CASINO Red are keen to make their Town sponsorship a minimum three-year deal.

The gaming company were unveiled yesterday as the club's major new backers and will be involved in a number of new matchday initiatives.

There will be a strong on-line link between the two organisations on a daily basis for the firm, who are planning to open a casino in Northumberland Street in November.

And Casino Red's chief executive officer, Nicholas Boyes-Hunter said: "The infrastructure at the club is for at least Championship football.

"We believe the things we can do together will help to attact more fans, with initiatives to enhance the matchday excitement and atmosphere.

"I'm a local lad, so it wasn't a difficult decision for us to want to get involved at Town, and we are hoping it will be a very successful partnership.

"We have agreed an initial year, but we are very excited about the prospect of taking it to three years and beyond.

"The way the deal is set up at the moment, there are some revenues involved and we will be closely monitoring those to ensure that we are meeting our proposed targets and revenues the club are expecting.

"Should they be better or worse, then obviously we are going to sit down and we will review things.

"Our intention is certainly to try and achieve a three-year deal, but we will have to monitor things closely."

Town's director of business development, Sean Jarvis, explained: "Over the coming months we are dedicating a resource within the stadium to develop the relationship.

"We are looking at how we can ensure our targets are met and how we can add something extra to the matchday experience. I suppose you could say we are looking at innovative approaches to help communicate Casino Red to our supporters."

The new deal, which replaces the previous shirt deal with Yorkshire Building Society, had taken three months to reach fruition.

"Casino Red are full of new ideas and forward thinking and are keen to develop their brand through the fabric of the club," added Jarvis.

"It's a record shirt sponsorship deal and part of that is linked to revenue generated through our website.

"Once the agreement comes into place on June 1, we will see features on there so that supporters can take advantage of the .com business which is part of the Casino Red brand. It's an exciting new venture for the club, really, and we are looking forward to the partnership and to putting our plans into place."

So what of the current stadium bookmaker?

Boyes-Hunter answered: "We are in discussions with the club and the current bookmaker about his licence to see what possible joint ventures we can do with them."