Q & A: Thomas Taulé, Interactive Gaming Holdings

Moving forward with its business plan to diversify operations, Interactive Gaming Holdings plc this week announced its entry into the fixed-odds betting industry through the acquisition of Premier Bet Limited for £1 million.

"We feel that having a well established brand that appeals to horse bettors in Heathorns will complement having a brand that appeals to frequent sports bettors, and Premier Bet has done a great job of building a customer base of soccer bettors."

Since its inception, IGH has focused on acquiring well recognized companies and potential product-leading domain names. This latest deal, a reverse takeover under AIM rules, is expected to be finalized at an IGH shareholder meeting scheduled for August 24. Cash for the sale will be raised through the issuance of new IGH shares.

In March IGH acquired the Heathorns betting brand, giving it a strong foothold in the horse betting industry. The group now controls a network of more than 1,100 gaming-related portal sites and advertising traffic referral sites in addition to its ownership of Heathorns.

Premier Bet went live in May 2002 and has amassed a user base of more than 36,000 customers. The company reported gross betting turnover of £24.7 million in fiscal year 2004. It does not accept bets from residents of the United States.

IGN caught up with IGH Chairman and Chief Executive Thomas Taulé to get his thoughts on the Premier Bet sale, where he sees the company going and whether they plan to remain in acquisition mode.

IGN: Premier Bet seems like a natural fit for IGH. You must be excited to have them in the fold.

Thomas Taulé: Yes we are. It is a very nice fit for us and will go right in hand with our existing strategy. It is a high-profile, U.K.-centric brand and should give us a good entry into the fixed-odds betting business.

With Heathorns we got a great, well established brand that has a loyal customer base comprised of individuals with high net worth. Premier Bet has more of a frequent sports bettor base, with its users making more bets than most bookmaking operations.

We feel that having a well established brand that appeals to horse bettors in Heathorns will complement having a brand that appeals to frequent sports bettors, and Premier Bet has done a great job of building a customer base of soccer bettors. That will continue to be an area of focus for us.

IGN: Will you move into the poker space as well?

TT: Without a doubt that is our next area of focus. With the acquisition of Premier Bet, we have also agreed to bring on its CEO and owner, Tony Bloom, as a consultant to IGH. Tony founded the company in 2001 after several years in senior management with Victor Chandler. He played a key roll at Victor Chandler in developing their Asian market and is still considered one of the leading experts in the U.K. on soccer betting and the promotion and development of the Asian handicap style of soccer betting.

On top of all of his accomplishments with Victor Chandler and in developing and starting Premier Bet, Tony is an accomplished and well respected player on the professional poker circuit. He is able to play more for the fun of the game and not depend on it for his livelihood, but he will be a great asset to us as we look to launch a Premier Bet poker product by the end of this year.

IGN: Is something already in the works?

TT: The poker space is something we have been looking at for sometime now, and with Mr. Bloom on board we will be able to expedite that process. But poker is a value-added proposition for us, and we know that other operators grew too much too fast. We don't want that to happen to us. We will be a bit unique and we will be very thorough in bringing it to market. It won't be something that we will rush, but when we do it we will be very active in the space.

IGN: Many operators are finding that success is dependent on offering a variety of products. Do you find this to be the case as well?

TT: Having an integrated gaming platform to offer a user is almost a necessity now in order to stay competitive. The great thing for us with the brands that we have though is that not only do we feel strong about the different options we can offer, but we feel that our options have mass appeal to widely different segments of the market place. The bettors that are drawn to Heathorns, for example, aren't typically the same that are going to be drawn to Premier Bet. Our lotto players aren't the same that would be playing at an online poker room.

We do believe in multiple brands though; it is important to be able to target a niche audience and give them the online gaming experience that they desire. We are able to offer a wide range of different gaming options to our client base.

IGN: Are there plans then to use that range of options in your licensing efforts?

TT: We are developing a white-label system right now. We feel this will offer a substantial amount of leverage for our client base. There are a lot of niche markets that we have a good base in, but when it can be relatively easy to add more options to the platform then they will be able to expand their reach by going after users outside of the niche without having to sacrifice the loyal and strong user base they have built up.

IGN: Has getting multiple systems integrated onto one platform been a challenge?

TT: That is another ongoing project for us, and we hope to have all of our platforms integrated onto the Orbis OpenBet platform by the end of the year. It is important to get all of the systems on there now because as we continue to grow, it will only be more difficult to get them all on the same platform. Down the road if it is just a matter of adding, say poker, to the system, that is a much more manageable task for our technology team than it would be to fuse five or six different gaming platforms together at the same time.