Australian online bookmaker Betr will pay out the highest promotional payout in the history of Australian sports betting following the Penrith Panthers’ NRL Grand Final win on Sunday evening.
When Betr launched last year it ran a new customer promotion which offered odds of 100/1 to any customer that could pick the winner from a major sporting event including the NRL, AFL, NBA, or the FIFA World Cup. While bets were capped at AU$1o, Betr has revealed that the offer was taken up by 320,000 customers. The vast majority of those people chose the Penrith Panthers as the winner of the NRL Grand Final.
The Panthers started the season as NRL favourites to win a third title in a row and did so on Sunday following a 16 point comeback to win 26-24. Following the win, Betr is now set to payout a record-breaking AU$72 million (€43.8 million/$46.3 million).
However, despite the massive payout, Betr is still set to come out as winners. According to a statement from founder Matt Tripp, the company has already tripled its return on those new customers.
“The important thing to note, with that launch campaign, we had always anticipated it would cost us somewhere between $50 million and $80 million, depending on how the results fell. But from the 320,000 customers we have acquired through running that campaign, the gross profit we have generated from those customers alone is $225 million.”
Customers will have to wait to receive their winnings as Tripp has stated that processing the volume of bets will take time. The company has promised that all winnings will be in customer accounts no later than 5pm on October 6th.
“The cash is there, it’s more a timing thing, the manual labour of actually getting it done. Because we have done so many cash-outs, we have to do them all manually. Hopefully, it will be quicker than Friday.
In April of this year, Liquor and Gaming NSW fined Betr for breaching gambling regulations during the promotional launch. At the time, Betr ran several ads during the brand’s launch in October 2022. However, the regulator ruled that the ads broke state regulations on gambling promotions as they offered an inducement to gamble.
As a result of the investigation, Betr has been fined for 14 separate infringements with fines totaling AU$210,000 (€128,100/$135,500) which is the largest fine issued in NSW for promoting restricted gambling inducements.
Based in London, Natasha is a former sports journalist with experience working for some of the biggest athletes & brands in the world of sports and iGaming.