SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
All eyes have been on the Netherlands since it opened its doors to online gambling at the start of this month, and for Joris Dekkers (pictured below) – Managing Director of Better Collective Netherlands – the Dutch market presents a “great opportunity” for growth.
As part of this month’s Better Collective Spotlight, the “highly digitalised” nature of the Dutch market was a key focal point as Dekkers expects to see a large number of online bookmakers continue to enter the market.
“Holland is a highly digitalised market with great potential, and now that the market for online gambling is regulated and many bookmakers have entered the market, we are expecting a large volume of players,” he began.
“This creates many opportunities for our brands. We see it as a great advantage for us that we can give leverage to all our international partnerships on the Dutch market in a very short time.
“Better Collective has amassed a great amount of knowledge in the different markets, and we can use that information to speed up the launch in the Netherlands to the benefit of our users and partners.”
To strengthen its position in the Dutch market even further, Better Collective recently opened a new office in Amsterdam.
However, this isn’t the only hub to open in the Netherlands, as Dekkers revealed plans to establish an office in the city of Groningen in the near future: “Amsterdam is the capital, and it has a great community of international and local professionals.
“This was very important to us, since we aim to grow our Dutch office and hire more colleagues that will help us on our journey in the Netherlands. Next to this we have an office in Groningen, also a great city for skilled talent.”
Discussions soon turned towards the acquisitions of Soccernews.nl and Voetbalwedden.net – two companies which the Managing Director described as being an “obvious” fit for the Better Collective portfolio.
Praising Soccernews.nl and Voetbalwedden.net’s market leading positions, Dekkers disclosed that tapping into the brands’ betting communities will enable Better Collective to reach new audiences across the Netherlands.
“Both of the sites were an obvious choice for Better Collective since they have proven to be major players on the Dutch market.
“Soccernews has experienced a great growth path over the last few years, and is reaching more than 1.5 milion unique visitors per month, with potential to do much more in the future – a huge number considering the fact that this is almost 10% of the Dutch population.
“Voetbalwedden is considered to be the number one sports betting community in Holland, and it has managed to maintain its leading position for more than 10 years.
“As of now, Voetbalwedden and SoccerNews together have more than 1.5 million unique monthly visitors, which is a huge number considering the fact that it is 10% of the Dutch population. We believe that by combining the two, we will be able to reach even more people than ever before.”
He added: “I think it is great that we own a media site and an affiliate site, because with these two sites, Better Collective has a very strong product to present to the Dutch Market.
“We consider SoccerNews to be the first point of contact that will make people aware of the betting market, while Voetbalwedden will allow bettors to educate themselves, get betting tips, share knowledge and eventually lead them to the right bookmaker.
“We are very happy with the recent acquisitions and at the moment we are fully focused on making them grow and convert into new customers,” Dekkers concluded.
“However, we are always on the lookout for new opportunities in MA – not only in sports, but also in media or online casino, so if the right opportunity comes along, we are definitely open to act on it.”
