Inside Asian Gaming

32 settle while the client trusts the bookmaker that he will record his wager and pay out winnings according. Second, the poor his- tory of someWestern operators in Asia is also problematic. Many Asian consumers have seen Western operators opening their doors in Asia only to simply close them.This has led to some distrust.” The market is “large” and “complex” and “requires a commitment and market under- standing to implement systems that work for the Asian consumer,” notes Holland.“This makes a going-it-alone strategy difficult and risky.” With an eye on the enormous potential of fixed-odds betting in China, bookmaking giant Ladbrokes spent several months in Bei- jing in 2005 and 2006 sharing its expertise as a consultant to China Sports Lottery Sales and Marketing Co.This led to the launch early last year of the country’s first betting shops —branded“Happy Pools,”200 of them, offer- ing pools wagering on big-league European football. “While this is a very small step into China it is also an encouraging one,”said Ladbrokes CEO Christopher Bell, who has expressed the belief that the country “has the potential to be one of the biggest betting markets in the world,” one which “Ladbrokes is well pre- pared to take advantage,”he said. Ladbrokes also recently entered into a joint venture with Hong Kong-based MegaInfo Holdings to form a company called Asia Gaming Technologies with a view to increasing the bookmaker’s presence in the People’s Republic. Interestingly, the relationship between Ladbrokes andChinaSports Lottery stemmed from the former’s involvement in training programs operated in Britain for lottery staff in which China Sports Lottery participated, and Bell has credited the UK’s reputation as a stable, well-regulated gambling environ- ment for the welcome his company has re- ceived from the Chinese. Among other top-tier Western opera- tors and suppliers, AIM-listed Playtech has stood out in recent months for the bridges it is building across East Asia after its US-fac- ing clients had to exit the American market. Earlier this year, the company sealed a three- year partnership with the China Mahjong Association as a tournament sponsor and software provider and signed a contract to provide software for peer-to-peer games to Foundation Group Ltd., a Hong Kong-listed company with ties to the PRC’s Communist Youth League. In this context, no Western company could have secured a better partner than the CMA. The association operates 23 mahjong chapters in 20 Chinese provinces. Among its 47,000 members are many high-level busi- ness executives and members of govern- ment, including the head of the China Sports Bureau. CMA Chairman Sheng Qi is credited in the official rule book of the game pub- lished by the China Ministry of Sports and is known affectionately in his homeland as the “Grandfather of Mahjong. Qi said, “We chose Playtech over other potential sponsors as they demonstrated an outstanding knowledge of mahjong, of China and its regulatory framework and had extensive Asian and Chinese support opera- tions already in place.” One of these operations stems from an important licensing agreement Playtech signed back in December with Sino Strate- gic International to provide P2P game con- tent to some 600 SSI arcade venues in and around Shanghai. Playtech and SSI also will be the first major distributors in the People’s Republic of Texas Hold ’Em, the most popular poker game in the world. “This is a significant deal for Playtech and provides the company with an important gateway into a huge developing market,” said CEO Avigur Zmora. “Coupled with our long-term focus to provide the right prod- ucts to the Asian market, this agreement also further diversifies the Group’s geographical reach.” Looking ahead to later this year and Betfair’s inaugural “Asian Poker Tour” in Sin- gapore, it’s instructive to note how the Lon- don-based betting exchange giant used a similar approach to implementing its Far East strategy. Betfair partnered with a com- pany called Capital Events to become the first gambling operator to obtain permission from Singapore to host a poker tournament in the populous city-state. The event is sup- ported by the Singapore Tourist Board and is featured on the board’sWeb site.The APT will be held in November and will be televised internationally. Said Betfair, “It’s an opportunity to raise [the company’s] profile in Asia by working with local partners who understand the sen- sitivities and regulatory restrictions of work- ing in the region.” By James Rutherford, International Editor of In- ternational Gaming &Wagering Business mag- azine. Reprinted with permission from IGWB. Bookmaking giant Ladbrokes spent several months in Beijing sharing its expertise as a consultant to China Sports Lottery Sales and Marketing Co. This led to the launch early last year of the country’s first betting shops — branded “Happy Pools” — offering pools wagering on big- league European football. “While this is a very small step into China it is also an encouraging one,” says CEO Christopher Bell, who be- lieves the country “has the poten- tial to be one of the biggest bet- ting markets in the world,” and one which “Ladbrokes is well prepared to take advantage.”