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 Star Sports are bookmakers of distinction. WIth a reputation for providing the serious and high staking ganbler with the most competitive services in the market, Star SPorts enjoy the support of high profile clientele from all over the world. The world of bookmaking affords newcomers a roller-coaster ride that few survive but Star Sports longeivity is testimony to the owner, Ben Keith's, business acumen, customer service principals and confidentiality.
 Ben Keith,Founder About Star Sports The Business Problem The EIM solution The Feedback About Star Sports Star Sports are bookmakers of distinction. With a reputation for providing the serious and high staking gambler with the most competitive service in the market, Star Sports enjoy the support of high profile clientele from all over the world. With headlines like “Fearless Ben” and “Balls of Steel” founder of Star Sports, Ben Keith, has enjoyed a rise through the ranks of bookmaking described as meteoric. The world of bookmaking affords newcomers a roller-coaster ride that few survive. Star Sports (formerly Star Racing) longevity is testimony to Ben’s business acumen, customer service principles, and confidentiality. These cornerstones of the business have allowed Star Sports to separate their business from the bulk of the industry by offering high value, high stakes, high returns (or losses), gambling to a very elite clientele including premiership footballers, pop stars, city bankers and politicians. With the market segment focus confidentiality is paramount as the clients expectations are high. Always dealing with an experienced trader who can make decisions; confidentiality of information; best prices; and up to the minute information are all aspects that attract the serious gambler. The success story continues as Star Sports have moved into new premises in Brighton and expanding their offerings to many more sports and targeting Spread Betting as well as the more conventional fixed odds betting. The Business Problem  Ben recognised that with the expansion of Star Sports services and with the growing market in Spread Betting better systems would be needed in order to streamline the process and maximise growth.
All Fixed Odds betting is managed by an industry standard system but the Spread Betting was managed by a suite of spreadsheets. Only one person could accept and process spread bets as the technology used was single user and prone to human error therefore the management overhead was significant. Star Racing needed to broaden the awareness of the Spread Betting market within it’s existing clientele. Current systems meant this was a labour intensive task and therefore slow, limiting growth. Each bet had to be evaluated, assessed, accepted and then settled manually. Although assessing and accepting is a normal part of a traders daily routine bet settlement was again labour intensive and subject to human error, requiring significant overhead. The management team had only a limited view of the business on a day to day basis, covering bets placed, exposure, Profit and Loss. Longer term trends were also difficult to identify, most popular sports, popular bets etc. Modernisation would allow greater visibility of information, greater capacity for The EIM solution With an urgent requirement Star Sports sourced the market and,following a first conference call,quickly selected Excelpoint as the supplier of choice. The depth of understanding, and the “free advice” offered, during the first call immediately outlined them as a front runner to supply this solution. The subsequent project proved not to disappoint with the ability to configure a solution to our problems before our very eyes. Not only have we solved the immediate business problems, we have identified methods that we can adapt to improve our customer service, breadth of services, and have an impact on our bottom line.  Although Star Sports are a small client we were made to feel as though we were as important as the next large corporate. The Advice we were given was of the highest standard and always had our best interests at heart.
The User Interface needs to be clean, simple and easy to understand in order to minimise the capability for user errors. The main Bet placement screen allows Client details, event details and common bets all to be “looked up” in the context of the bet placement. This means past events or un-related events as well as inappropriate bets simply do not appear and cannot then be selected. When an event has taken place and the Trader enters the results of the event he is only prompted for the criteria that the system “knows” there are bets for. This is automatic and once again reduces workload and reduces human error. Once results are in all “common bets” are settled totally automatically leaving only custom bets to be handled by the Trader. Previously client statements were produced manually and this placed a frustrating overhead on staff. Now a client statement can be produced and emailed to the client with the click of one button. It is even possible to provide clients real time updates by SMS text message. The management team now have the ability to review the company position in respect of profit and loss across any date range at the click of a button. This allows us to spot trends, maximise our advantage in the market. And respond to events with appropriate strategies and decisions. The timescales we imposed upon Excelpoint were aggressive, requiring the supplier to deliver a fully working solution in a little over two weeks. As well as the product, EIM,, Excelpoint have proven to be an excellent supplier of choice and we will be using them again in the future. The Feedback "Excelpoint designed a system for us to record and process spread bets and the work from start to finish was of an excellent standard. The consultant was helpful and professional at all times and we knew we were dealing with an expert. I was so impressed with EIM that it left me believing that I could have done this myself – I’m still pleased that I left it to the experts." Ben Keith, Founder, Star Sports |
