Britain's largest bookmaker, Ladbrokes, has enjoyed a 25 percent increase in net revenues following the company's inclusion of soccer betting for the Premiership season. The money that Ladbrokes staked in soccer betting since the start of the season was greatly advanced by the company's first ever TV advertising campaign, in which professional football players such as Le Dixon, Ian Wright and Ally McCoist were featured.
Running from October to December, the exclusive national ad campaign cost Ladbrokes £5 million, yet proved highly beneficial. Ladbrokes was also the first gambling company to take advantage of the ability to advertise on TV, for which the ban was scrapped in last September. Since their venture onto Television and resulting increase in revenues following the soccer betting campaign, both Betfair and Skybet have followed suit.
Ladbrokes is still unsure of whether or not they will repeat the soccer betting campaign, despite its massive success, yet have raised strong interest in running further campaigns to support online casinos and online bingo businesses. Such an investment is expected to cost the company about £4 million, and would be devised and run by M&C Saatchi, just as last year's soccer betting campaign was managed.
Accompanied by the significant increase in profits achieved by telephone betting (46 percent), Ladbrokes was able to conclude 2007 with some impressive figures for its most challenging competitor, William Hill. With continued success in the soccer betting field, Ladbrokes is now working on developing their presence in Spain, Asia, Italy, and hopefully also Turkey.
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