INTERVIEW PER WIDERSTRÖM
PROFILE
Per Widerström
MD & board chairman Gala Interactive
Less than a year after relaunching its online bingo and casino products following a joint 10-year supply deal with Playtech and sister brand Coral Interactive, Gala MD and board chairman Per Widerström gives James Bennett an exclusive insight into the company’s “aggressive” plans to outgrow the market in the years ahead
eGaming Review (eGR): Why did you leave bwin.party after just two years? When you ?rst joined was there a promise of a large budget? Per Widerström (PW): I joined in October 2011 after almost two years within Party and bwin.party and very much enjoyed my time there working with Jim and the bwin guys and could see myself continuing. My role, as well as Jim and Norbert’s roles, was to embrace the change so my job went from being COO at Party to being group games director running three out of the four verticals, casino, poker and bingo as well as being responsible for the overall integration of the two ?rms. It was a big opportunity. I had no intention of leaving. Great company, great brands but then the opportunity came up when Carl Leaver [group CEO of Gala Coral] contacted me. He wanted to take Gala Coral across the group with a new set of senior executives coming on board: Carl, Andy Hornby (CEO, Coral), and John O’Reilly (MD Coral Interactive); good, solid guys and on top of that having the private equity-backed set up made it very interesting. Also, to have the opportunity based on those strong brands and on that foundation to truly revamp and re-launch the Gala brands on a new platform, it was too good to turn down. We want to create some history on behalf of the Gala brands, as we like to say. That was clearly an attractive proposition for the great talent that has decided to join us in Gibraltar. When I came in October 2011 the project was already running and the Playtech deal had already been signed off. John [O’Reilly] and I are on respective sides to make sure the project was [and continues to be] delivered on time and with the specs we originally set out to deliver. In essence, we wanted to deliver a cutting edge and very attractive product portfolio, to remap the brands and the entire product portfolio offering it across mobile as well as the web. From day one when we launched we had a very competitive and attractive offering. eGR: How did you feel about the Playtech deal, its structure and its length? PW: In any type of contract you have some reasonable exit clauses so I think in principal it’s very positive. The short term and future success of the deal has been further con?rmed now we have the opportunity to work with them. They’re an ideal partner for us. I think the way we now cooperate and collaborate and grow the business has proved to be the right decision. The deal goes across the entire product portfolio, except for OpenBet on the Coral sports betting side, but that is also integrated into our backend. The OpenBet integration has allowed Coral to have a seamless wallet across the product verticals and this has worked exceptionally well. When we relaunched Gala Casino in May last year and Gala Bingo in July (both with Playtech platforms, products and services), both were massive projects. Y