Sportingbet Founder Mark Blanford Wins Again With Mobile Gambling
He founded one of the most successful online gambling sites, Sportingbet.com, and now he's looking to make an impact on the mobile gambling market.
Mark "Gorby" Blansford is they key backer in MFuse. That company has struck a deal with Aim-listed Probability that will see games developed by the company made available to hundreds of thousands of gamblers.
MFuse links directly to some of the UK's biggest online gambling firms including Betsson, Bet365, Gala Coral Group, Ladbrokes, Sky Bet, Sporting Index, Sportingbet, Paddy Power and William Hill.
From the Guardian:
"In the past, mobile game developers had to spend months designing games and tailoring them to work with the billing and online systems of individual betting companies. But the Mfuse platform makes it much easier and faster to get to market once a developer has had its game accepted by a betting firm.
"Mobile gambling is booming despite the recession and legal issues with the technology in some markets such as the US. Independent experts Juniper Research estimate that the global mobile gambling industry will be taking $16.6bn (£11.3bn) worth of bets - ranging from casino betting and lotteries to sports betting - by 2011, up from $1.35bn in 2006."
MFuse is making such an impact on the sector that this year it won the gold award in the Mobile Gambling category in this year's Future Mobile awards.
"The sports betting market is growing very rapidly and shows no signs of stopping," said Marcus Wareham, chief executive of Mfuse. "As a result, we know the appetite is there for mobile gaming products. Opening up our platform allows us to rapidly deploy already successful mobile content to a huge client base.
"The partnership with Probability provides us with a strong base from which to start due to their large portfolio of original and branded content."
"Everything Mark touches turns to gold," says Gambling911.com Senior International Correspondent, Jenny Woo. "Prior to Mark (Blanford) leaving Sportingbet to pursue other ventures, the company had a market capitalization in excess of UK£ 750m."
Sportingbet has been profiled on the popular CBS News Magazine, 60 Minutes.
Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
