Betting firm Stanleybet announced its return to the UK high-street with the opening of a new premise in Liverpool at the end of the week.The betting-shop brand – which originally sold its 624 UK outlets to rival bookmaker William Hill in June 2005 – called the opening an opportunity to get back to the ‘heart of the streets’ and reintroduce Stanleybet to the UK.
John Whittaker, Chief Operating Officer of parent company Stanley International Betting, said: “We’ve been a Liverpool-based company for over 35 years, and the new shop is close to the Cavern Club, one of the iconic sites that have made the city world famous. So we’re getting back to the heart of our own streets.”
Discussing what the firm envisions, and its plans for the shops, he added: “We have no aspiration to get anywhere near [our previous size] again. Instead, we’re looking to develop a relatively small chain of quality outlets.
“The previous Stanley company gave customers a service, and it was a very good service, but it was once described to me as ‘a community-based business’, because we had lots of shops on estates and near pub car parks. That is not what we envisage now.
“We’re being selective, aiming to be in the high street and high-end, secondary street locations.
Andrew Liles, Stanleybet Group Managing Director, commented: “We want to concentrate on what we’ve successfully established as one of the biggest retail sports-betting operators in Europe.
“We will offer customers the traditional British fare of horseracing, greyhound racing and products such as numbers betting and terminals, but we will also put a lot of emphasis on betting on Italian, German and Spanish football, which we cover in our Stanley International Betting outlets.”
Following its exit from the UK bricks and mortar market, Stanleybet has built a outlet chain of more than 2,000 betting stores across seven European countries.
source : www.totallygaming.com
