News Corp has quietly sold its shares in gambling startup Betr just four months after it launched, despite its $70 million investment into the bookmaker.

According to sources close to Betr who spoke to the Australian Financial Review, News Corp’s relationship with the firm ended in February but ASIC filings had not been updated to reflect the change in ownership. A News Corp spokesman declined to comment.

The sources close to Betr said that the relationship with News Corp had soured and that gambling industry figures had taken comments from News Corp’s chief financial officer Susan Panuccio in February – that she did not expect the multimillion-dollar equity loss caused by Betr to be “the run rate going forward” – as a sign of its view on the start-up.