blaming “the highly competitive sports betting market” in the UK.
Blue Square has also been the main sponsor of the Football Conference, the highest level of non-league football in England, since 2007.
Article written by Katy Stirland
