help you with your in-running betting’. With the joint venture we’re actually doing it ourselves, using our own products and services. If we get it wrong, it won’t just be our customers taking the hit; we’ll take the hit as well. “The European retail market is not as mature as the UK market. When people come to visit us and see the local betting shops, they are very impressed by them. To take a similar solution and adapt it to the whole European market is an exciting challenge for us. It also helps us get an even deeper understanding of the independent market, and the experiences we gain from that will improve our solution here for the independents. “We’re looking at many


different ways to enhance in-running. Our STOS screen system is one way and the fact that our system provides for real-time risk management for in-running is key. It means that people can trade in-running securely from a retail estate. It’s the future of sports betting.”


Rosina Saxby: A Valued Member of Cinque Ports Racing


BRIAN MASON OF Cinque Ports Racing in Hythe, Kent wishes to pay tribute to a long- serving member of staff, cashier Rosina Saxby, who has worked for the independent for 25 years. In June, Rosina was taken


Rosina Saxby


to her favourite restaurant in Hythe, Sitirios, where she was presented with a bouquet of 25 flowers, one for each year with the firm, a cake with ‘12 ½ years, each way,’ written on it and an extra 25 days’ wages. Rosina started working at Cinque Ports racing in 1985. In this time she has only had a total of 20 weeks off, this for the time she had a baby and then when she was fighting breast cancer. “Apart from this, she has


not had a day off sick, and she has hardly ever been late,” says Brian. “She has been a great asset to the company,” he goes on to say. “When she was asked what she liked about the


visit www.bosmag.co.uk Picture: Supplied


job, she said that it was never boring. Although she does the same job every day she always meets different people.” When she was in hospital


GTECH G2 have a Poker solution which is designed to meet the needs of both amateur and professional players and is available in both Download and Instant version. It underpins the highly successful International Poker Network (IPN) operated by BOSS Media and includes the GTECH G2’s player focused back office management tool, GMS for overall game management.


GTECH G2 offer a Poker management service, a turnkey solution to assist companies in both the regulated and commercial markets who wish to offer Poker to their customers but without the need for internal expertise and experience to manage its complexities. Poker is a new area for Paul


incredible,” he says, “and it’s a quickly changing market, which I wasn’t aware of, with the legal aspect of operating such massive networks.


“The size of the market is


but it’s one that he’s looking to get to grips with.


When we get heavily into the integration in the next six months or so, to be able to go to the customer with a knowledge of sports betting, poker, bingo and online gaming, plus facts and figures to back up our knowledge, to give us a full solution and a full awareness of the industry, is something that I don’t see anyone else out there being able to do, and it’s an area that I find quite exciting. GTECH G2’s extensive in-house capabilities mean that they can work in a variety of ways to suit individual customers’ needs. Explains Paul: “We can give them the tools or we can work in partnership with them, with their marketing team, or take over the service and do the job for them.


create a set of tools and be a software provider, but as time has gone on and more experience and knowledge has come into the company, we’ve expanded that to provide services around those tools.


THE COST OF the standard SIS service will go up from £7,563.15 to £8,150.29 from September 1, with further rises planned of a net eight per cent in January 2012 and an incremental four per cent in January 2013. Phil Siers, managing director


“The initial idea was to


We can be solely a software provider or completely take over the operation, or any level in between. “Every customer is different.


They’re not just taking the same solution off us – it may be the same tools, packaging and software but they’re taking it at various levels, be it a small part of the software, the full suite, or a total managed service, so it’s very diverse.” Concluding, Paul is quick


to re-emphasise that, while the company is changing, the basics remain the same. “I want everyone to know that we are now GTECH G2 but I also want our existing customers, and everyone who knows us as Finsoft, to be reassured that just because we are expanding into foreign markets and expanding our range of products, it’s not going to change the core of what we’re about. I’ve always been very close to the UK and Irish betting industry, it’s what I’ve always enjoyed, so no matter how we go forward, it will always remain a central part of our business.”


Cost of SIS set to rise


now payable to racecourses. “The racecourse fee structure


has risen disproportionately and is set to rise further as we enter a new era of contracts. “We will continue to make


of SIS’s LBO division, said: “We recognise our loyal customers are already beset by increased employment costs, rising energy costs, additional costs imposed by the Gambling Commission, increased irrecoverable VAT from January 2011, and the like.


recuperating from her cancer operation, Rosina got over 90 cards from her customers wishing her well. “She said she missed them as much as they missed her. It was the job and the customers that helped her get through a tough time.” Rosina has been known to go above and beyond the call of duty, for example, sewing a button on an article of clothing for a regular customer. “The good news is she


recently got the all clear from her doctor,” Brian adds happily. “She’s an exceptional


person.”n


to minimise price increases in the LBO market by absorbing the inflationary impact of the falling value of sterling, leading to higher Irish rights’ costs, as well as higher satellite and equipment costs. “However, without some adjustment in our fee scale, SIS would be unable to maintain the level of content and provision of a balanced number of betting opportunities. “Regrettably, we are left


“We’ve consistently sought


with no alternative but to pass through the significantly increased media rights’ payments


representation that racing cannot expect its own cost structures to be sustained, and that, especially at a time of consumer recession, it is impossible for the bookmaking industry to shoulder the twin burdens of the levy and ever- escalating picture rights.” Tom Kenny, senior executive


of the Association of British Bookmakers, responded: “We regret the price increase, which comes at a time of great difficulty, particularly for the independent sector. “We accept SIS has been


forced to raise prices by the need to cover a significant increase in its own costs, specifically those of media rights’ fees, which have been driven up. “Increasing media rights’


fees, when coupled with the levy, result in a major increase in payments to UK racecourses, which is happening against a background of falling popularity for the horseracing product in betting shops.”n


BOS Magazine July/August 2010 19


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