Centrebet

Origins and pioneering status

Centrebet was founded in Alice Springs in 1996 by Per "Pete" Andersson, a Swedish-born entrepreneur who took advantage of the Northern Territory's early and permissive bookmaker licensing regime. That regime allowed a licence holder to accept wagers from customers around the world, first by telephone and then over the emerging public internet. Centrebet is widely regarded as one of the first online bookmakers, although the exact claim to having taken the first internet bet is shared with contemporaries such as Intertops and remains historically contested. The more durable significance is the business pattern it established: an Australian-licensed bookmaker serving international punters who wanted to bet around local restrictions.

Ownership and corporate history

The company's ownership has changed hands repeatedly as the online gambling industry consolidated. In 2007, London-listed Sportingbet plc bought Centrebet for a reported price of around A$180 million and folded it into its Australian division. Sportingbet was itself acquired in 2013 by a consortium of William Hill and GVC, and William Hill took control of the Australian arm in 2014, keeping Centrebet as a legacy customer-facing brand within William Hill Australia. In 2021, Caesars Entertainment completed a roughly £2.9 billion takeover of William Hill plc and then agreed to sell William Hill's non-US operations, including the Australian arm, to 888 Holdings for approximately £2 billion. That transaction closed in July 2022, and 888 Holdings renamed itself Evoke plc in 2023. Centrebet is therefore now a heritage wagering brand inside Evoke's Australian portfolio alongside William Hill and Sportingbet.

Products and platform

Centrebet's core product is an online sportsbook offering pre-match and in-play wagering on football, Australian rules football, rugby league and union, cricket, tennis, basketball and many other sports. It also offers fixed-odds and tote-style betting on Australian horse and greyhound racing. Because the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 restricts online casino-style gaming for Australian customers, Centrebet's domestic product range is confined to sports and racing wagering rather than online slots or table games. Bets are placed through the Centrebet website and through dedicated iOS and Android applications.

Market position and competition

Within Australia, Centrebet competes in a crowded and heavily taxed online wagering market dominated by Sportsbet, bet365, Entain's Ladbrokes and Tabcorp. Evoke's stable of heritage brands, which includes Centrebet, William Hill and Sportingbet, holds a mid-tier position in that market. The brand does not publish standalone financial or operating figures; its performance is consolidated in Evoke's group reporting, and executive responsibility for the Australian operations sits at group level rather than at a Centrebet-brand level.

Regulatory friction and Norway

Centrebet's history has also been shaped by the friction between an Australian offshore licence and European state gambling monopolies. In Norway, where sports betting and lotteries are reserved mainly for the state-owned Norsk Tipping and horse racing is handled by Norsk Rikstoto, internationally facing operators such as Centrebet have been subjected to marketing restrictions, payment blocking and legal pressure. The SBC News commentary that supplied the identifying context for this profile discusses exactly this dynamic in the context of Norway's gambling monopoly, and Centrebet's repeated appearance in such disputes reflects the broader enforcement battle between national monopolies and internationally licensed operators.

Current status

The most recent publicly available picture shows Centrebet continuing to operate as a wagering brand within Evoke's Australian portfolio, serving customers in permitted jurisdictions through centrebet.com. Brand-specific details such as a dedicated headcount, a brand-level chief executive or a separately published head office are not disclosed in Evoke's group reporting. Centrebet's pioneering place in the history of online betting is well documented, but its current identity is that of a legacy brand in a larger corporate group rather than a standalone operator with its own executive team.