Gambit TVGaming event 11Jan06 report
written by Gareth
Wong
(Founder of Gambit, GamBond,
and CXO
Europe)
Some may argue that TV made poker (both on and off-line) the
success today, some may argue that it is the technology developments
in the broadcast, interactive TV that is giving birth to a
new breed of gaming (from televised poker tournament to participation
keno/ or virtual horse racing), it is without doubt that the
market is constantly evolving and no one knows where all these
may lead us.
It is on this basis that Gambit has organised a fantastic
line up of topnotch speakers from around the world to discuss
key market structure that form the basis of this evolving
market.
Our thanks go to SKY,
our exclusive evening sponsor, and Cass
Business School for hosting this event.
The esteemed panel consisted of (from left to right),
Dominic Dudley (feature editor of NMA), Simon Bazalgette (Exec.
Chairman of Racing UK), Victor Gallo (GM & Director of
Youbet.com), Mikkel Dissing (CEO Founder of Rawflow), and
Gabriele Gresta (Deputy Chairman of Digital Magics).
Despite the fact that the evening was taking place on 11th
January 2006, where most people just got back from their festive
season, with the help of our media partner and various forums,
on the evening, we had just over 80 people attended this fantastic
TVGaming event.
The evening was started by some very interesting and thought
provoking Videos from Gabrielle, as he reported the latest
developments from Italy, where they are already leader in
Europe in mobile usage, the country do seem to have embraced
the true "real-time" interactivity, namely audience
using their webcam at home streaming and uploading their visuals/actions
to be placed/merged into live broadcast!
Indeed, their concept of loft4u.it was fascinating, not only
the promotional video being thought provoking, as it profess
'pro-sumer' using webcam, Internet, mobile and SMS to interact
with the program, and indeed themselves become part of the
content, and hence promote a 'community' development. One
could definitely see a lot of analogy with 'big brother' when
it first burst into the scene, but this alternatively is definitely
much more full on 'interaction'! Real question is that how
could one 'moderate' the live content from people's home to
ensure one's TV broadcast license is NOT jeopardise!?
[Above, where the audience was mesmerised by opportunities
of seeing 3 web-cast being overlaid]
We then came back to ground with Stuart from Tamblin to talk
about the challenges and priority of broadcasters using their
service to launch new services based more on service templates,
rather than bespoke work, as it is now lead-time-to-launch
which is more important within this competitive landscape.
Mikkel highlighted the huge opportunity of P2P IPTV, the
fact that instead of adding up cost by having more users to
view a webcast, with their P2P technology, the broadcasting
cost would be slashed, sometimes even up to 50-80%, does that
mean that everyone and his dog could become a TV broadcaster?
We then had Victor speaking about their pure play pari-mutuel
business focusing on horse racing in US, where they enable
and work with rights owners (mainly race courses) to monetise
their content via online, mobile and IPTV betting services,
they are also at present purchasing other tote business to
achieve further scale.
Simon then explained a different model, where they are part
owned by the rights owner (race courses) and in fact learnt
from the failure of the At the races consortia, where they
now pursue a premium subscription model, where the market
response has been exceptional, and they achieved their subscribers
and revenue level in half the time expected.
We then explored a bit about the business model and state
of regulation regarding to racing in UK and elsewhere.
The question of how IPTV and the low barrier to entry and
how that may affect the bricks and mortar business (rights
owner) was posed, and it would seem that this maybe inevitable,
no one really knows the real answer to that, one could maybe
wait and see how it may turn out in the wheel of fortune.
The evening was ended with wine and canapé, and everyone
seemed to have enjoyed himself or herself, and made some more
new friends at the Gambit event, indeed, at least 20 people
further went to the local bar to further the networking, which
also included some of our key speakers.
Gambit assembled an excellent panel of international speakers
including:
The evening discussion will be chaired by:
Many
thanks for our exclusive sponsor for the evening
Sky  and
your support, the last event on TVGaming was a total success.
Networking after the event:
Even more networking.
TV Gaming Event media partner:
Representatives were registered from
these companies (not a comprehensive list):
TwoWayTV, YooMedia Plc., HomeChoice,
VideoNetworks, Endomel, Royal Bank of Scotland Plc
, Hitwise, Imprint Plc., Heidrick & Struggles, IFX Markets,
Sporting Index, Ovum, Olswang, Hammonds, kirkpatrick &
Lockhart Nicholson Graham, Field Fisher Waterhouse, Globix,
IXEurope, Racing Post, eGaming Review, iGaming Business, BSkyB,
Delloitte, Trident Gaming Plc., TelecomTV, Houses of Parliament,
Tamblin, DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary, Betfair, William Hill,
Ariadne Capital, ITV, Betting Corp., JM Finn, Trident Gaming
Plc., Kingston Communication, Cantor Gaming, NMK, Ritz Club
London Online, Critical EYE, IPC Media, Wagerlogic, Goldman
Sachs, Flytxt, Metacharge, Post Office, Fun Technologies Plc.,
William Reed Publishing, Remote Gambling Association, E-ComLaw,
Casino Life, ATE Clarion, mformobile, Fujitsu, Wireless World
Forum, National Lottery Commission, IMPAQ, etc. etc.
Biographies of speakers at the TVGaming event:
SIMON BAZALGETTE (EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN) Racing UK
Simon Bazalgette was appointed Executive Chairman of Racing
UK in June 2004. Between 1999 and 2003 he was Chief Executive
of Music Choice Europe plc, a joint venture between BSkyB,
Time Warner and Sony. Music Choice is a pioneering interactive
music service broadcast through digital satellite, cable and
broadband, and in 2001 launched one of the most advanced interactive
TV applications to be rolled out on the Sky platform.
Simon led the flotation of Music Choice on the London Stock
Exchange in 2000. He was one of the founding directors of
Music Choice in 1993, initially as Director of Strategy &
Business Affairs, and from 1996 as Director of Sales &
Marketing. During his time with the company, he rolled out
the Music Choice service to over 14 million subscribers across
Europe.
While at Music Choice Simon was co-founder and is a past
President of the European Digital Media Association, which
plays a key role in promoting the importance of digital media
to regulators in Brussels and the national governments in
the members of the EU.
Between 1984 and 1993 Simon worked at KPMG, qualifying as
a chartered accountant in 1986, and specialising in media
finance from 1988. In 1990 he was appointed Manager of KPMG's
Media Consulting division, and his clients included a wide
range of national and international media companies.
Victor Gallo, GM of Youbet Nevada
joined Youbet.com, Inc. (UBET) in March 2003 as General Counsel.
In July 2004 Gallo was tapped to lead UBET into the Nevada
gaming market and now is responsible, as well, for UBET’s
business development and growth. Gallo is responsible for
UBET's acquisition of International Racing Group (IRG) and
the pending acquisition of United Tote. Gallo has also lead
and run IRG since it's acquisition by UBET.
Prior to joining UBET, Gallo worked for slot machine manufacturer
Konami Gaming, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of the international
amusement-game industry giant, Konami Corporation, in Las
Vegas, Nevada as Vice President, Legal and Compliance and
Corporate Counsel.
Gallo received his bachelor of science degree from the University
of Southern California and his juris doctor from the University
of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law. He is a member of
the bar of the State of California and is registered to practice
before the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Gallo
is versed in all aspects of intellectual property and antitrust
litigation, and the transactional aspects of patents, trademarks,
copyrights, Internet law, gaming law and intellectual property
licensing.
Gallo has taught seminars and CLE courses on a number of
intellectual property and gaming law topics and has authored
several intellectual property articles.
Chris Brown, Director of New Media Gaming, Sportech Plc.
Chris Brown was appointed Director of New Media Gaming
in July 2005. He is responsible for Sportech’s betting
and gaming businesses through all existing channels of distribution,
including landline and mobile telephone, Internet and IDTV
via SKY, AtTheRaces and ITV.
He was previously Director of Non-Retail and Information
Services for StanleyBet, a division of Stanley Leisure plc.
Gabriel Gresta is Deputy Chairman of Digital Magics Group
and President of Bibop Research, the TV company of the
group engaged in the development of new interactive formats
for broadband TV and participation TV. Born in Terni in 1971,
Gresta began to work at a young age in the software field.
At the age of 15 Gresta was already Director of Software
Development in a multinational company (Alpha Center in Arezzo)
and at 16 he created the first superlearning system in Alpha.
Not having yet turned 20, after various technical internships
in the UK, US and Australia, he unleashed his musical creativity
making the most of the digital revolution brought about by
computers. At the same time he continued his activity of consulting
for Italian and international software societies.
Passionately fond of music, Gabriele Gresta experienced the
first interactions between art and technology with the Mato
Grasso project: digital rap music. It reached first place
in the dance parade in Italy with 6 European hits and an album.
Later, he ended up on television as presenter, author and
producer of hugely successful programs on national channels
such as Tmc 2 and MTV Italy. Between his usual activities
he presents programs and live events, coordinates Telecom
Italia's communication linked to special events and brings
the concept of Infotainment to life.
In 1995 he founded Bibop Research one of the most important
crossmedia agencies that realizes events and projects of interactive
communication online and offline. In the meanwhile, Bibop
Research followed very important projects such as: the realization
of the portale Mediaset (Mol), the production of format "2008"
for Italia 1, Futurshow 2002 for Telecom Italy, Tim Tour 2002.
In January 2001, he held a speech on the role of young intellectual
leaders in Conference Room One at the United Nations in New
York in a conference about "Intellectual leaders striving
for the stable development of mankind".
Since January 2003, Gresta was engaged in ideation and production
of Alice Live, the first example of interactive web TV on
www.rossalice.it by Telecom Italia. As an expert on new technologies,
he is a speaker of various conventions and seminaries.
At the beginning of 2004, he founded together with Enrico
Gasperini, Digital Magics Group a digital media company focused
on the conception, production and distribution of interactive
crossmedia contents, events and original formats for different
technological platforms: Broadband, mobile, DTT, DVD, i-TV
and broadcast.
Mikkel Kjeld Dissing, CEO, Rawflow Ltd.
Mikkel is responsible for all sales and marketing activities.
Mikkel has more than 7 years of experience in IT management
roles. He has worked for companies such as Touch Clarity,
an eCRM software house, GNR the registry for the new TLD .NAME
and Codan agentura an online travel agency with head offices
in Prague. Prior to these positions Mikkel was managing director
for Imperial Derby which is a 500 man strong refrigeration
company in Zimbabwe in which he was responsible for rolling
out new product and services to the South African market with
an annual revenue generation of £15 mill. Mikkel has
successfully created business growth in very different and
very competitive markets, and brings with him extensive sales
and business development skills.
Dominic Dudley is Features Edior of New Media Age,
the leading weekly magazine covering business issues in the
internet, mobile and interactive TV industries. He has been
covering the UK's new media industry for more than six years,
at both NMA and before that as Editor of New Media Investor,
including the rapid rise of the gambling and gaming sector.
Our last event was in Sept05, it was a
total success, promoted for less than 3 weeks, we had over
70 people turned up for the event. See the report on the last
Skill Gaming
event.
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