Monday’s interview with Interblock global sales supremo Tom O’Brien (right) yielded some passing observations that are probably too peripheral for my upcoming Casino Life piece … but perfect for S&G. Interblock maintains field offices in Las Vegas (soon to become the de facto headquarters) in Australia, Macao and Nova Scotia. In order to staff these, O’Brien takes a ‘horses for courses’ approach: “For instance, you don’t put an American in Macao who’s never run that market before. He needs to study it. Australia, the same thing. You can’t run an American over to Australia and say, ‘Go ahead and run this market. It’s gonna be great for you.’ You have to find an Australian operator or vendor who’s got that kind of background.”
Ouch! Sounds like a bank-shot reference to the abortive tenure of former Borgata president Larry Mullin (right) at Australian Echo Entertainment, as James Packer (currently on a roll) and Genting jockey for position. The latter, naturally, has been taking the “move along, nothing to see here” stance. Then there’s the following zinger from ex-IGT exec in re diversification …
“One of things I’ve found out with other companies over the years is they buy into other products so they can diversify. The products don’t match well with the company itself, so they just shelve it or sell it back.” (Are you taking this down, Howard Stutz?)
Buh-ZING!, as Stewie Griffin would say. That obliquely aimed dart seems destined to land in the posterior of IGT CEO Patti Hart (left), whose $500 million purchase of Double Down Interactive (“the best investment we ever made”) will almost certainly prove her undoing … to say nothing of the $115 million writeoff that was Entraction. One also thinks of wannabe Internet-gambling “playa” Zynga, whose Katyusha rocket launcher of e-mail blasts has ceased fire now that the company has entered a massive retrenchment. My instant-crackpot analysis is that Zynga’s Pied Piper, CEO Mark Pincus will make a last-ditch stand around Internet wagering. Partnering with a major gaming firm is no sure bet, as Double Down has proven, but going it alone with no prior online-gambling experience is definitely a fool’s errand.
If you feel like “having a fiddle” on the current U.S. presidential race, William Hill PLC has odds for you. But forget about putting down a bet in Nevada: Hill neglected to get the necessary permission to take this sort of “action” in the Silver State. Epic fail, old boy.
