Calvin Ayre attacks Partygaming

Calvin Ayre was on the record since the early 2000’s as saying that privately owned corporate structures are better for the on-line gaming industry than a public structure. He was on a panel with a few executives during the GIGSI conference in Montreal in spring 2006. During my debate I stuck to my position that the flexibility of a private structure gave advantages to private companies and was accused of over stating the size of Bodog (remember I was on the cover of Forbes Billionaires issue a few months earlier) or some such other logic on what my real agenda was.
Less than 6 months later all the public companies, including the ones he was debating with, were out of the US market, one was in fact already shut down. Now, this caused a lot of pain to a lot of people, but the reason is because these same companies are now complaining that the private companies like Poker Stars, Full Tilt (and the soon to be launched European based Bodog Poker Network, run by respected former OnGame CEO Patrik Selin) are somehow competing unfairly by not leaving the US market….

 The real problem the public companies have is not just the private companies (their complaining is now proving that they all agree with me related to the US market by the way), it’s that this same issue is inherent in all other markets. They are all still the big lumbering inflexible beasts they were before and they are all still in an industry that rewards flexibility. But its even worse than this. The same boring competency that you need to sell to the public markets in order to maximize your stock values, well its boring and it makes your brand the same way doesn’t it. Maybe Party should consider changing their name to “40 Winks Gaming” or “Blue Hair Gaming” to get more on brand with how they operate.

 

Summing up Ayre thinks the existing public companies, with all the fussing around about mergers and other such things that waste time and energy, are going to be slowly passed by aggressive private companies who are nimble and have fun exciting brands. Time well prove if is right or wrong.

http://www.casinoraptor.com