Official launch of $10 million Australian and New Zealand operation
Wednesday, one of the largest betting exchanges in the world, Betfair, opened its new operations in New Zealand and Australia. On hand were Paul Lennon,premier of Tasmania, and PBL chief executive, James Packer, whose company along with Betfair in the United Kingdom, will own the new operations, all of whom attended the official opening in Hobart.
Since February 7th, the exchange has been receiving bets from Australians and gamblers in New Zealand, but they only now have begun processing bets by way of the newly opened Tasmanian exchange, beginning six-week ago, following the establishment of its $10 million infrastructure. Every week there are about one million bets passing through the new exchange, through web site Betfair.com.au and being processed through Hobart.
Andrew Twaits the Betfair corporation business affairs director, happily explained that in the last six weeks they have been operating at 100 percent capacity, and are now in the process of handling more bets each day then there are transactions on the Australian stock exchange.
Establishing Betfair's exchange in Australia was quite controversial, with many of the established betting agencies and racing industry interests opposing the establishment. When the Tasmanian government granted Betfair an operating license, it went against the advice of many other Labor party states.
Twaits says that many of those that opposed the establishment of Betfair’s exchange in the beginning and worked against them are now being more cooperative. He notes that over 30 percent of those who make bets in Australia live overseas, so this means according to Twaits, that the exchange is bringing new money into the Australian racing industry. In addition, by moving into Hobart, Betfair has created 75 new jobs for the local workforce and is projected to increase by another 150 jobs in the coming year.
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