Punt Club considering legal action against Sportsbet over its ‘Bet With Mates’ platform
Australian owned, Adelaide based start-up, Punt Club is again considering legal action against betting firm Sportsbet, over its Bet With Your Mates platform.
The two companies have previously settled a case out of court, but this time PuntClub.com is considering its options against the foreign owned betting company, over its recent advertising campaign centred around the slogan ‘Bet With Mates’, which closely mirrors its own ‘Bet With Your Mates’ platform, which has been used since the launch of Punt Club’s app in 2015.
“I thought corporate behaviour had come a long way in the last few years, but here we are again with the same foreign-owned behemoth ignoring intellectual property rights purely because they’re bigger and they think we can’t afford to fight it,” said Punt Club founder Jason Neave.
Punt Club’s Jason Neave
“The simple fact is Punt Club has been using ‘Bet with Your Mates’ as its tagline since we launched. These guys spend around $100 million a year in advertising to swat innovators like Punt Club and the tagline that’s been used for over six years out of the way. And let’s not forget – all their profits from their Aussie punters are syphoned offshore into the coffers of this Irish/Canadian multinational.
Punt Club campaign from 2015
The Sportsbet campaign was developed by the firm’s in-house creative agency and launched in June this year to promote a new in-app feature allowing friends to share a bet.
Punt Club was launched in 2011 as a website for punters to manage and put together betting groups for friends. The app was then launched in order to automate a betting club, rather than manually manage it on Excel.
Punt Club could not divulge the finer details of the previous legal action against Sportsbet, however it is believed, based on past reports that the Australian tech startup accused Sportsbet of business espionage.
Punt Club ad from 2017
“We’re all for healthy competition and there’s nothing stopping them from launching a competing product, but to do it with ‘Bet With Mates’ as their product name, is taking the piss,” continued Neave.
Neave added that he is disappointed, as the business is actively raising capital ahead of a proposed launch into the US market, after online sports-betting was recently legalised.
“I’ve got no problem with competition but can’t get my head around why Sportsbet would use the same term, unless to deliberately mislead the public and our customers.”
Punt Club 2014
Neave, and his board believe that the emergin market in the USA, and in Europe could see the concept take off in what he quotes as “forecast to fast become a $300 billion market”.
In much the same way as online footy tipping and fantasy sports removed the admin burden for those games and saw exponential growth in participation, Neave and his Adelaide-based team can see the same thing happening with punters clubs, and they’re betting that Americans and Europeans will love it too.
Sportsbet were contacted, however had no response at the time of publishing.
Mumbrella covered a similar story at the start of the month, with the new A-Leagues branding having a similar design to a number of other Australian businesses.
Linkedin