TIM CULLIMORE

Happy Holidays

So let’s get on with the game

By Tim Cullimore

It wasn’t until I spent several Christmases in both Australia and the Caribbean whilst working that I came to realise that in the U.K. Christmas comes totally at the wrong time of year for the casino industry. People are just too busy doing other things to find the time to visit the casino.

In mainland Europe Christmas and New Year are boom times for the gaming industry. Players and non-players alike love to dress up and go for dinner in the best place around, and in spa towns and coastal resorts across the continentthat is very often the casino. Special menus and dances are the norm for somewhere like Baden Baden or Montreux, whereas dealers in Britain loved to work on Christmas eve as there where very few players and breaks were plenty. And of course,in the U.K it is enshrined in law that casinos must close on Christmas day.

And because of the legacy of puritanical laws that didn’t allow even the minimum of entertainment or fun in a casino up until the changes brought in by the 2005 Gaming Act, New Year celebrations have always been almost an embarrassing distraction to the business of gambling. As I am sure many casinos still do there used to be a tradition of stopping all the games just before midnight and wishing everyone a Happy New Year. This was greeted joyfully by most of those present, except the players! They were often furious that their game had been interrupted.“Happy New Year and let’s get on with the game!!”. Of course, casinos wherever they are multi denominational by their very nature, and I have always thought the peaceful interaction between races, faiths and genders has often been overlooked as a very positive outcome of casinos being open to all. And all clients, no matter their background, have an underlying commonality, which is of course their frequent frustration and occasional anger toward the casino itself. It’s great that they all have something to agree on!

For some customers Christmas plays no part in their culture, but because their own businesses or their employers may be closed the casino becomes an even greater attraction. So I have always loved the atmosphere in the casino during the holidays, even if many of the players are not really that interested in the actual traditions, but there is something that adds to the excitement and overall ambience. I especially loved the tradition of visiting the casino when I worked in France. There were still some lovely couples who maintained the tradition of formal evening wear at Christmas and New year, and the gastronomic menu in the restaurants attracted those who love the finer things in life.

Equally when I was running the casino in the ski resort of Crans-Montana, Switzerland, an important segment of the clientele over that period were Italians on vacation, so again the fine

clothes would be out in force, and finest Italian sports and leisure wear (this was a ski resort remember) would be put on parade.

As a naïve young dealer arriving in Florida to join a cruise ship just before Christmas 1985 it was an incredible culture shock to experience Christmas in the sun. I also had my eyes opened by the importance of Hanukkah. Never really appreciating this festival I loved the ads and announcements which seamlessly interwound both the festivals which happen at this time of year. And spending Christmas on a beach was absolutely fine by me, no more cold dark nights, and rainy Yuletides.

Now I come to think of it; the end of year holidays are perhaps the best time to learn the most about cultures of foreign countries. This is a time when people cling most fiercely to their traditions, so if you have the opportunity to travel or work in a new country at Christmas, I fully recommend getting involved in all aspects of the festivities. After all, wherever you come from the message is the same.

Great Responsibility

Now that the votes are in I can reveal that I have had the great honour to be asked to be one of the judges of the excellent International Gaming Awards which will be presented at the end of January and will be a fantastic night. With great power comes great responsibility (thank you Spiderman) so I took the task at handvery seriously. knew very little about, a revelation to see the range and variety of products and services on offer in our industry. I was especially impressed by the strength of the social responsibility programmes the games providers have produced. As I have repeatedly said in the past, is there another industry who provides social activities which may deemed harmful to a small minority that does so much to inform and protect its clients. We can aways do more to protect players, but as an industry we should be proud of the strides which have been taken over the last several years.

Happy holidays to everyone and let us hope that 2022 will be a better environment for us to prosper.

888 Sells Entire Bingo Business To Broadway Gaming

888 Holdings has announced that it has reached an agreement to sell its entire B2C and B2B bingo businesses to Saphalata Holdings Ltd., a member of the Broadway Gaming group. The consideration is $50m on a cash-free debt-free basis, including a potential earnout of up to $4m, based on achievement over six months of revenue-based performance criteria. Consideration will be paid in cash upon completion of the Transaction, with the potential earnout payable within approximately six months thereafter. 888 has agreed to provide Broadway certain transitional services for a period of up to 12 months from completion, in accordance with an agreed fee schedule.

888 has a clear strategy to be a global leader in online betting and gaming by building market-leading positions in attractive regulated markets, driven by proprietary technology, product leadership, leading brands, and marketing expertise. As part of a strategic review, the Group took the decision to sell the bingo business to improve its focus on its core platform, enabling greater resources to drive growth in its core markets and reducing compliance complexity arising from related accounts across B2B and B2C bingo and 888’s core platform.

The bingo business, which is delivered through a combination of B2B services under the Dragonfish brand and multiple leading B2C brands, is operated on a separate technology platform and primarily served by a designated operations team. The Transaction encompasses the entire bingo business of the Group, including all its exclusive technology, assets, operations, B2B clientele and consumer-facing brands.

The bingo business, which is substantially UK-based, generated in 2020 revenue of approximately $65 million and EBITDA of $7.4 million. The loss before tax in 2020 was $76.4 million, including a goodwill impairment of $79.5 million. The value of the gross assets subject to the transaction, including the remaining goodwill, as set out in the 30 June 2021 balance sheet, was approximately US$71 million.

Completion of the Transaction is conditional upon, amongst other items, completion of a reorganisation of the bingo business and that new structure receiving its own UK Gambling Commission (“UKGC”) licence. Completion is currently expected to occur during the second quarter of 2022.

Itai Pazner, CEO of 888, commented: “Following a strategic review, we have taken the decision to sell the bingo business. This strategic Transaction will enable 888 to further increase its focus on its core platform and unified, scalable and proprietary technology, and grow our key product verticals of casino, sport and poker, as we continue in our mission to be one of the world’s leading online betting and gaming businesses.

The high-quality bingo business has been an important part of 888’s history, and over many years we have developed an advanced B2B offering alongside a suite of popular consumer-facing brands. As part of an enlarged business, I am very confident that the future for the bingo business is bright. I would like to express my immense gratitude for all of the hard work of the team over the years.”

Slot Management 101:

Closing a Project

You’ve entered you last project stage, victory is almost yours, the project team is excited, and your revolutionary casino concept is almost a reality. Then a spanner gets thrown into the works!

By Andy Cosgrove

There comes a time when your project reaches the end of its natural lifecycle and has to close.This doesn’t mean onclosing a project at a fixed point in time when the project reaches its planned end and allobjectives have been achieved and approved productshanded over to the operationsteam andthe end users who will enjoy the project benefits as outlined in the project product description. Project premature closuresare also a real possibility and can happen for multiple reasons.When premature closure does happen, the project board may instruct the project manager to close the project before some or all of the desired products have been created as planned.Even in the event of a premature closure, it’s important to be prepared for all possible scenarioswhich includes knowing how to successfully manage the closing a project process.

The main objectives of the closing a project process are as follows:

• Verify user acceptance of the project’s products • Ensure the customer is able to host and support the products post project • Review the baseline performance and assess the benefits • Ensure that provisions have been made to address all open issues and risks and make follow up recommendations.

Project closures should be planned as part of the final management stage plan where work is done to prepare input for the project board to authorize project closure. If the project is bought to a premature closure, the process will still need to be executed unless you want to leave holes in the casino floor, no doors in your count room or leave your surveillance room without monitors!

Preparing for planned closure

– before closing a project can be recommended the project manager must ensure that all the expected

results have been achieved and measured. The process for doing this is as follows:

• Update the project plan with actuals from the final management stage

• Request a product status account from project support to ensure that all products have been approved by the correct authorities and that they meet the quality criteria, or that they are covered by approved concessions.

• Confirmed that the project has delivered what was defined in the project product description

• Seek approval to give notice that project resources can be released

Prepare premature closure – In some situation the project board may decide to abandon the project and under these circumstances the project manager must ensure that work in progress isn’t simply abandoned which makes perfect sense unless you want gaping holes in your casino floor that result in costly law suites from customers with broken body parts. Another part of premature closure involves salvaging anything of value created and informing the customer of any project gaps left by the cancellation. The following actions should be taken:

• Update the issue register to record premature closure

• Update the project plan with actuals from the final management stage

• Request a product status account from project support to determine which products have been approved, are currently in development, are covered by concessions, need to be made safe, have yet to be started and may be useful to other projects.

• Agree the means of recovering approved products or those in progress

• Seek approval to give notice that project resources can be released early products must be handed over to operational and maintenance prior to the project being closed. In the case of premature closure some products may be approved but not yet handed over and the ownership of these products will need to be transferred to the customer. Product handover is not necessarily reserved for the end of the project as there can be multiple handovers throughout the project lifecycle. The following actions should be taken to successfully handover projects:

• Together with the project team prepare follow-on action plans

• Check the benefits management approach to ensure that all product benefits can be measured post project

• Examine the change control approach to determine how products are handed over to those who will maintain them during operational life.

Evaluating the project – successful companies learn from their project management experience and assess how unsuccessful or successful projects have been in order to implement new processes or avoid the bad ones during future projects. To do this successfully the following actions should be taken:

• Review the projects original intent as stipulated in the PID

• Review approved changes

• Together with the project team prepare an end project report

• Together with the project team review the lessons log to identify lessons that could be applied to future projects

Recommend project closure – Once the project manager has confirmed the project can be closed, a closure recommendation should be made to the project board as follows: ment approach to identify organizations and interested parties that need to know that the project is being closed

• Close the projects register and logs

• Make sure all project information is secured and archived

• Prepare and send the project closure notification for review by the project board.

Conclusion–Part of successfully managing a project is knowing how tomanage the closure process, and if you use each finished project as an opportunity for your organisation to improve regardless of the outcome, you’ll grow stronger, faster and staying ahead of the competition will become as much a part of your daily routine as the smiles on your customers faces. But stay alert because staying at the top isn’t easy and it takes a continuous improvement mindset to stay there. There will be failures, mistakes,frustrationand broken casino equipment along the way but as some might say,“those who have never tasted defeat, have never really strived towards victory.” The options are simple, leave that exposed cable where it is until a customer trips on it and lands in hospital, or learn from your mistakes and grow stronger one project at a time. The choice is yours.

MY MINI-BLOG - Andrew Cosgrove is a seasoned slot operations veteran and certified project manager with over 24 years of hands on experience in Latin America and the Caribbean. Andrew has worked on both the operator and supplier side of casino slots and continues to help clients succeed and exceed customer expectations. Andrew can be reached at andy.cosgrove@henimgwaycasinoconsulting. com or seehttps://hemingwaycasinoconsulting.com/