"We've always prided ourselves on being a technology company. We're not just sports and racing enthusiasts and bookmakers – we're also programmers, analysts and computer nerds – so this felt like a natural step for us. And we think there is a lot of crossover into that target market."

Neds was established by Dean Shannon, the former chief executive of Ladbrokes' Australian business and founder of bookmaker.com.au, at the beginning of last October and is understood to have had a strong and profitable spring racing carnival.

Transaction fees

Mr Cherry said the business was performing ahead of expectations and had already signed 75,000 regular customers to its database. It would not, he said, take part in any merger and acquisition activity around bigger rival William Hill, the British parent of which has put its Australian arm up for sale.

"We are ahead of where we thought we would be given we've only been in business about four months," he said. "Most of our customers are along the east coast, following the population really, and we'd have a split of about 80 per cent racing and 20 per cent sports [betting by customers]. NBA basketball has also been popular and we'd expect the AFL and NRL to pick up when their seasons start as well."

He said Neds would also pay up to 2.5 per cent of any transaction fees incurred when transferring bitcoin to neds.com.au and that all bitcoin transactions are fully secure and recorded on the blockchain.

Ned's move into cryptocurrency was developed by its in-house technology team, which it claims is a first in the Australian corporate bookmaking sector. Mr Cherry said having its own technology under its own control meant it could be nimble in an intensely competitive market.

"It means when a rival does something new we can respond straight away by doing the same, and on the other hand we can do new things ourselves to try to stay one step ahead."