On 16th of December, about two weeks ago, Betfair suddenly announced around 40 job redundancies across the whole business, both in Melbourne and Hobart. That morning after the announcement, I could sense the chaos atmosphere, I could feel that everyone was nervous, but I wasn’t, because I have come through the same deal before and it all turned out to be not toooo bad for me.
Here is a bit of background. Betfair AU was owned by both Crown and Betfair UK up until August this year, and then Crown bought full Betfair AU’s share from Betfair UK. Just one day before the announcement, Crown acquired another betting company called BetEasy. As part of company restructure, all Betfair’s sportsbook products will be merged with BetEasy, hence any duplicated departments will be made redundant.
Here is a bit of reading you can have on The Australian.
I had the meeting with my boss around 11:40AM. I only worked in Betfair for just a bit over 3 months, and I thought the maximum I could get should be around 2-4 weeks, However, when they presented redundancy package to me, which covered around 3 months of my salary, I was in full surprise, as you would expect! On top of that, even though we finished on that day, Betfair would pay us until 24th of December (the final day). And also for those who would like to apply for vacancies through Crown, Betfair & BetEasy, the final pay day will be extended to 12th of January in 2015.
I am now in talks with BetEasy to see whether any opportunities for redeployment back to BetEasy, and I also have some other opportunities with other companies whose decision can be finalised by mid January.
Now I am just totally relaxing with family (but still very busy taking care of kids and pregnant wife) at home and waiting for our third baby to come by the end of January. Wish me luck that I can start my new job in February after spending sometime helping with the new born baby.
Fingers Crossed!
