Everything is changing at one of the biggest casino companies in the UK, as the planned Betfair shake up has seen a large number of staff changes over the past week or so. The first to feel the axe was Peter Marcus, the UK director who was brought in from rivals William Hill just fourteen months ago in order to lead the poker and casino sites as well as the sports exchange. He was in charge of operations that accounted for more than half of Betfair’s revenues, but one can only speculate that his performance simply was not good enough due to the decision to remove him from the team.
The changes may well be the mark of new Chief Executive Breon Corcoran throwing his weight around and proving that he means business, as Corcoran only joined the company in August after leaving Paddy Power. Along with Marcus, a further fifty members of staff working in the translation section were laid off, which is indicative perhaps of a shift in strategy as they go forwards with their online poker casinos. Corcoran is expected to announce the conclusions that he has reached during a strategic review of the business on December 13, and it is likely that it will pull out of offering internet casinos in some areas.
A statement from the company said that “We are concentrating more on some countries than others,” adding that they were to reduce the number of languages available in areas like Asia, eastern Europe, and Nordic locations in order to pay more attention to countries that are seen as “more strategically attractive”. They have already withdrawn the ability for Germans to make sports bets through their site due to the fact that the authorities demanded a five per cent turnover tax there, something which they described as “unviable”. They may yet pull out of German business completely as only a small number of operations remain there, with analysts speculating that it is time to cut costs. When compared to rivals Paddy Power, it is clear that they are seeing less revenue.
