Matt Tripp knows a thing or two about bookmaking, having bought Sportsbet in 2006 for just $250,000 and then selling it five years later for more than $300m.

That sale triggered a three year 'non compete' clause, but he's now back in a big way with the launch of BetEasy.

Punting Insights You'll Find:

Why the much maligned Betezy was a worthwhile acquisition

How BetEasy will be different to other bookies

How they will look to manage winning players

The type of punter that bookies most fear

The future of the Australian betting industry

Today’s Guest:

Matt Tripp

Get the Transcript:

David Duffield: Good day, Matt. Thanks for joining us on the podcast.

Matt Tripp: Pleasure, Dave. Thanks for having me.

David Duffield: Good to have you on board. Busy time of year and all with the launch just recently but I wanted to kick things off just by asking how do you have the hunger to do it all again?

Matt Tripp: Dave, three years on the sideline taught me that this is the industry that I know and love. I like to think I know it fairly well after being in it for quite some time. I think there's an opportunity there to jump back into it for a host of reasons, but I guess the main one is I believe there's an opportunity to service a very large portion of the market that's currently not being serviced in my mind appropriately.

We're having another go. I've assembled a fairly strong team here at Beteasy. We've got about 125 staff, all specialists in their respective roles and we've built a system from the ground up. So yeah it's exciting times.

David Duffield: How different is the wagering landscape today compared to, say 2006, when you bought Sportsbet?

Matt Tripp: It's extremely different, Dave. It's probably the most competitive industry in this country to my mind. You look at the pricing of advertising and you look at the competitive landscape with a lot of these big PLCs coming across from Europe and trying to gain market share. It's unbelievably competitive.

Back in 2006 when we started to turn the screws on Sportsbet and try and build it, it was ourselves and Sportingbet and I guess the TAB were our main competitors, whereas now I've jumped back in and, as I've said, there are some big PLCs with big pockets and pretty smart operators steering them.

It's competitive, but at the same time I'm going in with my eyes wide open. I'm under no illusion that it's going to be a bit tougher this time around. As I've said, we've got a few things up our sleeve that we think will separate us from the pack, so to speak, and find a way to effectively service those punters that are probably a little bit disgruntled with the current landscape at the moment.

David Duffield: Why did you buy Betezy? Because it's a company whose reputation has taken a battering at times from punters over the years.

Matt Tripp: No doubt about it. There were a host of reasons that we acquired Betezy. One was the fact that I think to be an effective start up, I don't think you can start from a base of zero. I think a lot of these European operators that have come in without a base, such as the Bet365s and the likes, I believe BetFred are now out here and promoting a new app that they're rolling out, I think it's a very difficult task to do it without a base at all.

Betezy had a very sticky database of clients, five or six thousand active customers a month. They turned over $250 odd million a year, and while they had a lot of shortcomings in the way that they handled certain things over the years, at the same time they stood the test of time and didn't do a bad job of maintaining that turnover.

To my mind, you need probably triple that amount of turnover, that base to even get to break square on the back of product fees rising, on the back of general overheads through advertising and so forth, because of the competitive landscape going up.

I think we needed a base, I think that we've acquired it at the right odds.