Jean Moreau Jørgensen, 50, received his master's in economics at the University of Copenhagen, an executive MBA at the Copenhagen Business School and later served Dansk Tipstjeneste's acting chief executive. Currently, he's working for Norwegian state-licensed operators Norsk Tipping and Veikkaus -- and occasionally for lotteries in Denmark, Sweden and Iceland -- as a gambling business intelligence consultant in Brussels.
IGN: How did you get in touch with the gambling industry?
Jean Moreau Jørgensen: During a summer vacation in Denmark, when I was still working at the UNHCR in Geneva, I came across a job advertisement from Dansk Tipstjeneste. They were looking for an assistant to the CEO. My thesis at university was about gambling and gambling theory, and I believe that helped me in getting the position.
IGN: How was your career with Danske Spil?
 |
"The kind of self-service that some private operators have founded their business on will not survive in the longer term, I think. No treaty says you have the right to offer poker or casino games in a jurisdiction, where it is illegal or not legislated for, just because you are able to do so and because you have a piece of paper from a Canadian Indian small-town community."
- Jean Moreau Jørgensen
|
|
JMJ: I came to the Danish national lottery in 1991 as the assistant to the CEO. It was an excellent position. I was close to the important decisions and got involved in most of the development projects. I have great respect for the ones driving the daily operation, but personally, I enjoy working at the frontier with new solutions. It is also true, of course, that career-wise you’re better off doing development than daily operations.
When we started Oddset -- the lottery version of fixed-odds bookmaking -- in April 1994, I became responsible for the group in charge of betting object, results and administration of the Nordic Viking Lotto. We recruited new people and put together a great team, some of whom are still there today.
Contrary to lottery games, sports betting constantly has challenges from outside events. Alleged match fixing, spectator riots causing a match to end before time, unexpected betting patterns or peculiar referee decisions are examples of events that require solid competences to handle correctly. You must think not only of today’s challenge and maybe upset customers’ reactions, but also consider what was done in the past, and, more importantly, how today’s solution will influence tomorrow’s room for maneuvering. I used to believe that lotteries gave butter to the bread and sports betting kept me young.
In the mid '90s, I was appointed vice president in charge of customers, government relations and international affairs, and I later became executive vice president in charge also of sales, including Internet and staff. When the lottery took over the horse race tote, I was the CEO of that subsidiary for a while and I was also at the board of the subsidiary for slot machines. All in all, I had 13 wonderful years at the lottery -- a company under constant development. In 1992, it had its weekly pools and Lotto. In 2005, when I left, it ran instant tickets, Oddset, Viking Lotto, Internet games, a subsidiary with horse race wagering and slot machines in its own developed concept stores, PitStop.
When Dansk Tipstjeneste was licensed to enter the slot machine market -- a competitive, government-regulated market -- it suggested the introduction of a fee to fight problem gambling. The legislation, which came in place in 2000, thus introduced a 1 percent fee of gross gambling revenues from slots to be allocated, with two-thirds for treatment of problem gamblers and one-third for research. The last two years of my time at Dansk Tipstjeneste, I was acting CEO as the former CEO was seriously ill.
IGN: What was your best moment at Danske Spil? Your worst?
JMJ: Six balls rolling out of the Viking Lotto drawing machine in Hamar, Norway, for the first time Wed., March 17, 1993 is an absolute highlight. As chair of the Nordic working group, Viking Lotto was my first major development task. Other jurisdictions in the United States, Germany and Canada had done co-coordinated games, but Viking Lotto was the first to coordinate a game across jurisdictions with different languages and currencies. Creating a good strategic alliance requires a good choice of partners, fair play, clear objectives and a strong common infrastructure -- like a good marriage. I believe we met most of the criteria, and this year, the game celebrates its 15th anniversary, so we must have done something right.
One of my more troublesome moments was "Black Saturday” in the mid '90s. We had a record jackpot roll over but the lottery terminals were just not able to respond properly. People queued up for hours and retailers brought down the hotline, furious about not being able to meet the demand. I was acting head of PR at the time, and was given the unpleasant task of explaining live on television -- prime time news -- why we couldn’t handle the jackpot. I was instructed not to say anything about capacity problems -- the obvious reason -- and had to tread water with all sorts of more-or-less plausible arguments. We came out all right but later invested in more powerful machines; that Saturday I certainly felt small.
IGN: After your career at Danske Spil, what did you do for a living?
JMJ: I got an offer I couldn’t refuse from Norsk Tipping and Veikkaus, in my opinion two of the best lotteries in the world. They were looking for more information about Brussels’ gambling initiatives and would like to add to the common infrastructure of lotteries. The CEOs were both involved in European Lotteries and World Lottery Associations' executive committees and thought my knowledge of lotteries could be of use for those associations. The third part of my services includes operational matters like assisting in training programs for Nordic lottery employees. As an independent adviser I have more customers and I have no one to delegate to. I enjoy the leeway it gives me to choose and prioritize, but I sometimes miss the great feeling of being part of a succeeding team.
IGN: By now, you should know your way in the capital of Europe.
JMJ: I use my eyes and ears here in Brussels to observe and report back to my customers, which are lottery operators. I don’t have a mandate to speak on behalf of them and I certainly do not have a mandate to speak on behalf of governments. When I speak, I do it on behalf of myself, with my knowledge of the lottery sector as my major asset. I consider that to be business intelligence.
|
"Addressing the EU parliament in a debate on gambling in the autumn of 2006, EU Commissioner McCreevy said he had less chances of getting the required consensus [on legislation that would harmonize gambling rules across the EU] in the EU parliament and the council than winning the lottery. Coming from the lottery business, I know how difficult that is and looking three to five years ahead, I think he is right."
- Jean Moreau Jørgensen
|
|
IGN: What is the difference between business intelligence and lobbying?
JMJ: Lobbyists, in my opinion, also speak on behalf of their customers. I have obviously met a number of them here in Brussels and one common red thread, I think, is their former job relations within one of the EU institutions. Their key asset is their relations to the EU institutions insiders and their knowledge about the Brussels way of thinking and doing. I believe we complement one another in the search for good, sustainable solutions.
IGN: The European Lotteries has a Strategy and Coordination Committee in place. Furthermore, Blueprint Partners is regularly involved in European matters, as are the EL’s legal advisors, Vlaemminck & Partners. Why would Finland and Norway need a Nordic initiative?
JMJ: They are visionary lotteries and not afraid of investing in long-term strategic goals like the shaping of the European gambling markets. The need for up-to-date and accurate sector-relevant information can always be enhanced. I hope my background at least occasionally gives them advice and information from a different angle than that of the other experts you mention.
IGN: Which gambling industry issues are coming up for examination by the commission?
JMJ: The ongoing infringement cases initiated by the commission over the past years will most likely continue in the coming months, where one or more cases could go to the European Court of Justice.
IGN: Do you have direct contact with the commissioner? Do you think he's doing a good job?
JMJ: I don’t have contact, and I’m not to judge his doings assuming we speak of EU Commissioner McCreevy, who will be leaving in the not-so-distant future. As an economist, I value the thinking behind the internal market. However, I also appreciate the limits of capitalism and why it has to be implemented with wisdom to optimize wealth for most, and not only for the lucky few. The kind of self-service that some private operators have founded their business on will not survive in the longer term, I think. No treaty says you have the right to offer poker or casino games in a jurisdiction, where it is illegal or not legislated for, just because you are able to do so and because you have a piece of paper from a Canadian Indian small-town community. It should also be obvious that gambling show its “externalities” like problem gambling at the place of consumption. Thus, it is not difficult to understand that most member states reject a principle of origin for gambling. The idea that a member state through tax arbitration can create a business environment -- which imposes externalities in other member states and deprives them of tax revenues -- is not appealing to many and only takes place because the scale is still limited.
IGN: Do you think that EU members will ever agree on common rules for the regulation of Internet gambling?
JMJ: Addressing the EU Parliament in a debate on gambling in the autumn of 2006, EU Commissioner McCreevy said he had less chances of getting the required consensus of such legislation in the EU parliament and the council than winning the lottery. Coming from the lottery business, I know how difficult that is and looking three to five years ahead, I think he is right.
Basically, the principle of subsidiary also works fine. All member states use their legislative powers to regulate their gambling as they see fit. In the United Kingdom, for example, they have limited the number of regional casinos and will have only one supercasino (or maybe none after all). It is difficult to imagine that a casino operator from another member state would be allowed to put in place supercasino number two just because it could meet the technical requirements and had a license from another member state. This is sometimes the logic applied by remote operators and I don’t see member states willing to accept that at a larger scale.
Secondly, the economic importance of remote gambling is limited. According to the 2006 report from the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law, often referred to by the EU Commission, remote gambling will account for less than 5 percent of gross gambling revenue in 2012. Thus, gambling takes place physically in each member state when people visit a slot arcade, the casino, the local lottery retailer or the betting shop. From an economical point of view, the need for such common rules is not paramount. Nevertheless, remote gambling has come to stay and it does, of course, bring cross-border issues up, which I think would benefit from common standards, definitions and regulations, which all stakeholders could adhere to.
IGN: What gambling-related issues are coming up for examination by the EU parliament?
JMJ: The parliament is currently preparing its position on the commission’s white paper on sports, as well as the crucial role of lotteries' funding of grass root-level sports in Europe, will be part of its reflection, I believe. However, I think initiatives in individual member states will become more and more relevant and visible -- partly initiated because of pressure from the commission, and partly initiated because of outdated legislation unable to cope effectively with today’s technology.
IGN: What types of operational matters are you involved in with the Nordic Lotteries?
JMJ: Helping out with training of their managers has been one of my tasks; I love to moderate as well. Last year, I had the pleasure of moderating a WLA sports betting seminar hosted by La Banca in Uruguay and an EL sports betting [seminar] hosted by Danske Spil in Copenhagen. Typically some 60 to 70 participants come together and discuss strategic, tactical and operational issues for two days.
IGN: Could you ever imagine becoming the CEO of an international sports betting company that is not a member of the EL or WLA?
JMJ: It sounds exciting, so if you have a position in mind, tell me about it and I’ll let you know. Joking apart, I really enjoy working with the lotteries and the suppliers, which, of course, also serve non-lottery customers and I hope to continue in this sector.
IGN: How often are you in Brussels?
JMJ: The family and I moved to Brussels three years ago, so literally every day!
IGN: What is your biggest passion or hobby?
JMJ: I love to cook and I enjoy a good glass of wine, in particular from Italy. For the last six years, I have made all the family’s bread. I try to jog three times a week and I like good books about history -- I live in Waterloo, two kilometers away from the battlefields where Napoleon Bonaparte finally lost in 1815 -- gambling or psychology. But my overall passion is, of course, my two daughters.
IGN: Besides journalists, what irritates you most about the gambling industry?
I’m married to a journalist so I’ll be cautious here. During my studies I followed a tax law course at the faculty of law. It struck me how differently they saw the world. As an economist and maybe influenced by the welfare-state thinking of the Nordics, the starting point was how we could improve the tax system to avoid fraud. The law student’s starting point was very different. They looked for ambiguities or loopholes, which a client could use to avoid taxes. I guess both points of view are legitimate but maybe the gambling business could do with a few less lawyers.