Ladbrokes opens its first Spanish Betting shop in Madrid, it is the third bookmaker that receives this sportsbetting licence.

The joint venture, together with the Spanish group Cirsa will be called Sportium and the trade should begin in May.

The first shop will be placed in a bingo hall next to the Bernabeu stadium and also very close to the Victoria betting shop, which is a joint venture between William Hill and Codere. Sportium wants to achieve the opening of about 70 outlets by the end of 2008.

The best part of these will be at third party locations and the bingo halls and arcades owned by Cirsa. Sportium is focused especially on football bets, but there will also be opportunities to bet on UK horse and greyhound racing, handball, tennis and motor racing and indoor football, all of them are popular in Spain.

Until now, the most popular form of sports betting in Spain was the football pools game La Quiniela, there players had the chance to win millions of euro by betting on football matches.  The plc Managing Director European Retail of Ladbrokes said that he hopes that soon Sportium could be built into one of the leading betting brands in Spain.

The Director of Cirsa Slot is happy as well to have the sports betting licence and he is sure that Sportium can become a major player as the market develops.

There has been issued three licences until now, to Sportium, Victoria and Intralot Iberia and that means that the inhabitants of Madrid can choose between 240 betting outlets which are active twelve hours a day.

The Spanish betting market will probably grow up to €39 billion by 2010, only the sports betting market reaches €4, 5 billion.