Upcoming Public Gambit Event
or go to Gambit Leadership
Summit
2007, Gambit public forums will aim to takles these areas:
Finance, Marketing and Mobile & iTV developments.
Email us
if you have any suggestions of very senior speakers, proposing
to sponsor, or indeed want to be kept informed about future
Gambit event.
Public
Gambit Events in 2007
Gambit on Finance
Private equity vs. public market
18 July 2007
Leisure and Gaming has been a very popular sector for investment,
mostly in gaming stronghold like Las Vegas, where continuously
bigger and grander casino hotels are being built in the last
30 years or so. Therefore, it has traditionally been treated
as 'real-estate' market as invariably most opportunities are
capital intensive and long life-cycle projects, where most
of the revenue are from rooms and entertainment.
There was a trend of new market being developed in the last
few years as likes of 888.com and partygaming were listed.
These were businesses with comparatively limited capital expenditure,
and cash flow and profitability means that most of them do
not need external finances. Some still wanted to be listed
due to various reasons, some for expansion capital, some for
partial exit for private owners etc.
Due to the regulatory changes in various jurisdictions, we
can see that offline gaming firms are now focusing on growth
markets like Macao, Western and eastern Europe. US and UK
regulatory changes meant that a few gaming firms are either
delisting or moving their online/remote gaming operations
offshore. Some major US big brands like Las Vegas Sands/Venetian
has gained their online gaming license (not accepting US bet)
this year, does it mean that the market is changing/ or converging?
does it mean that there will be more consolidation or public
companies being brought back to private hands (for online
gaming firms). Which way would it go?
Does it mean the basis of competition is who has the deepest
marketing pocket? or would it be within certain gambling friendly
(& tax friendly) jurisdictions only?
Speakers on the night:
Archie Watt, Director, KPMG
Melissa Blau, Global Leisure
Partners
Charles Walker, MD, JPM International.
Marketing
19 September.
2007
Ed Bartlett, VP Publisher Relations
Europe and Co-Founder, IGA Worldwide, Inc., on
case study of using 'in-game' advertising
Mobile & iTV development
7 Nov. 2007
Email us
if you have any suggestions of very senior speakers, proposing
to sponsor, or indeed want to be kept informed about future
Gambit event.
It will take place at the Cass Business School:106 Bunhill
Row, London EC1Y 8TZ
Find
Cass Business School
Timing:
6:00pm Welcoming drinks, tea & biscuits
6:30pm Panel discussion commence
8:00pm Drinks & Networking
9:00pm Proceedings finished at the business school, further
networking to a local club/bar
How to book
Gambit was launched to bring value, trust and transparency
to the sector and help us reach out and explain to Technology,
Finance and media/ entertainment sector about our gaming gambling
world. It has been free to attend since 2005 until end of
2006. 2007, we will commence charging but its mainly to cover
our cost.
Logistics: 1) Once the gambit ticket(s) been
purchased, 2) you will be sent a serial number per
ticket. 3.) For each Gambit event, one set of serial
number (previously not used ) would be required to register
a proposed individual's name and company information at time
of booking online or via email to GambitEventRegistration@cassalumni.net,
4.) the named person registered can just turned up
at the event. 5.) at the door tickets will be sold
for £70 cash.
Click here to
purchase annual membership (5 tickets) or more, or indeed
for only one Gambit ticket (£50).
Exchanges and returns: Gambit
tickets cannot be exchanged or money refunded, unless the
registered event is cancelled, in that case, the serial numbers
can be reused for future events.
Email us
if you have any suggestions of very senior speakers, proposing
to sponsor, or indeed want to be kept informed about
future Gambit event.
Hosted by:
Gambit-Special Event media partners:
Speaker Profiles:
Archie Watt is a director in KPMG's IT Advisory
section in London. He has been involved in the online gaming
sector for the past six years and has seen it though it's
beginning to the peak period of 2005/06 and the subsequent
retrenchment post-UIGEA. During this period Archie has worked
closely with many of the industry's largest operators including
PartyGaming, 888 and Playtech, being heavily involved in their
flotation processes. Archie was also a fundamental part of
the team that advised Sportingbet on their acquisition of
Paradise Poker and he has been involved in a number of other
recent transactions.
Melissa Blau at Global Leisure Partners, she has been
working with early stage companies for over 10 years. Most
recently, she was the CFO of St. Minver, a Gibraltar based
white label operator of online casino, poker and bingo. Previously,
Melissa Blau consulted for numerous start-up companies in
the media, real estate & telecom industries. In her position,
she provided financial, strategic and business advice acting
as an external CFO. Prior to that, Melissa Blau was a General
Partner and founding member of Constellation Ventures, a Bear
Stearns venture capital fund with over $450 million under
management, dedicated to the media and technology sector.
Prior to that, she was Manager of Strategic Planning &
Business Development at Viacom Interactive, and went over
to launch Simon & Schuster Online as head of Business
Development. Melissa Blau started her career in Investment
Banking at Oppenheimer & Co., Inc. where she worked in
the Leisure & Gaming Group advising numerous companies
on public financings and mergers & acquisitions.
Melissa Blau holds a B.S. from the Wharton Business School,
University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Harvard University
where she wrote her thesis on “Online Gaming” (1995).
Charles Walker,
MD, JPM International. Charles
is responsible for Sales, Marketing, Partnerships and Product
Development. Charles launched the global Internet portal Lycos
in the UK in 1998, helping to take the European operation
to a $5.4bn market capitalisation. Charles has held a variety
of senior international management roles within the Telecoms,
Call centre and Internet sectors, after an earlier career
as a broadcast journalist for the BBC. Before joining JPM,
Charles was Senior Vice President Business Development of
Servista, the telecoms and energy provider, with clients including
the Post Office, Lloyds TSB and Tesco. He came to Servista
from SN Brussels Airlines where as Vice President responsible
for Sales, Charles managed a global sales and customer service
team of 160 headquartered in Brussels. Charles has a Masters
Degree in Management from London Business School, where he
is a Sloan Fellow, and a Bachelors degree in Economics from
the London School of Economics.
Ed Bartlett, Vice President Publisher
Relations Europe and Co-Founder of IGA Worldwide is
one of a new generation of multi-discipline industry visionaries,
combining 14 years of videogame sector knowledge and experience
with astute business acumen and proven advertising and media
expertise.
Having fulfilled senior creative and production roles on
key game releases for publishers including Sega, Virgin Interactive,
BMG Interactive, Acclaim and Hasbro Interactive, Bartlett
moved into Business Development in 1999 as a Director of the
renowned games development house, ‘The Bitmap Brothers’.
Recognized as one of the first in the world to demonstrate
the latent creative and commercial value of in-game advertising,
Bartlett went on to found dedicated agency Hive Partners ahead
of the curve in 2003. As its CEO, Bartlett led the company
to six-figure revenues in its first year of trading, securing
global Blue Chip advertiser accounts such as Red Bull, and
striking genuinely innovative interactive in-game placement
deals with leading videogame publishers including Sega and
Vivendi Universal Games.
In 2005 Bartlett negotiated the acquisition of Hive Partners
by IGA Worldwide before helping to raise its $17 million Series
A VC round. He has since been responsible for building the
foundations of its industry-leading proprietary Radial Network,
securing landmark global deals with the likes of Electronic
Arts, Valve, Atari and Codemasters.
Bartlett is also a multi-published author in the Business
category and in 2006 was runner up in the Business Entrepreneur
section of the UK Enterprise awards.
How to book
It is possible to book online:
New Business model for 2007
Gambit was launched to bring value, trust and transparency
to the sector and help us reach out and explain to Technology,
Finance and media/ entertainment sector about our gaming gambling
world. It has been free to attend since 2005 until end of
2006. 2007, we will commence charging but its mainly to cover
our cost.
Logistics: 1) Once the gambit ticket(s) been
purchased, 2) you will be sent a serial number per
ticket. 3.) For each Gambit event, one set of serial
number (previously not used ) would be required to register
a proposed individual's name and company information at time
of booking online or via email to GambitEventRegistration@cassalumni.net,
4.) the named person registered can just turned up
at the event. 5.) at the door tickets will be sold
for £70 cash.
Click here to
purchase annual membership (5 tickets) or more, or indeed
for only one Gambit ticket (£50).
Exchanges and returns: Gambit
tickets cannot be exchanged or money refunded, unless the
registered event is cancelled, in that case, the serial numbers
can be reused for future events.
Upcoming Invitation only
Gambit Leadership Summit [GLS] Events
From 2007, Gambit is organising some exclusive invite
only events with industry top professionals covering the following
theme:
The proposed series will focus on: "Sense
and nonsense in the Gaming Gambling industry"
Specific areas to be covered include:
1.) ID/Age verification
2.) prohibition (player protection and cross border issues)
3.) effective regulation (what works, probity, social responsibility
requirements etc.)
4.) Regeneration and Casinos (the Advisory Panel and its deliberations
will
be a crucial element)
5.) and the Realities of Risk.
Gambit will become the forum for the converging industry
to meet, network and exchange ideas on key issues that affect
the present and future of this important industry.
Within  ,
by June 2005, there are over 1,400 Casino and Gaming professional
already. It is already a key virtual network where one could
meet businesses' owners and directors.
Cass MBA Alumni please note
(since July 2004 you can join other MBA Alumni
on LinkedIn, & network with senior executives world-wide,
by Dec 06. we have 360+ MBA Alumni)
Cass Alumni who are
users, you can join the
group within LinkedIn. For those that are already registered
as alumni on Cass' database, you would have already received
an invite, if not, please email
me for your personal invite (please specify when you graduated
from your Cass MBA course). Alternatively, you could also
send me a request via my
profile on LinkedIn.
This site is organised by Gareth
Wong, you can email
him to discuss any aspects relating to this site.
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