Gauselmann Group appoints industry veteran as sports betting COO

Gauselmann Group has appointed industry veteran Andrew Bentley as chief operating officer (COO) for its sports betting division Merkur Sportwetten. Bentley has spent the past two years working in consultancy, serving as the MD of House Edge Consultancy and as a consultant to Merkur since October 2020. Bentley previously served as CEO of BGO Group from March 2018 to December 2019. The former Ladbrokes online marketing manager also spent more than nine years with Genting Casinos, culminating in a position as operations director from April 2016 until March 2018. In his role as Merkur COO, Bentley will be responsible for the growth and development of online sports betting in the group’s core markets of Germany, Austria, Denmark, Belgium and Poland. He will also be charged with managing the product and operations teams, as well as the customer support, risk, payments and fraud divisions. Finally, he will be tasked with delivering the group’s omni-channel strategy. He will report into Merkur CEO Markus Ettlin and will be based remotely in the UK. He assumed the position on 1 July. Speaking to EGR, Bentley said the ambitions of Merkur Sportwetten drew him in after two years of consultancy work. He said: “I have spent the last two years working with several online and land-based operators and have really enjoyed the variety of work and exposure to different challenges. “I started consulting with Merkur Sportwetten in 2020 and was excited by the ambitious plans for their digital business and the clear strategy to deliver the best possible omni-channel experience to customers. “My operational and omni-channel experience is a good match for what the business is trying to achieve and there is a great team in place that I look forward to working with,” he added. Ettlin commented: “We have already been able to get to know each other well over the past eight months, during Andy’s work as an external consultant. “We are therefore confident that with him we have found the right person to fill the role of COO.”