Peter Nolan is Managing Director of Genting Alderney, the online arm of Genting UK, known to be the largest land-based casino operator in the United Kingdom. Mr. Nolan has been taking his post since 2008. Prior to joining Genting Alderney, the executive had worked as Group Director for William Hill’s Interactive and Telephone Betting Businesses.
Following Genting Alderney’s recent announcement that it would offer its Live Casino product with platform provider Evolution Gaming, Mr. Nolan talked to Casino News Daily about the future of the company. As a person with considerable experience in the gaming industry, the executive also commented on the recently introduced changes in the UK gambling regulations and how they would affect the industry and the UK-based gambling customers.
Genting Alderney recently announced that it would move the provision of its Live Casino product offering to Evolution Gaming. Has the transition been completed? How have your customers responded to the change?
Over the last 18 months we have undertaken a significant investment programme in our proprietary internet gaming systems, websites, marketing, product and mobile capability. In doing so we set out to create an online presence under the Genting Casino brand based on extensive customer usability studies, to ensure that the customer journey was intuitive and logical.
Our focus is very much on casino, it is at the very core of what we do, whether that is in a land-based venue or online. In partnership with Evolution we are confident that we can bring the real casino experience online, for example with an immersive 19 camera angles on live roulette. Genting is now driving the convergence of the online and the land-based spaces.
With the constantly growing and highly competitive online gambling market, do you plan the addition of new products and services to your current offering? If so, what these may be? Have you been considering any new partnerships?
As one of the world’s leading land-based casino operators, with 50 years of experience, we are constantly looking for new ways to grow our business. Our first ever TV campaign, which went on air in October, is very much about championing our heritage – utilising the Group’s unrivalled knowledge and insight to engage with players and gain their confidence to play both online and offline.
This is just the start of a series of very exciting developments and we will have some updates in the new year! Watch this space!
A number of changes in the UK gambling regulations were introduced recently (e.g. the so-called Point of Consumption tax). How did those affect your business? And how do you think they would affect the industry in general?
It’s an additional cost for every business. We’ve looked to reduce costs in other areas to compensate, but it’s not over yet in terms of the follow-through. The consolidation that’s taken place in the marketplace is, in part if not totally, in response to the Point of Consumption tax.
We’ve just gone through an internal sale in the group that takes us into Genting Malaysia, aligning us more closely with Genting UK and thus, from our point of view, provides us with access to the full UK customer base.
The Point of Consumption tax has been a challenge for everybody, but while Genting Alderney is a relatively small operator, we do have the benefit of being part of a wider group and the opportunity to present ourselves to their customer base. This gives us a good asset to compensate for that increase in tax.
On a broader note, Genting has launched Resorts World Birmingham, the first integrated resort in the United Kingdom. How do you expect the UK-based gambling customers to respond to a facility of this kind?
Resorts World Birmingham, which opened last month, is our flagship casino with a special offering, such as the 100-seat Sports Bar where you can watch, play, and eat with friends. As with all our land-based casinos, it’s operated by our sister company, Genting UK. With the same parent, we can collaborate together and we expect that to increase as we see more and more convergence towards players looking to play with us both online and in a land-based casino.
