Skip to main content

BuzzSports buzzes off

Word has reached the SportIsMadeForBetting rumours desk that BuzzSports, pioneers of the zone live play-by-play betting system have closed down with immediate effect. You wouldn't know it from their website but reliable sources have told me traders were called at 11pm last Wednesday night and informed the founder of the company had decided to pull the pin on the business with immediate effect.

I believe staff were offered a generous redundancy package, rather than the company going bust. It came completely out of the blue for staff, I even know one guy who had a job interview with them scheduled for the following day!

Why did they fail? Purely speculation but they spent heavily promoting their product at trade exhibitions, in industry publications etc but it's not a product I could ever see catching on. It's a niche market, perhaps ahead of its time, and I query whether they could ever have exclusivity over the product - surely it wouldn't be long before another firm, i.e. a bookmaker/betting provider with highly sophisticated data modelling systems, if there was money in it. Perhaps the wealthy founder decided it was time to pull the pin, or as some have alluded to, he has closed down the business in the UK with a plan to restart it somewhere warmer in the future.....

Comments

  1. MicroMyrtle10 February 2013 at 17:24

    Real pity, It was an exciting proposition, and indeed I think we will see a return of zoneplay or something similar, it seems an inevitable step forward in live betting

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for your comments, but if you're a spammer, you've just wasted your time - it won't get posted.

Popular posts from this blog

Spot-fixing - you will never, ever be able to stop it

According to this report , IPL tournaments so far have been rife with spot-fixing - that is fixing minor elements of the game - runs in a single over, number of wides bowled etc. The curious part of that article is that the Income Tax department are supposed to have found these crimes. What idiot would be stupid enough to put down 'big wad of cash handed to me by bookie' as a source of income? Backhanders for sportsmen, particularly in a celebrity- and cricket-obsessed culture like India are not rare. They could come from anything like turning up to open someone's new business (not a sponsor, but a 'friend of a friend' arrangement), to being a guest at some devoted fan's dinner party etc. The opportunities are always there, and there will always be people trying to become friends with players and their entourage - that is human nature. This form of match-fixing (and it's not really fixing a match, just a minor element of it) is very hard to prove, but also, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

lay the field - my favourite racing strategy

Dabbling with laying the field in-running at various prices today, not just one price, but several in the same race. Got several matched in the previous race at Brighton, then this race came along at Nottingham. Such a long straight at Nottingham makes punters often over-react and think the finish line is closer than it actually is. As you can see by the number of bets matched, there was plenty of volatility in this in-play market. It's rare you'll get a complete wipe-out with one horse getting matched at all levels, but it can happen, so don't give yourself too much risk...
33 comments
Read more

It's all gone Pete Tong at Betfair!

The Christmas Hurdle from Leopardstown, a good Grade 2 race during the holiday period. But now it will go into history as the race which brought Betfair down. Over £21m at odds of 29 available on Voler La Vedette in-running - that's a potential liability of over £500m. You might think that's a bit suspicious, something's fishy, especially with the horse starting at a Betfair SP of 2.96. Well, this wasn't a horse being stopped by a jockey either - the bloody horse won! Look at what was matched at 29. Split that in half and multiply by 28 for the actual liability for the layer(s). (Matched amounts always shown as double the backers' stake, never counts the layers' risk). There's no way a Betfair client would have £600m+ in their account. Maybe £20 or even £50m from the massive syndicates who regard(ed) Betfair as safer than any bank, but not £600m. So the error has to be something technical. However, rumour has it, a helpdesk reply (not gospel, natur...
14 comments
Read more