People news 1 December 2016
The latest people news from the egaming industry in the last seven days (25 November to 1 December 2016)
Ladbrokes Coral appoints gaming and sportsbook directors
Combined firm continues post-merger reorganisation with nine more senior digital appointments
Ladbrokes Coral has made another clutch of senior appointments, including four new directors, as the firm continues to build its post-merger digital management team.
EGR understands staff were informed of nine new selections last week, including that of Lucy Carter as corporate brand director and Olly Raeburn as Coral brand director.
Other director appointments included that of Steve Buchanan as VIP director and Angus Nisbet as Gala Bingo director, while Richard Leask was given the nod as head of the Gala Casino brand.
In the combined sports division, Dan Greer secured the head of BIP (betting in-play) role, Michael Coley will become head of trading development, while Finlay Palmer and Leo Walker were named betting control manager and head of trading insight respectively.
Former Betit CEO to spearhead GIG’s unified B2C arm
Gaming Innovation Group (GIG) has unified its portfolio of brands under a single B2C umbrella, spearheaded by former Betit Group CEO Tomas Backman.
The move will see the Malta-based operator merge its recently acquired Betit Group sites – Kaboo.com, LuperLenny.com and Thrills.com – with its previously owned Guts.con, Betspin and Rizk.com brands.
Under the new GIG B2C Gaming arm, all brands have migrated on to the company’s proprietary iGaming Cloud platform, as part of its plans to become the “leading iGaming operator in the Nordics”.
The new structure will see individual managers of the six brands report directly into Backman, while the unified organisation is expected to be in place by Q2 2017 at the latest.
Seven days in people news:
Playtech appoints BGT founder to lead new Sports division
Playtech has appointed Best Gaming Technology (BGT) founder Dr. Armin Sageder as CEO of the supplier’s newly-merged sports betting division.
The Playtech BGT Sports subsidiary sees the firm’s BGT, Geneity, Mobenga and Unilogic businesses, as well as its internal sports trading team merge into a single division of more than 600 employees.
Sageder, who will report directly into Playtech CEO Mor Weizer, will be based in the supplier’s Cyprus office and be responsible for driving the company’s so-called ‘brick to click’ strategy.
Former Sporting Index trader fronts new US sports-focused bookmaker
Former Sporting Index trader Stephen Baumohl will head up a new UK-licensed bookmaker aimed at US sports fans, called Redzone Sports.
Baumohl is the vice president of trading at the new firm, which launched last week under the Argyll Entertainment umbrella.
“At RedZone we love all sports but we have a particular soft spot for all things American, and especially NFL,” said Baumohl, who was previously head of US Sports at Sporting Index.
“If like us your heart beats a little faster from September to the Super Bowl you will have noticed that there is very little choice between bookmakers when it comes to betting on American football.
Teddy Sagi offloads £329m of Playtech shares
Playtech founder Teddy Sagi has sold 12% of his stake in the egaming supplier for £329m, reducing the Israeli billionaire’s holding to 21.6%.
Sagi’s Brickington Trading sold 38.7 million shares at a price of 850p per share, an increase on the originally planned 32.3 million placing due to “strong investor demand”.
The placing means Brickington will no longer have the right to appoint two non-executives.