Online Sportsbook Celebrates Anniversary
Published: Friday, December 16, 2005 Online-Casinos.com
ONLINE SPORTSBOOK PIONEER INTERTOPS CELEBRATES 10TH ANNIVERSARY
First online sportsbook bet was for $50
Looking at today's $12 billion online global gaming industry it is easy to forget that it kicked into gear a mere 10 years ago. Celebrating its tenth anniversary this week, Intertops reminded us that Internet gambling has made huge strides forward in a decade, often in the face of formidable legislative and technical odds.
Intertops will proudly celebrate the occasion of the first ever online sports bet – which was placed on the Intertops website – on January 17, 1996.
Back then, the Internet was very much in its infancy and the notion of an ‘online gaming industry’ was a pipe dream. Intertops made the brave leap into the online world by accepting the first ever interactive bet on January 17 from Finnish gambling enthusiast Jukka Honkavaara.
Mr Honkavaara placed a US$50 bet on the outcome of a football match between UK teams Tottenham and Hereford United, which won him US$52 – a profit of $2. The first ever bet was a winner – small though it was!
The early success of Intertops saw the gambling company create one of the world’s first Microgaming powered online casinos to become a serious competitor in the burgeoning online gaming world.
In 2000, Intertops.com again showed itself to be an innovator with an in-house development team’s building of a WAP portal, giving the company the ability to accept the first mobile bet in the world. Three years later, the company had added online poker offerings to its capability as part of the PartyPoker Network.Today, Intertops is a multi-million dollar business offering over a thousand online betting options each day to sports fans just like Jukka Honkavaara.
