GVC Holdings announced today its UK brands, Ladbrokes, Coral and Betdaq will be removed from the pricing grid of oddschecker, effective July 9, as the web service owned by Flutter Entertainment and the owner of the brands could not agree on a price for a renewal of their deal.
GVC Holdings Cited Commercial Reasons
The bet comparison service and GVC Holdings have been looking to negotiate a continuation of their partnership for almost a year, but eventually could not reach an agreement and the term of the three brand contract that was initially signed 2 years ago has expired. GVC Holdings’ other brand, Sportingbet, would remain unaffected by the termination of the deal as it has a separate contract with oddschecker.
“We would like to wish oddschecker the best of luck and thank them for the positive relationship we’ve enjoyed over the years we’ve worked together. Sadly, we couldn’t agree commercial terms to renew the relationship so as of the 9 July our UK digital brands will no longer feature on the service.”
Official statement, GVC Holdings
Quoted by EGR, Oddschecker Global Media Toby Bentall expressed his disappointment at the end result of the negotiations with GVC. Outlining that the business should seek to sustain a balance between business relationships and commercial viability, Mr Bentall left the door open for the three brands to re-join the bet comparison service in the future.
“It’s disappointing to no longer be working with Ladbrokes, Coral and Betdaq. However, oddschecker needs to maintain a careful balance between serving its users with the best odds and offers while ensuring its business relationships are of sufficient commercial viability to allow investment in the market-leading products and technology expected of the UK’s number one odds comparison site. Oddschecker sincerely hopes to work with Ladbrokes, Coral and Betdaq again in the future.”
Toby Bentall, Global Media, Oddschecker
Indeed, the loss for oddschecker is serious as Ladbrokes and Coral rank 3rd and 10th respectively in the oddschecker grid which allows punters to seek out the best offers betting-wise across 23 different operators, who pay to oddschecker rev-share fees for customer referrals. Besides referral fees, the operators pay a fixed monthly fee for advertising on the grid.
GVC Holdings Ladbrokes and Coral betting shops across the UK reopened for customers June 15, after a period of almost 3 months of closure, to comply with the order related to non-essential businesses that had to stop operations to curb the spread of the highly contagious virus infection in March.
For Ladbrokes, the omission from oddschecker will not be the first, after the brand left the price grid in 2011, only to return back within the space of 12 months. Whether history will repeat itself is hard to predict at this point in time.