FEATURE
INTERVIEW: JOHN KENNEDY
FITZGERALD, CEO, INTERTAIN
Intertain is the Canadian iGaming company currently making waves over in Europe, having spent more than
$800m on the InterCasino, Vera&John, Costa Bingo and Jackpotjoy brands in the space of just 18 months,
as it sets its sights on becoming the dominant global operator focused on the female demographic. We
spoke to CEO John Kennedy FitzGerald to find out how he plans to execute this strategy, the timing and
structure of the Jackpotjoy deal and new markets on the radar.
Intertain has, via acquisition,
transformed from a holding
company into a significant listed
iGaming operating business in
a very short time. How did this
come about?
CFO Keith [Laslop] and I founded the
concept and idea, and even though we have
been public for a year, having floated last
February, have been working on the project
for over 30 months. The acquisition of
InterCasino from Amaya was the base for
us to take our project public, and the plan
was and continues to be turn around the
InterCasino business, and launch a series of
acquisitions that would put us in a dominant
position in the online bingo space. I feel that
most of our competitors are focused really
on the male audience, so I think there was a
huge opportunity to get into that dominant
position with a focus on the female
demographic with a bingo led offering.
What’s really exciting for me is that our
peers whom we are compared against are
already global businesses. In fact, they are
shutting down jurisdictions just because of
the regulatory risks associated with those.
We however have this massive business
now that is really only in the UK, Spain
and Sweden, with a global opportunity
to take our business into new, regulated
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jurisdictions. What I love about our
business is we now have one of the highest
percentages of online gaming revenues –
over 80% - from regulated jurisdictions.
give you of the UK market?
With this acquisition, we are going
to end up with 26-27% of market share
among those operators with a bingo-led
“We now have one of the highest percentages of online
gaming revenues in the global sector - over 80% - from
regulated jurisdictions.”
We are very proud of that fact, and we
are going to get better at increasing that
percentage up towards 100%.
You however started off by
acquiring two dot.com casino
businesses, and then two
female-focused businesses in
regulated markets. How will
these two components work
alongside each other?
You have to remember that over 65% of
InterCasino’s business comes from the
UK, so it’s a very large UK business.
And it’s got a heavy slot focus. But yes, we
will be focused on the female demographic
generally across all our businesses, based
on a bingo-led model.
You recently added the Jackpotjoy
brand to the Costa Bingo properties you
acquired last year. What share does this
product, with I think the nearest competitor
being Sun Bingo, with around 14%. So we
are in a very strong position and given that
we have traditionally operated on very good
margins, we feel the place-of-consumption
tax that was recently introduced in the
UK is going to further help our business.
It’s going to create opportunities for us,
because some smaller players that have
been operating on lesser margins are going
to find themselves in a difficult situation.
So we think our organic growth prospects
in the UK are still quite good.
You agreed decent premiums
for Costa and Gamesys ahead
of the point-of-consumption tax
(PoCT) coming in. Was this not
a risky strategy, given the UK
bingo market has been flat of late,
analysts are spit over the impact