Gala Coral Group's involvement in the UK casino industry stretches back only seven years, but it now regularly welcomes 3.5 million people through its doors and has rapidly grown to become the nation's third-largest casino operator in terms of sites.
It all started in 1997 when a management buy-in purchased 130 Gala Bingo clubs from Bass and soon grew the business to become the UK's largest bingo operation. In 2000, the renamed Gala Group made its first move into the casino sector with the acquisition of 26 Ladbrokes Casinos from the Hilton Group.
This established Gala's position within the high-volume, low-stake sector of the gaming market before merging with Coral Eurobet in 2005 to become Gala Coral and create one of the top 100 companies in the UK.
Private equity firms Candover and Cinven acquired the company in 2003 with a third investor, Permira, buying a stake in
2005. Gala Coral then acquired Coral Eurobet in a deal that saw the company become Europe's largest integrated betting and gaming company, with a presence in licensed betting offices, bingo clubs, and casinos alongside a strong multimedia offering.
The nation's second-largest private business, Barking-based Gala Coral Group now owns 31 casinos located throughout the country, with one in Gibraltar run through its Gala Casino division, alongside 171 clubs and nearly 1,600 licensed betting offices.
"It was always Gala's idea as a business to become a gaming business rather than just a bingo business," said Gala Casino's Managing Director Nick Potter. "This meant having a good foothold in the UK casino market as well as a very good foothold in betting along with the international and online scenes. We now have a large predominant brand in all of these sectors, but the first step in this process was to acquire some casinos.
"In addition, deregulation in the UK casino industry was in its infancy at that time, and was clearly going to have benefits for the industry, but the longer-term vision was to get to where we are now, with Gala Coral having a foot in every part of gaming."
While Gala is interested in expanding its casino operation, the recent failure of Parliament to pass parts of the Gambling Act 2005 means that 17 new licenses proposed under the Act have been put on hold. Instead, all operators continue to adhere to the criteria of previous 1968 legislation, which permits only a set number of casinos without the provision for any additional licenses.
"Today, there are no more licenses operating under the 1968 legislation that we can apply for," explained Potter. "The only opportunity to grow in the interim is through acquiring existing casinos, but obviously there is a limit to how far this can go, as there aren't millions of casinos out there that we can acquire."
Most recently, Gala acquired the Leo Casino in Liverpool, but, as a long-term strategy, it is eagerly awaiting passage of the 17 additional licenses proposed earlier by the government.
"We will be applying for as many of the large licenses as we can when they become available, and we will be looking to grow our existing estate through acquisitions, however limiting this may be in the short term," stated Potter.
Gala said that its casinos, which represent 25 percent of total UK admissions, are different from other operators', in that they are constructed using a zoned approach, where different areas have been designed to appeal to differing clientele.
"We recognise that, within the population that visits a casino, there are a variety of different types of customers," said Potter. "There really is a very broad spectrum of customers with differing reasons why they are coming. So, for a site to work really well, we believe that it has to have a variety of different types of offers within the casino.
"We have a number of different zones, featuring different types of products, targeting different types of customers with
varying categories of service. We have a broad offer that really meets everybody rather than us being a niche type of place for only the high spenders."
Gala's Club Lounge areas are soft-seat, modern-looking zones, featuring plasma televisions showing sports with a minimum of 16 and up to 32 tabletop roulette screens offering a variety of games.
"This area appeals to the customer who comes out with some friends, whether it be a stag night, a birthday party, or similar, and wants to be more social," noted Potter.
Gala's Slots Zones feature 20 Jackpot machines, the maximum allowed under UK law, alongside up to 40 screens offering games using the same single-platform technology featured in its Club Lounges.
"A lot of people are now doing this in the UK, but we were really the first to get a good quality zone featuring all of our slot machines that were built very much for slot machine players," he continued.
Gala's casinos also feature Table Zones with gaming tables, the new Epernay Top Table Zones with tables designed for high rollers, and the Air Lounge, a heated outdoor area for smokers.
Gala's Poker Magic zones feature screened-off areas for 60 to 150 players behind moveable glass walls designed to mimic the look and feel of playing poker on television. Dealers are provided, and Gala said that these areas have the effect of encouraging players to have a go even though they may be new to the game.
"These areas make players feel welcome and allow them to learn the great game of poker," explained Potter. "A lot of our competitors' cardrooms are just rooms with card tables that seem to also double as a function room, whereas Poker Magic feels very different. It feels like a different design from the rest of the casino, as a clear area in its own right, to create a feeling of being on television playing poker."
Gala said that its casinos each run their own regular poker tournaments, with Edinburgh's Maybury casino being one of the nation's best, but that when it comes to being on television, Bristol was the place to be in November.
The final of its first Great British Poker Tour (GBPT) took place at its Poker Magic zone in Bristol, and will be featured on the UK's ITV 4 terrestrial channel at a later date. After starting in April, the GBPT featured a number of satellites, with players also able to qualify online at Gala Coral's coralpoker.com and eurobetpoker.com sites.
"We are very proud of the GBPT, as it went brilliantly well," enthused Potter. "There was some great feedback, with lots of interest from customers who participated either in person or online, and we will certainly hope to do it bigger and better for next year."
Tournaments and the game of poker itself are very important to Gala as they create an interest in the public that can be further nurtured and cultivated for long-term success.
"I want to be part of bringing poker to ordinary people, as I think that this hasn't been the case traditionally or historically," Potter posited. "The offers, particularly in UK casinos going back through the years, have not been great. We have historically not been good at looking after new customers who never played before. I believe that Gala has now really got that right."
