Sixty-five new jobs are in the pipeline with the launch of a new sports betting site Betbidder.com based on the penny auction concept. Players can bid for cash prizes or tickets for sporting events.
Betbidder.com, the brainchild of former Central Bank executive Enda Morgan, currently employs 14 people and plans to expand and create up to 50 new jobs in 2011.
“Betbidder.com is a world first as it is the first penny auction site specifically for sports fans,” Morgan explained.
“We are a start-up Irish company with big ambitions to expand across Europe and beyond,” Morgan said.
“We believe that Betbidder.com will revolutionise how people engage with sporting events. Our users have the opportunity to win large cash payouts for a minimal outlay.
Online auctions
“They also have the opportunity to bid for sporting experiences that would otherwise be unattainable for the average person on the street. Our site is not a gambling website but an online auction website. Users pay to bid for an opportunity to purchase cash prizes and other auction items at significantly reduced prices.”
Morgan explained how the site works: “Users pay 70 cent each time they bid. There is a maximum number of bids for each auction, which ensures fairness to all users. It also ensures that people do not extend themselves – the highest auction price to date was €6.60,” Morgan continued.
“While 85pc of sporting outcomes of our auctions are successful, another unique feature of BetBidder.com is that if the sporting outcome is not in favour of our winner, the winner does not have to pay the auction price. In addition, the cash prize is not retained by BetBidder.com; instead it is put into a monthly Jackpot Auction which is free to all active users.
“The winner of our last Jackpot Auction, Deborah O’Reilly from Galway, paid an auction price of just 86 cent and will win €1,885 if Kauto Star wins the King George on the 26 December. And she didn’t have to pay for any bids,” Morgan concluded.
