SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Start-up betting exchange Spiffx is to launch its IPO on the Nordic Nasdaq OMX next month as it aims to establish itself as the main alternative exchange, used by both high value bettors and sportsbooks.
Spiffx has developed a system as yet unseen in the betting industry by using tools normally found in the financial markets, providing punters with a mixture of sports betting, spread betting and exchange betting.
Spiffx Founder Lennart Gillberg explained that the company planned to use the funds to grow the business and he believes there is an appetite on the market for IPOs of this nature. “There are a lot of investors that have successfully invested in gaming companies such as Betfair, Unibet, Betsson etc. While Spiffx is not competing with the sportsbooks, they are our potential tier one clients, partners. We believe that the investors are looking for new opportunities in the gaming sector.”
The Malta-licensed exchange offers players the chance to capitalise on price movement of selections, which is monitored by the Spiffxindex – a weighted, analysed and calculated measure intended to provide a true market price. Players bet on their selections and then predict whether the odds will move up or down. As it is an exchange model, it is also possible to oppose these selections, although liability is greater. Commission is charged at 5% of winnings.
The firm also offers a linked, more traditional betting exchange interface called Darkpool, which doesn’t work on a commission basis, but charges a 0.1 per cent transaction fee for all matched bets.
The Spiffx system also offers a B2B channel by encouraging sportsbook to hedge their liabilities with the firm. Gillberg added: “We are providing hedging instrument to the sports betting industry to help them to secure their margins as well as providing a market place for traders speculating on odds movements. We are also going to deliver new consumer products to the sportsbooks with better margins and less risk then their existing products.”
