BlueSq.com Review, The Blue Square Brand of Rank Group Plc.
www.bluesq.com is one of the oldest and most trusted UK betting sites. Their history dates back to July, 8 1998 when Mirror Group and Press Association owned www.sporting-life.com added a new section to their website called BETonline. This was the first website based in the UK to offer internet wagering on sports and races and the odds were provided by City Index. In September 1998, this operation moved to the URL betonline.co.uk while shortly later a sister brand called Blue Square was launched. These two companies eventually merged in late 1999 with Blue Square the brand name that was maintained.
Although today Blue Square is most popular in the UK, they are also friendly to players around the world. When opening an account via their website you are given the choice to set your account currency to UK Pounds (GBP), Australian Dollars (AUD), Canadian Dollars (CAD), Euro (EUR) Japanese Yen (JPY), Singapore Dollar (SGD) or US Dollar (UDS). The only countries their company does not service are USA, France, Hong Kong, Netherlands and Turkey which are restricted for legal reasons. For everyone else Blue Square is a solid choice.
Today Blue Square is Owned by the Rank Group
Blue Square Betting is the online extension of Rank Group Plc, which also includes well-known brands Grosvenor Casinos and Mecca Bingo. When you bet at Blue Square, you are doing business with the largest bookmaker actually based in Great Britain. Blue Square falls in the Interactive division of the Rank Group and as a whole; Rank Group owns 35 casinos and 103 bingo clubs in addition to their online brands.
Betting at Blue Square
At Blue Square Betting, you can wager on a variety of sporting events. Whether you want to place bets on domestic or international football their website has you covered. You can also bet races, golf, ice hockey, cycling, darts, cricket, boxing, and basketball. If you fancy betting International sporting events, you can do that here as well – from American Football to Australian Rules, Gaelic games, Irish racing, and many more sports and sporting events from around the globe, including F1 Betting. You can also wager on special events such as whom the BBC Sports Personality of the year is going to be or whether the upcoming Christmas will be a white one. Fancy making money off the royal family? Blue Square will let you make bets on the lives of the royal family as well. From sports to lotteries, politics, and entertainment www.bluesq.com pretty much has it all.
You can even play your favourite casino games like roulette or head over to the online bingo hall for a few games of bingo. If you wish to try your hand at poker, you can do that here as well! Away from home? No worries, you can download Blue Square’s free iphone app or get a droid app to wager via your mobile. To get your Droid app, text AndroidBlueSq to 64555. If you want the iPhone betting app, you can download it through the Blue Square App store. You can even play certain games like blackjack, slots, and roulette via their mobile site.
Funding Your Blue Square Account
When funding your Blue Square betting account with real money, you have several options. You can use your UK credit or debit card to deposit or cash out your winnings. You can alternatively utilize NETELLER, Skrill, and Ukash to fund your Blue Square Bet account. Whilst there are no fees for depositing with NETELLER or Skrill, Ukash commands a 5% admin fee on all deposits. Naturally, you can send Blue Square a wire to fund your account. Depositing via wire transfer is free of charge, though there is a £12 charge for all cashouts processed via wire transfer. To contact Blue Square by telephone, you can ring them at 0800 587 0500.
Why we trust Blue Square Betting
One of the most compelling reasons for betting at Blue Square is their affiliation. Whilst other sports betting sites such as Bet365 and Victor Chandler are certainly reputable – they cannot boast the claim of being a publicly listed company. Rank Group is publicly listed and traded on the London Stock Exchange. For us, the main benefit of conducting business with publicly listed companies is that the financial information is readily available, which allows us to verify their financials.
With that being said, 2010 was a profitable year for the Rank Group. They realized an overall operating profit of £74.4 million on £567.8 overall revenue, of which, £57.7 million in revenue and £7.9 million in operating profit are attributed to the Interactive division of Rank Group. On the year, Rank Group earned 10.9p per share for their shareholders.
History of Rank Group
From a corporate standpoint, Rank Group is quite diverse. They were founded in 1937 by Joseph Rank and were one of the early motion picture companies. They diversified their interests in 1956, by entering the photocopy market under the banner of Rank Xerox. They additionally expanded into other areas of entertainment, which included record production and radio/television broadcasting. Throughout the 90’s, Rank focused more on leisure and entertainment services and it was during this time they entered the gambling realm on a serious level. They had owned bingo halls in the UK as early as 1960, as some of their movie cinemas were converted into bingo halls, but during in 1990, Rank purchased Mecca Leisure plc. This cemented them as the leader of live bingo in the UK.
In 2003, Rank Group purchased Blue Square Betting, which was previously an over the phone bookmaker that was founded in 1999 by ICAP. The Blue Square bookmaking operation made its way online and shortly after doing so, the online arm of Rank turned more profit than its live counterparts. Thus, Mecca Bingo and Blue Square were combined into Rank Interactive, which primarily focuses on online gaming and sports betting. Their sports book continues to grow year over year and the company as a whole has an operating cash balance amounting north of £37 million (as of 30 June 2011).
We also have tons of respect for Rank Group’s strong team of management. Ian Burke, who is the Chairman and CEO of Rank Group, runs the company as a whole. He has served in management in various aspects of Rank’s business interests since 1991. Mark Jones is the Managing Director of both Blue Square and Mecca Bingo. Mark joined Rank Group in 2009 and has vast experience as CEO of Pizza Hut UK, CEO of Yates Group plc, and CEO of Premium Bars and Restaurants PLC. Like Premium Bars & Restaurants, Yates group is a branded pub/restaurant in the UK. Clearly, the diverse backgrounds of Mr. Burke and Mr. Jones make for a solid and experienced management team which helps them to operate responsibly with the customer in mind.
Bluesq.com Review Conclusion
Overall, we respect Blue Square Betting as a UK sports book and are comfortable that they are a sound, reliable place to bet on sports. All activity on Blue Square is licensed and regulated by The Alderney Gambling Control Commission, as well as the UK Gambling Commission. We feel comfortable with a portion of our bankroll on this sports book and think you will too.