Revealed: EGR Awards Operator of the Year shortlist

BET365, BETCLICK, BETFAIR, Bwin, PartyGaming, William Hill and 888 have been shortlisted for the coveted Operator of the Year trophy at this year’s EGR Awards.

Bet365 was nominated not only because of its marketing leading position but also its customer base in more than 200 countries, and achieving revenue of 70% from outside its home market in the UK, with particularly strong customer bases in Europe, Asia and Canada.

Amounts wagered increased 91.2% while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) more than doubled. The business is also an active member of the remote gaming association, with John Coates its chairman.

Betclick, the market leader in France, also boasts a strong position in central and southern Europe, and is also making a strong push on eastern Europe and Scandinavia via parent company and new Power 50 entrant Mangas Gaming’s acquisition of Expekt and Bet-at-home and also launched in Benelux, Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania this month.

Also vying for the award, which will be presented at a gala dinner on the first night of the EGR Live conference and exhibition in London next month, is Betfair, which came third in this year’s Power 50 leading operators.

The betting exchange was selected on the basis of its huge scale and dominance of the betting exchange market and with a database of 2.5 million users, 625,000 of them active in the last year. Betfair’s geographical diversity was also important, demonstrated both by its 17 different languages and its three-year plan to grow outside its home market of Britain, which included January’s US$50m purchase of the US cable TV channel and online wagering business TVG.

Also relevant was growth, with Betfair revenue up 27% at year end; and its push on mobile gaming via technology developed in-house and sponsorship of football teams Manchester United and FC Barcelona.

Bwin, which topped this year’s Power 50 leading operators for the second year running, was selected on the basis of 17% growth in gross gaming revenue over the last 12 months, leadership demonstrated by its founding roles in the European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) and European Sports Security Association (ESSA) detection and early-warning system against fraud and wide geographic spread across the EU, Latin America and via its two development offices in Asia.

Bwin was also recognised as the only company in the industry to have been awarded an e-money license from the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA), for the Cactus prepaid card it plans to introduce in Germany in the coming months; for its longstanding partnership with Harvard Medical School’s Division on Addictions and for the launch of its P5 business-to-business and business-to-consumer online poker platform.

PartyGaming won a place on the back of a slew of deals including its acquisition of Cashcade in July and tie-ups with Cirsa, Spain’s market leading casino operator, UK TV broadcaster Five and direct marketing company DM; plus a surge of 630,000 new players last year. Earlier this year PartyGaming also became the only major operator to have settled with the US authorities, and was second only to Bwin in the 2009 Power 50 leading operators.

The William Hill Online joint venture with Playtech brought an additional 22 casinos and four poker rooms to the William Hill offering and saw significant new marketing and distribution channels for Hills outside the UK – the business currently offers products in 19 languages and receives transactions from 180 countries. The company also ramped up marketing, including deals with La Liga club Malaga CF and La Vuelta cycling tour of Spain, and finally moved its egaming and fixed odds products offshore to Gibraltar.

888 made it onto the list via achievements including the launch of Dragonfish, 888’s business-to-business arm, in March; a hedge against any dip in business to consumer which has already paid dividends in the form of a Dragonfish tie-up with Harrah’s, the US casino giant, as well as deals with Littlewoods gaming, the Foxy and Wink bingo brands and Tower Tornedos.

The business also launched poker in 11 new languages over the last year, launched casino in four new ones and saw an increase of 246,000 new casino and poker depositors, as well as signing a deal with the Racing Post, the UK racing newspaper, to provide it with a casino and poker; and introducing a live dealer application.

The winner of the award will be announced at the EGR Awards gala dinner, which takes place at London’s Old Billingsgate market on 30 November, the first night of EGR Live, eGaming Review‘s free-to-attend conference and exhibition at the same venue.