Silkbet to Launch in Difficult UK Market With Digitain Partnership

Silkbet’s entry into the UK market is to be supported by sports betting supplier Digitain.

Digitain will provide Silkbet with its sportsbook, horseracing, virtual sports, casino aggregation, CRM and payment solutions through a single turnkey setup. Silkbet is branded as Silkbet Casino, and despite the announcement with Digitain, it currently appears to be acting as more of an affiliate site than an operator.

An incomplete site

Casino games advertised on its website currently link to other websites, including Hiddenjack.com and ReveryPlay17.com. Betting.co.uk has reached out to Digitain for comment.

Silkbet’s website shows a tab for sports betting, without showing specific odds for events currently or soon to take place, suggesting the site is in a beta launch phase. Silkbet’s license application was approved by British regulator the Gambling Commission on May 7. The operator also holds a Curaçao egaming master license.

Dario Jurčić, Chief Commercial Officer for Europe and Africa at Digitain, said:

“Being able to support operators in highly competitive regulated markets such as the UK with proven technology and comprehensive solutions is an important differentiator for us. The partnership with Silkbet is another significant step in our European growth journey, and we look forward to creating long-term value together.”

Alexander Jones, Regional Sales Director for UK and Western Europe at Digitain, said:

“The UK is a market where operators demand a high level of technology, product quality, reliability and local expertise, and these are areas where Digitain has continued to strengthen its capabilities.”

Tough times in the UK

This is a difficult time for new operators to be entering the UK market, amid online tax increases. From the start of April this year, remote gaming duty, paid on online casino bets, was raised from 21% of gross gambling yield (GGY) to 40%. In addition, general betting duty, paid on online sports bets, will go up from 15% of GGY to 25%.

With those additional costs, it will be very difficult for any new operator to find and sustain a position in the market. Industry trade body the Betting and Gaming Council has estimated around 4,500 jobs in the industry have been lost since last year’s Budget, when the tax increases were announced. While those numbers refer to retail, it paints a picture of the knock-on effect of increased online costs.

Ed Kelly, Silkbet’s CEO, said:

“We are incredibly proud to partner with Digitain as we take this exciting step into the UK market. While the UK betting industry has evolved significantly over the past decade, we believe something valuable has been lost along the way.

“The early years of online betting were defined by excitement, personality and a genuine focus on the customer. Our ambition is not to recreate the past, but to bring those qualities into a modern betting experience built for today’s player.”

Nimble teams could prosper

Despite the cost issues of launching in the UK, newer entrants are at least spared the issue of needing to cut an existing workforce or scaling down more established operations. This is something that was touched upon by Betty Co-founder Justin Park when the operator successfully applied for a UK license earlier this year.

Betty said:

“We’ve already seen how a changing regulatory landscape allowed nimble teams - like Midnite - to start taking material market share. Instead of spending years refactoring legacy code just to stay compliant, they've managed to focus on delighting players through product innovation.”