Events
IAGA SUMMIT New York 2017
Mitch Garber, CEO of Caesars Acquisition Company and Chairman of Cirque du Soleil
Mitch Garber is the Canadian born CEO of Nasdaq listed Caesars Acquisition Company (CACQ) which controls Caesars Interactive Entertainment (CIE) as well as Las Vegas strip casino hotels, Planet Hollywood, Bally’s, The Cromwell, The LINQ, and Harrah’s New Orleans, as well as the Horseshoe casino in Baltimore. (CIE) owns the World Series of Poker and Playtika, one of the world's largest and most profitable developers of social and mobile games. In 2016 he participated in the TPG led buyout of the Cirque Du Soleil and is Chairman of the Board.
He was born in Montreal Canada in 1964, where he lived a modest life. His early education was subsidized by the donations of anonymous donors. He went on to graduate with a Bachelors degree from the esteemed McGill University, and then earned his law degree from the University of Ottawa, in French. Garber became a practicing attorney from 1990-1999, while simultaneously working as a sportscaster.
He left his law practice and sportscasting positions in October 1999 to become a senior executive of Terra Payments, a public company spin-off of Bell Canada which Garber had helped create. Garber’s ascent to his various CEO appointments began in 2003, when he engineered a merger and was chosen to head Nasdaq listed Optimal Payments, Inc. (OPAY). He left Optimal to become the CEO of PartyGaming Plc., a large cap London Stock Exchange listed company until 2008, when he became a founding shareholder and the CEO and President of Caesars Interactive Entertainment, now a subsidiary of Caesars Growth Partners and Caesars Acquisition co. since CACQ went public in November 2013.
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Just what is gaming? A fireside chat with Caesar’s Mitch Garber
At the IAGA Summit, Mitch Garber, CEO of Caesars Acquisition Company and Chairman of Cirque du Soleil, will share his insights into how Caesars leveraged its brand and shared assets to evolve from a traditional bricks and mortar casino company into a multi-faceted entertainment-focused business where the key revenue generators are entertainment and restaurants, not gaming. He will also share his thoughts on why the right answer is to avoid certain emerging offerings and give his thoughts on what the future holds for gaming
Mitch, the topic for your fireside chat at the IAGA Summit asks, ‘just what is gaming, anyway?’ How do you define gaming today, and how has that definition adapted to the times and evolved with the various economic cycles?
We’ve seen a major shift and one that’s quite simple to define. Seven to 10 years ago, the revenue mix on the Las Vegas Strip was around 60 per cent gaming and 40 per cent non-gaming, but today it’s 60 per cent the other way. So I think the question is: what is today’s gaming industry? I think it has become an entertainment industry, in which gaming is 50 per cent of EBITDA and declining, whereby 30 years ago it was 75 per cent of EBITDA. Te experience has changed, it’s undeniable from the numbers that where the industry has adapted, it has not been in gaming, but in non-gaming. It has been night clubs and day clubs, celebrity chefs, retail and entertainment. When we talk about gaming in Las Vegas, it's really about the entertainment industry with some gambling in it. It’s not negligible, but it is diminishing.
In the multi-faceted entertainment focused business that is Caesars today, is it right to say that the gaming hasn’t evolved to match the pace of non- gaming amenities, for example hospitality, restaurants and entertainment - what lies behind this?
If you ask 10 people in the gaming industry you’ll get 10 different answers, but my view is that the choices consumers have today are so vast, interesting, advanced, digital and immediate, it makes sense that it’s less attractive to sit at a slot machine for four hours than it was 20 years ago. When you have Netflix streaming and Apps on your phone with family texting and posting pictures, there is just so much else to do. Te next generation is more distracted by these readily available forms entertainment than they were 25 years ago.
How effectively have land-based casino operations managed to blend together elements of interactive gaming on their floors to appeal to both a younger
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