Crown want all of Betfair in Australia

James Packer the boss of Crown Resorts in Australia wants the remaining 50% of Betfairs Australian business, Crown already have a 50% stake in the company and now want to take full control of the company and get into the $26 billion betting market in the country.

Betfair has a joint venture agreement with Crown to operate in Australia and obeservers say that the British based firm would be happy to sell the remaining shares to James Packer as it has not been as successful for them as hoped.

In the year ended April 30 2013 Betfair increased revenue to 8.6% to $54.9 million, although it still carried a loss for the year of $1.6 million, which represents six losing years out of seven for their Australian adventure totalling an accumulated loss of $47.3 million.

Crown is keen to take over Betfair because it would give them 100% control of the company’s Tasmanian bookmaking licence. It is also believed that should they take over Betfair they would change the business model to a fixed odds betting system as opposed to customer versus customer betting system.

Paddy Power was the first British operator to make an Australian entry into the betting market there, when it bought Sportsbet.

William Hill also have gone large in Australia buying up Sportingbet, Centrebet and Tom Waterhouse’s as most international bookmakers see the Australia market as a growing segment for their businesses.