Vote debacle as Betr bungles its block on PointsBet takeover; AFR can’t take a joke

Betr chief executive Andrew Menz and chairman Matt Tripp. Picture: Aaron Francis

There was high drama at the PointsBet shareholder meeting on Wednesday, as Matt Tripp’s Betr somehow managed to stuff up its vote against a rival takeover offer from Japan’s Mixi.

They’re supposed to be the smartest minds in sports betting, by their own accounts, but it appears Tripp’s company can’t even manage to vote against a takeover offer it has vehemently opposed from the beginning.

Betr lodged a proxy vote against the Mixi offer, which required a 75 per cent shareholder vote to get through. This was duly recorded by PointsBet’s returning officer, Computershare, and released to the market ahead of the meeting.

And yet, somehow, the vote of Betr’s 20 per cent shareholding against the scheme was withdrawn during the poll on the day and, much to PointsBet’s surprise, the resolution was carried by the necessary majority.

Not that it was Betr’s fault, of course. According to Tripp’s company, PointsBet chairman Brett Paton “impermissibly excluded” Betr’s vote from the count.

That is an accusation PointsBet and Paton hotly deny.

And, on the face of it, it seemed highly unlikely from the start. In addition to releasing the proxy vote, Paton clearly told the shareholder meeting that Betr had voted against the scheme and pointedly noted that Betr’s vote made up almost 90 per cent of the votes against the Mixi offer.

To then “impermissibly” direct Computershare to exclude those votes seems unlikely; just as unlikely as the idea that Computershare would accept such a direction.

No doubt the lawyers will get involved, and Tripp and his fellow board members who authorised the release will be called on to retract the allegation and apologise.

That only leaves a couple of options to explain the bizarre vote exclusion – the first being a reputation-destroying error by share registry services provider Computershare.

Alternatively, in PointsBet’s version, Betr logged on to the meeting and withdrew the company’s proxy during the formal poll, then failed to lodge another.

Could it be that the brightest minds in the gambling industry hit the wrong button during the poll?

PointsBet says it has the receipts.

“PointsBet understands, having confirmed with Computershare, that one of Betr’s senior company officers validly logged into the scheme meeting virtually and revoked Betr’s proxy on Betr’s behalf prior to the close of the poll. This person then did not lodge any votes for Betr at the scheme meeting,” the company said.

That would be a significant black eye for Betr, if correct. We only hope the company takes a bit more care when reconciling the accounts of its punters.

What actually happened will be revealed in court on Thursday, if Betr makes good on its threat to oppose PointsBet completing the deal.

Computershare officials will almost certainly be called on to explain what happened to the missing 66 million shares voted by Betr.

If Betr executives logged on and changed the company’s position – by accident or otherwise – the logs kept by Computershare’s systems will presumably be presented. If not, an alternative explanation will need to be advanced.

That means the Federal Court will be called on to decide whether the takeover goes ahead, despite the day’s triumph for the PointsBet board.

Margin Call suspects the court will let Betr’s stated intent stand, rather than any quirk of voting on the day.

This will leave Mixi to rely on its plan B, taking out the 70 per cent of shares voted in favour of the deal with an on-market offer, and then somehow working out a way to force Tripp off the company’s register in the future.

It leaves Tripp in a far worse position, however. The overwhelming majority of the rest of PointsBet shareholders have clearly signalled they have no faith in Betr’s alternative offer for the company.

That leaves Tripp with a minority shareholding in PointsBet and a company with only 5 per cent of the local sports betting market.

We can’t imagine Mixi will be in any great hurry to make an offer for Betr, given the bad blood running over the PointsBet takeover.

Anyone prepared to set odds that a few calls to bigger rivals such as Entain and TAB will be the next step for the flailing betting company?

Who falls for an April Fool joke in June?

There’s nothing like a crypto gambling story to get those earnest types at the Australian Financial Review going.

The smaller paper is a strident anti-gambling publication these days anyway – with the notable exception, oddly, being Matt Tripp’s Betr – but we had to note an item in Wednesday’s paper about young Noah Dummett of Shuffle fame.

Shuffle’s 26-year-old crypto gambling magnate, Noah Dummett. Picture: Nadir Kinani

That would be the same 26-year-old Dummett who The Australian published his first exclusive interview with on the weekend – which clearly didn’t impress the AFR.

Look, Dummett has likely learnt a valuable lesson when some racy social media posts of his got mentioned.

But more amusing was a serious referral to Shuffle buying the domain Punch.com to house its new streaming website.

You see, it apparently is going to be a serious competitor for Aussie billionaire Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani’s global gambling giant Stake.com – which owns the Kick streaming service too.

Except it was an April Fool’s Day joke and Dummett posted about it on X on, you guessed it, April 1. (Get it? Kick … punch … etc.)

It was a joke clearly lost on the AFR.