One of Australia’s newer generation online sportsbooks, PlayUp, is winding down its flatlining US business while trying to negotiate — with increased urgency it now seems — the sale of its US arm. It is doing so amid fresh pay disputes with staff.
PlayUp still owes some staff as much as $45,000
According to media reports, ex-PlayUp staff members have refuted CEO Daniel Simic’s claim that his firm paid US employees in full. Instead, sources claim that PlayUp still owes some staff as much as $45,000.
“As of 21 July the US staff hasn’t seen a penny,” a source quoted by iGB added. This heaps extra pressure on a brand that has seen its New Jersey mobile sports betting license revoked, its Colorado site reduced to ‘maintenance mode,’ and its US staff headcount decline from 2021’s high of 40 to just two. Simic has confirmed that he is in the final stages of negotiating the sale of PlayUp USA, with the buyer an unnamed US-listed operator.
Amid all this trouble, senior PlayUp staff members have resigned in the last month, including CFO Glenn MacPherson, while PlayUp’s US chairman Dennis Drazin has allegedly stepped down from his role while remaining an investor and an advisor.
The cherry on top is the $100m in damages ex-CEO Laila Mintas is suing the firm for. The case relates to a takeover attempt by cryptocurrency exchange, FTX.