Star Sports comes to recovery of Best Bet Bookmakers

Star Sports has come to the recovery of account holders at Best Bet Bookmakers by offering to take on the 400 plus accounts that stood to lose money with the firm going into liquidation.

The Lancashire-based bookmaker came into financial difficulties in the tough economic climate due to cash-flow problems since the tail end of February.

A closer look at the deal sees that punters with positive Best Bet accounts are able to bet against their original balance. Should anyone land a winning bet, the punter can withdraw profit, while losing bets will be deducted from the original total.

This latest acquisition enhances Star Sports’ reputation as a saviour of the independent bookmakers.

Gary Woodgate, Star Sports managing director, commented: “On hearing that Best Bet bookmakers were closing their doors and turning off their phones, we managed to do a last-minute deal to transfer their clients to Star Sports in an agreement where we honoured all positive client balances as agreed on March 11, 2013.

“We look forward to welcoming all their clients, as we have done those of Waldron, Vickers and Turner & Kendrick in the last few years and offering them the very best telephone debit and credit betting services available.”

Woodgate continued: “We haven’t got to the bottom of it, but people had put a line through it and were going through the usual avenues like the Gambling Commission to see if there was any recourse (to get their money back), and we have had some good feedback since taking over.

“Obviously if we had got closer to the point where they hadn’t turned the funds off, there would probably have been more in the deal for Best Bet, but at that stage it was pretty much a salvage operation, but we are always in the area for old-fashioned telephone client business.”