Here is an interesting thought – for casino companies like the Genting group, internet can be a real expense, with lots of land based venues to link up and online sites to run. The new Genting internet deal which went through this week really highlights just how much of a cost it can be – as they are managing to save £250,000 by switching to Virgin Media.
The group, which runs casinos in London and throughout the rest of the country as well as an online version of the same brand, is rolling out an all fibre network with Virgin Media Business, and the head of IT – Max Lintott – has explained that the deal was incredibly good. Their previous internet providers simply were not strong enough to deal with the demands that they placed on the system, so when they started scouting around for deals in 2011 they received a lot of offers from different internet companies. At £350,000 per annum, the Virgin Media Business quote was forty per cent lower than the next lowest bid that they were given, at £600,000.
“Cable & Wireless were in at one stage, but their costs were prohibitive,” said Lintott. “In the second stage, Virgin Media came in with running costs of some £250,000 per year less than the other two, with no set-up costs. Considering we’d laid 2,000 kilometres of fibre, dug up a lot of roads, gone through a hell of a lot of wayleave, that cost was taken on by Virgin.” Other competitors who threw their hats into the ring included BT and Easynet, but their bids were just not good enough.
“Predominantly, [it carries] our loyalty system data, and our gaming data from live gaming, whether that is the slot machines, electronic roulette or table gaming,” Lintott explained. The system also need to handle data from the business intelligence system, make back ups, and send information about inter-casino tournaments in real time. “We’ve been able to deliver a fibre-optic network for the same price as the previous copper-based network, giving a huge boost to productivity and the customer experience.”