Exclusive: Ralph Topping interview Part Two
In the second and final part of an exclusive two-part interview to celebrate our 10th anniversary and his 40 years at William Hill Ralph Topping (pictured), discusses his rise to the top, that deal with Playtech, and why none of it would have happened if he had supported Partick Thistle.
Deal of the decade
He may be happy to joke about the beginning of his rise at Hills being a fluke rather than a result of natural talent, but Topping’s signing of an online joint venture with Playtech in 2008 is seen as one of his defining moments as CEO, with Playtech chief executive Mor Weizer going as far as describing him as a “visionary” for signing such a transformational “ and risky “ deal at the time.
The history of Hills’ JV with Playtech really began in 2003 when Topping was moved away from online operations “ he had been too successful for his own good “ and was handed another of his “tough gigs” as he likes to call them.
Masterminding the revival of an ailing retail arm quickly saw him shunted up to group operations director before he was moved over to replace David Harding in 2008.
By this time, he admits, the online business was “struggling”, and he set about reforming his team to revolutionise it. Topping began to prepare for a major overhaul by “summoning” Jamie Hart back from Coral, where he had decamped in 2003, shortly after his boss had been taken away from online.
“Ralph had been moved back into retail because he’d been doing so well in online, and we were given an IT manager, accountant-type boss, who thought that since we’d basically built the internet business, it was just a matter of cost control,” Hart explains.
“I didn’t really agree with that, so when the chance to move back into trading came up at Coral I decided to go, but talked to Ralph before I went. He’s honest with you, so he told me that if I wasn’t comfortable with my boss then I should go, so he let me go off to Coral. When he was made CEO he phoned me and said that I’d had my fun, and was to get back to Hills, so I came back to sort the sportsbook out and move the operation out to Gibraltar.”
Having conducted a review of the state of the business, Topping freely admits that there were huge deficiencies: “One of the biggest decisions we had to make was to strip out a lot of the business, end our software supplier agreements, and kill the rebuilding project to go with OpenBet. We started looking for brains to bring into the business, or outsource a lot of our marketing activity. It was at this time when we came up with the idea of working with a number of companies and buying resources for them, and Playtech happened to be one, who we eventually settled on,” he explains.
Topping and his team’s persuasive skills “ he brought his entire online team into a board meeting to explain why a change in egaming strategy was necessary “ were able to force through this shift, resulting in the business taking a £26m hit when the legacy software was scrapped, a move which former Ladbrokes head of egaming John O’Reilly “ now MD of interactive at Coral “ believes prompted a shift in the industry, which is yet to be reversed: “Ralph has done a good job, no question. Hills started online in 1998, well ahead of Ladbrokes, yet we quickly caught and passed them when we launched in 2000,” O’Reilly explains.
“When he took the reins in 2008, he immediately dumped the legacy systems and moved up a gear with a new sportsbook and wallet, and the added revenues from the Playtech gaming affiliate sites, which delivered them some breathing space.
Without a competitor completing an online acquisition, William Hill became the leading player and they have built successfully on that position,” O’Reilly explains.
Hart adds that the ability to stand up for an idea, and fight to see it implemented, is one of the qualities that Topping most admires: “I think the greatest thing with Ralph is that you can have lots of open and honest debates about things and you can be passionate with that. You can have standing, redfaced, spitting rows about things, but you know that he respects you more for your honesty. You won’t necessarily be able to change his mind about things, but he’ll always appreciate your judgement.”
The relationship with Playtech may have faltered “ albeit not financially “ in the past year following a number of well-reported incidents including a walkout by 600 contact centre staff and a court injunction against its Israeli partner, but despite reports that Topping was furious about the upheaval, he refuses to show any emotion when quizzed about the situation.
“Discussions are ongoing, and they’ve been held in a positive atmosphere, and a decision will be made long before a decision is due to be made,” he explains. “It’s like waiting to see the sex of your child “ you can either go and ask the doctor or just wait and see what pops out.”
So, would he have done anything differently in hindsight? Not a chance. “If we hadn’t done the deal, I can tell you now that our internet business would be the equivalent of someone like StanleyBet’s online operations,” he explains. “I’m not denigrating them in any way, but with a brand name like William Hill you have to be the best in every channel, and I think the business would have been at risk in that situation.”
Never back down
While the battle over whether or not to continue the JV in its current form may be winding down to a conclusion “ the industry eagerly awaits an announcement, promised for September “ there has been a raft of speculation about Topping’s future at the business. But with a number of other challenges to overcome and battles still to be fought and won, he has no intention of stepping down: “Under EC legislation I could be here until I’m 75; the indication was that I’d be here until at least 2013, and I don’t expect not to be here going into 2014. There’s a lot to be done.”
It’s clear that the current situation in the United Kingdom, with new regulation and additional taxation edging into view, is a key concern.
Ultimately, he explains, one of the key aims is just to be afforded a degree of respect and understanding: “This is not a new industry anymore; it’s a grownup industry that has shown it can act responsibly, and I don’t think anyone can point at the sector and say that it’s run by a gang of reprobates.”
It is rare to hear senior British executives declare their opposition to those responsible for regulation; though we may see this increasingly happen as the UK moves towards adopting a dot.country framework with Topping one of the first to do so explicitly: “I don’t think the DCMS are the right sponsors for this industry “ not in a million years.
I think when you go to the Ministry and look at the wonderful montage they have painted in their entrance, and you have a couple of ballet dancers, a brass band, and nothing up there which suggests any connection to betting… I think it would be much better to have us combined with business, as we are a serious business,” he explains.
Not that this should in any way be construed as a cry against regulation, he quickly states. “I think the destination of all markets is regulated markets “ the dot.com model is waning. It’ll still be around in five years’ time, but not much longer than that, and won’t be the largest part of our business at all.”
This has led him Stateside, and seen William Hill become the first foreign licensed retail operator in Nevada after acquiring Brandywine, American Wagering and Cal Neva, for $55m.
Having taken the business online and built up its internet presence, Topping is keen to move the business into its next phase of development by untying the apron strings to the UK market: “I think William Hill has to look to expand into other geographies. I hate anyone talking about us being a world force, because I don’t think there’s any such thing in gambling. We’d like to do it in a multi-channel way, and we’d like to replicate what we have in the UK “ we’ll never entirely manage that because we’ve grown to our current size over 20-odd-years and you can’t do that instantaneously in any market, but a multi-channel way is certainly the one that pays dividends.”
Once this is done, and his battles with regulators have been fought, where then? At this point, he finally concedes, he may consider leaving to “toddle off”, shut the gates at the end of his garden and spend his days “counting the pheasants”, happy that his successor will emerge from the team he has put together.
“I certainly think there’s four, maybe five people who could be chief executive one day, and they all have excellent qualities, though they need to get scars on their backs and some more experience first,” he adds.
All this is a few years down the line. After all, as he says, he’s “still here, still enthused, and still working with a good management team under me”. He’s brought Hills online, helped the business surpass its competitors, and has seen it join the vanguard in the movement towards US regulation. It’s hard to shake the feeling that if he’d been a Partick Thistle fan, the egaming industry may not be such a colourful and healthy place as it is today.