Mansion Group, the owner of sportsbook Mansion Bet, has announced that the company is closing its sports operation. There are numerous reasons for the closure, according to the business, but the main one is that Mansion Group wants to concentrate on its casino brands instead. Things such as the United Kingdom’s ‘regulatory environment’ as well as the ‘non-propriety platform constraints’ were taken into account during a wide-ranging business review, with the headline being that the company decided that there would no longer be a place for the sportsbook in its portfolio.
Obviously this can be concerning for customers, but the good news is that anyone that still has funds in a Mansion Bet account can withdraw said funds by the 31st of March. If anyone fails to get their money out by that point then they will still be able to get hold of their funds until the 28th of April by getting in touch with the Customer Support team. If funds remain in place after that point, they will be transferred to a ‘responsible gambling related charity’. Whilst hardly a massive shock, it is still an interesting development in the gambling world.
Why Is Mansion Bet Closing?
Though Mansion Bet has never really broken into the market in the way that the owners will have wanted, it made enough of a name for itself to mean that it was able to take on sponsorship arrangements with football clubs like Bristol City and Millwall. That helped the betting company to get its name out there with football fans, but ultimately it has proven to be of no use in terms of making the sportsbook a viable project for Mansion Group. As a result, the decision has been taken to close it down by the end of the month.
According to Mansion Group, the choice to stop its sportsbook is mostly down to a move to refocus on casinos. Operating brands like Casino.com, MansionCasino and Slots Heaven means that Mansion Group has plenty of fingers still in the pie of making money from gambling, but the concentration will move away from doing so on sports. Instead, an emphasis will be put on more emerging markets such as Spain and North America. An application has been made to be able to operate in the Canadian province of Ontario, for example.
The Chief Executive Officer of Mansion Group, Christian Block, summed up the feelings of the organisation about the move, saying, “After careful deliberation, we have decided to cease trading our MansionBet brand. The commercial decision was a difficult one, but it does provide opportunity to focus on our casino brands, where we have a long history of excelling.” The company had worked hard to build up a reputation in the world of sports, not only thanks to its football clubs sponsorships but also via deals with sports such as boxing, snooker and horse racing.
What Does It Mean For Customers?
Whatever the logic behind Mansion Group’s decision to close down its sportsbook, customers are now in a position where they won’t be entirely sure what to do. The good news in the short-term is that bets can still be placed, should you have any free bet tokens or other such promotion you can take advantage of. Indeed, if you fail to do so before the 31st of March then you’ll lose them, so the most sensible thing that bettors can do is login to their Mansion Bet account and see if there’s anything that they need to use up.
If you have money in your sportsbook then you can withdraw it up until the 31st of March. If you fail to do so, you’ll still be able to get it back but it will be a little bit more fiddly in order to do so. You’ll need to send an email to the Mansion Bet Customer Service team, who will guide you through the process of getting your money back. Fail to do that by the 28th of April, however, and the money will be gone from your account and you won’t be able to redeem it. As such, you should probably avoid placing an ante-post bets now.
If you have already placed a bet on an ante-post market then all is not lost. If the wager is settled before the 31st of March, you will receive your payout for a win into your account as normal. If it is settled after then but before the 28th of April, it will still be honoured and paid out in full. If it is on an event that will settle after the 28th of April then you will have your stake returned to you. As you might expect, with countless customers rushing to withdraw their funds, withdrawals are taking longer than they usually would.
What It Means For The Gambling Industry
An obvious question for anyone reading about Mansion Bet’s closure, particularly in relation to the comments from the company about the ‘the UK regulatory environment’ as well as the ‘non-propriety platform constraints’ that are in place plus the ‘market conditions’, is what it will mean for the gambling industry in general. On that front, there are some that are not feeling particularly rosy about the future. There is a sense within the industry that it might well be the start of ‘an ongoing trend’, for example.
Gavin Kelleher works as a Gaming & Leisure Analyst for the financial services group Goodbody. He said that the writing has been on the wall for Mansion Bet some time, having relaunched their sportsbook but failed to make much of an impact on the market. He said, “I think this is a reflection of the competitiveness of the market and regulatory headwinds in the UK. We’ve seen other smaller operators leave the market and it’s probably going to be an ongoing trend.” Not a surprise, but still something of a shock.
