Buy puts ukbetting in touch with rugby

ONLINE gaming firm ukbetting's aggressive expansion drive continued today as it landed Rivals Digital Media, the group behind the official website of Rugby Union's Zurich Premiership and fan favourite football365.com.

The Alternative Investment Market-listed group, which claims to own more sport content than any other British firm apart from the BBC, is paying £2m for a business that will take its customer base to more than 5.5m.

Rivals owns and operates online brands including rivals.net and Formula 1 website planetf1.com as well as zurichrugby.co.uk and the official site of Canadian Grand Prix driver Jacques Villeneuve.

Since listing two years ago, ukbetting has made a string of deals to build a sports content business alongside its core gambling arm. It bought TEAMtalk for £14.4m in May last year.

Vice chairman Peter Dubens said: 'We are now among the largest independent online sports information providers in the UK and this latest acquisition will allow us to further improve the scope and quality of information we provide.'

Rivals was formed by the merger of Rivals.net and 365 two years ago. After the merger, Chrysalis and Eckoh Technologies each held a 43% stake. Rivals became profitable on an underlying basis in the three months to 30 November.