This is a guest contribution by CEO of 21Bet, Richard Hogg. If you would like to submit a contribution please contact Bill Beatty for submission details. Thank you.

21Bet is a new entrant to the UK betting market, launched in March 2016. Here, 21Bet CEO Richard Hogg discusses the challenges and pitfalls facing an upstart operator in the highly competitive UK online betting sector.

When we first talked about setting up a new UK-focused bookmaker in 2015, people thought we were mad. How could we possibly compete with the industry’s giants they asked, especially given the vast amount the marketing and publicity resources they have at their disposal? Well, we thought we could do things differently.

We saw a gap in the market for an online sportsbook that would take betting back to basics. Collectively as a team, we have decades of experience in the UK sports betting industry and this, together with market and consumer research, told us what customers want. Primarily, this is about offering easy to find bets on the sports and markets people want to bet on.