Casino Communications

Q & A with Simon Thomas

CEO, Hippodrome Casino

London’s Hippodrome Casino is one of the most unusual in the world. With a history dating back over a century, the Hippodrome was a theater for much of its existence, hosting such events as circuses, aquatic extravaganzas, nightclubs and more. When Simon Thomas and his father Jimmy, who recently passed away, took over the property in 2009, they embarked on a complete restoration project that transformed the property into what it is today: one of England’s finest casinos. Simon Thomas sat down with GGBPublisher Roger Gros at G2E in October to talk about the past and the future of the Hippodrome. For a full video and audio podcast of this interview, visit GGBMagazine.com.

Global Gaming Business: First of all, condolences on the passing of your father. He was such a legend in the London gaming scene.

Simon Thomas: Thank you. It’s strange, actually, because the last few years as he was slowing down, he used to come with us on the Vegas trip for G2E. It was really quite hard work, but it was hard to keep up with him. Now he’s not here. I really miss him.

Let’s talk about how you got through the pandemic. We know it was tough here in the U.S., but it seemed like they were shutting gaming down in the U.K. every week. How difficult was it really?

To put it bluntly, it was horrible. Over the 420 days between first lockdown and final reopening, we were closed by the government for 320 days, and of the other 100, we had severe restrictions such as curfew and other mad restrictions for 60 of the days.

What we found, though, every time we were allowed to reopen business came back really quickly. And the Covid journey for us was quite interesting because in true Hippodrome style, we turned it into an opportunity. Once we realized we’d find a way through, it became really interesting.

We brought forward quite a lot of ambitious building projects and future-proofing to the building. We replaced all air conditioning and we added another floor on the top of the building. We completely removed and refurbished all our poker rooms and purchased opportunistically the last two bits of the building that we didn’t control, two shop units on the front where we recently opened a Chinese restaurant called Chop Chop. In the other one, we are opening a cafe and then a secret bar in the basement in about two months’ time.

And then when we were forced to restrict capacity, it wasn’t worth us playing to the lower end of the market when we could only allow half our customers into the property. So we increased our minimums, and I think in hindsight we realized that we’d been underpricing ourselves, because we’d come out of it in an incredibly strong position with much higher minimum spends. So we’re finally having fun.

So you didn’t have to do anything special to attract the customers back?

Oh, no. There was enormous pent-up demand. People were anxious to get out again. The Covidshy people didn’t come out, but there was nothing we could have done that would have got them to come out.

In the meantime, the government has plans to issue a white paper of reforms to the gaming industry in the U.K., but due to the political upheaval in Britain it’s been delayed. Where does that stand, and how will it affect you?

They did a call for evidence, and obviously the people who are very pro-gambling gave their evidence. Then people very anti-gambling gave theirs and nobody really bothered with the middle. We are certainly going to have a white paper, which will lead to some change in the legislation. We’re hoping that the more extreme ideas will be curtailed. Ironically, the delays have given us time to have much better dialogue with the regulator.

From the land-based casino side, it was always going to be a good. We have been hamstrung by old regulations that limit us to 20 slot machines in a casino peak time, so when I’ve got 1,500 customers in the building, there are queues of people in front of the slot machines, and we’re hoping that will increase. It’s frustrating as hell when I can’t service the customer demand.

Finally, we’ve been pushing for some electronic versions of table games, which are really good because customers want it. They want to play at their own pace. They want to play at a lower stake. We’ve had the opportunity to convince the regulators, I hope.

Every time we were allowed to reopen business came back “ really quickly. And the Covid journey for us was quite interesting because in true Hippodrome style, we turned it into an opportunity.

Some of the impact of Brexit was supposed to hit the gaming industry pretty hard. Has it hit hard, or is it water under the bridge at this point?

The biggest negative of Brexit is that it’s harder to get European staff. But a whole load of European staff are already allowed to work in the U.K. They have that right to work. But to be fair on the hospitality side, it’s not just British, it’s worldwide. Everyone is short hospitality staff. So it’s not a Brexit effect.

Currently the Pound Sterling’s quite weak, so we’re starting to see an increase in tourism, which is a hidden benefit of Brexit. There are plenty of supply chain issues, but they’re also not Brexit, they’re worldwide. And I think it’s difficult to tell what is Brexit and what is just the after-effects of shutting the world economy down courtesy of Covid.