INTERVIEW PETER NOLAN
PROFILE:
Peter Nolan >
> Managing director
Genting Alderney
After six years with Hills, Peter Nolan discusses taking charge of Genting Alderney, the challenges of moving from sportsbook to casino, the ongoing iPoker dispute, and overcoming cancer
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here is de?nitely a transition, but it is more a case of understanding different business models. While we operate in the same sector, the discipline and outlook of a casino operator is totally different to a sportsbook operator,” explains Peter Nolan while sitting in the ornate surroundings of Genting’s Crockfords Casino in Mayfair, as he discusses his move from marketing director of William Hill to managing director of Genting Alderney, the online gaming arm of the Genting empire. Nolan joined Genting after six years with Hills, overseeing the launch of the ?rm’s ?rst online casino offering, Circus Casino, in July 2008. Since then, Genting Alderney has expanded its offering, signing an exclusive deal with Playtech to provide poker, casino and bingo software, and is reaching the point where it is looking to enter its second phase of growth, ?nalising plans to launch a sportsbook. Nolan joined William Hill as marketing director in March 2001 from US stockbrokers TD Waterhouse, where he was vice president of marketing, working on the launch of WAP offerings for mobile devices and new sites. Transferable talents Nolan was also part of the team responsible for TD Waterhouse’s UK launch, helping him develop skills that turned Hills’ head. He says: “When you work for an online stockbroker the amount of money you make for each translation is quite slim, so you have to be very tight and disciplined in terms of return on investment, and these were disciplines that I was able to bring into William Hill as well,” he explains. After two years with TD Waterhouse, Nolan was hired by Hills, where his role progressed from marketing to taking charge of the group’s internet
gaming and telephone businesses by the time he left in November 2007. As marketing director, he used the skills developed in his previous role, bringing in new practices and “refining customer acquisition strategies for both telephone and online, particularly as the internet started to open up”. After taking charge of the online business, he admits the company’s offering was outdated and in desperate need of an overhaul: “The biggest issue Hills faced at the time was that the internet business was built on a legacy architecture, which was causing signi?cant problems in developing the product range and the ability to expand on the range of services we could offer to customers. “At that stage I was involved in the early days of replacing the legacy architecture, though it was subsequently ?nished off by other people,” he adds, referring to the joint venture signed with Playtech in November 2008. Despite the relationship between the companies souring over the course of last year leading to group CEO Ralph Topping’s admission that the deal “needs to change” before the 2013 call-option, it is still widely regarded as a transformational deal, which has allowed Hills to become a marketleading operator and leapfrog the majority of its customers. Nolan admits to being involved in the initial discussions with Playtech before his departure when “the consummation of the deal was done by Henry Birch and Ralph Topping”. From the bookies’ to the blackjack table After his departure from William Hill, Nolan moved to Genting Alderney, part of Malaysia’s vast Genting Group, a multinational corporation with interests in a variety of industries, founded in 1965 by Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong, whose family remain majority shareholders in the corporation. The group entered
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