Spread Betting - Trading Faces

TRADING FACES

Sporting Index break with betting industry tradition and reveal trading team faces in new advertising campaign

London, 3rd September - Sporting Index, the leading sports spread betting company, will launch a new advertising campaign tomorrow featuring their own sports traders. The move adds a much needed personal touch to the betting market and enables clients to see the traders behind Sporting Index’s prices. The campaign also highlights Sporting Index’s position as market leader in sports trading and in-play betting. All sports trading teams have taken part in the advertising which commences with the start of the Rugby World Cup and is due to appear in the Racing Post, national press and online marketing campaigns.

Warren Murphy, Sales and Marketing Director, points out that, "betting companies have become faceless entities. We are known for having the best sports trading service around and we want people to know who sets our prices and who they are pitting their wits against. They may not be the prettiest faces, but they are experts in their fields and we’ve decided not to hide them away anymore."

Sporting Index is also opening its trading room doors to all media contacts interested in meeting any of the traders and watching any live football match being traded. To register an interest in simply reply back to this email.

Trading Faces

Who are Sporting Index?
Sporting Index is the world’s largest sports and event spread betting company. Founded in 1992, Sporting Index has established itself as the market leader in the sports spread betting market with an estimated market share of over 70% of the UK Market. The company has 110 employees who are all based in its London office. It offers spread bets on a number of sports including football, racing, rugby, cricket, golf, tennis, various American sports and a portfolio of games. The company also offers bets on events such as the General Election, Big Brother, I’m a Celebrity and the Eurovision Song Contest.

As part of its drive to take sports spread betting to a wider mark, Sporting Index positions spread betting as an entertainment product and the perfect accompaniment to live sport. The company enables clients to trade on their sporting passions, and challenge its predictions, whenever and wherever they want. The company transacts predominantly through its websites and also offers customers the facility to bet using a unique application on their mobile phones. A 24/7 telephone betting service is also available.

Duke Street Capital, a UK private equity firm, backed a management buyout of Sporting Index in 2002 for £53 million (inclusive of free cash). Hg Capital acquired the company from Duke Street Capital as part of a secondary buyout for a total cash consideration of £75.8 million in November 2005. Sporting Index is authorized and regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

What is sports spread betting?
Sports spread betting provides you with the ultimate betting thrill and challenges your skill, judgment and knowledge of sport. The spread betting bookmaker makes a prediction on various aspects of sporting or topical events. You then decide whether that prediction has been pitched too high or low. What you then win or lose depends on the stake you choose and how right or wrong you are. You will notice that the predictions are presented in the form of two prices.

This is a range known as the `spread’ and you bet low (also known as a `Sell’) at the first named price and if you wish to bet high (also known as a `Buy') you would do so at the second price. For example, if someone asked you to guess their age, you might say `somewhere between 35 and 38 years old'. In the same way, when we make a prediction, we allow a range. If you were betting on this prediction you would bet low at 35 years or bet high at 38 years.

What you win or lose depends on the stake size you choose and how right or wrong you are. Sporting Index might predict that the 1st goal in a match between Arsenal and Manchester United will be scored in the 36th minute and consequently set a spread of 35 - 37 minutes. One client who believes there is bound to be an early goal goes LOW at 35 minutes while another who thinks that both defences will be at their best goes HIGH at 37 minutes. If the 1st goal is scored in the 25th minute, the client who went LOW at 35 minutes wins 10 times his stake (35 minutes take away 25 minutes = 10) while the client who went HIGH at 37 minutes loses 12 times his stake.