News Corp has sold its shares in gambling startup Betr less than a year after its launch and having received a record $210,000 fine from regulators in April.
Betr was established with a reported $70m backing from News Corp, the former BetEasy chief executive Matthew Tripp’s TGW and the Las Vegas firm Tekkorp, with the intention of utilising News Corp’s media assets to promote the company.
But this week Tripp, the Betr chairman, said he was grateful for News Corp’s “initial and ongoing support” but that the Murdoch-owned company was no longer an investor, according to a report in the Australian Financial Review.
While it doesn’t have a financial stake in the company, News Corp will continue to carry Betr advertising in its mastheads, including the Australian newspaper and the Daily Telegraph.
Launched with an aggressive promotional campaign in October 2022, Betr has been approached by multiple potential buyers after discussions around its potential acquisition of rival PointsBet fell through.
The $210,000 fine was issued by Liquor & Gaming NSW in April following “significant breaches of the law” by Betr, which splashed 100-1 inducements to gamble on affiliated newspapers, radio and television stations when it launched last year.
“This company tried to attract a new customer base and establish a significant market share with promotions that we consider crossed the line, using inducements that had the potential to cause harm to the community,” the Liquor & Gaming NSW executive director Jane Lin said at the time.
“In many cases, such promotions can only be legally offered to betting account holders who, unlike the general public, have made a conscious decision to open an account and receive this information.”
Betr stopped the inducements campaign after the NSW regulator approached it with concerns. It said it did not believe it had breached regulations at the time.
The firm was also fined more than $75,000 for “serious” breaches of the responsible gambling code just days before its official launch in October last year. The company was accused by the Northern Territory Racing Commission of not taking responsibility for breaching the code, designed to minimise gambling harm, and criticised for arguing regulatory action wasn’t required.
Betr offered gamblers massively inflated returns on every horse in the Melbourne Cup, provided they bet less than $10. Similar inducements were offered for the Cox Plate and AFL and NRL markets in a bid to lure customers away from established gambling companies.
Guardian Australia reported last week that the agency was in the process of paying out $40m in bets after Penrith’s NRL grand final win, which the company believed was an Australian record.
News Corp’s international accounts for the last six months of 2022 revealed around US$33m in losses to affiliates, a share of which was attributed to Betr.
News Corp has been distancing itself from Betr in recent months, and two of the company’s executives recently quit Betr’s board.
News Corp did not respond to a request for comment.
