Well, it’s sure tough at the top if Gala Bingo’s Neil Goulden is anything to go by. Whilst everyone has been waxing lyrical about how online bingo continues to boom in the face of the ongoing financial crisis, it seems the head honcho at Gala Coral has faced one of his worst years ever. Speaking in an interview in the Telegraph, Goulden stated the last 12 months has seen him face numerous battles, professionally and personally, including a 50 week restructure of the Gala company, a marriage breakdown and finding himself £10million out of pocket. Not surprisingly, Goulden dubbed it his “year from hell.”
As he explained, the crisis saw him bear a huge brunt of responsibility and face the consequences of a less than satisfactory company performance, especially amongst Gala Bingo’s offline operation – “There were so many stakeholders and there was so much at risk. Eighteen thousand employees. So it was a huge burden. It cost me my marriage as well, so there you go. I separated from my wife in the middle of it. I think she’d had enough. Really tough.”
Whilst online bingo operators like Wink Bingo have seemed to conveniently side stepped most of the problems of the recession, offline bingo took a massive hit, coupled with a downturn in revenues following the smoking ban and some nasty surprises regarding gaming legislation and gaming tax. However, in true fighter style, it seems Goulden is determined that Gala Bingo comes back bigger and better, with a strategy based on ” a value price strategy. It’s the Asda approach. Everyday low prices.”
And this is where we obviously began thinking. Whether or not a company is recession proof does not necessarily lie in it’s short term balance sheet. It’s about long term thinking, and being able to restructure – however painfully – to be able to come back fighting. As Gala Bingo look to try and tempt their database of around 1.5 million to get back to some eyes down action, we think some failing online bingo operators could learn a thing or two from Goulden and his team.
In the cut-throat world of online bingo, we have a sneaky suspicion that more online bingo companies are going to have fight that little bit harder to survive and find their way back to success. Online bingo is still in it’s infancy, and although Foxy Bingo may have been around for 6 years, that doesn’t mean that much when you compare it to companies like Gala. Luckily, plenty of operators have opted for cushioning their profits by consolidating. Thus we see things like the acquisition of Wink Bingo and Posh Bingo by 888Ladies’ parent company 888 Holdings, as well as the continuing expansion of Cashcade’s empire, which now includes Foxy Bingo, Cheeky Bingo, Think Bingo and now Rollover Bingo. But there are plenty lessons in learning how to come back leaner and meaner – and for this reason we think the online bingo world may wish to take a few examples from Gala Bingo and keep them in mind for when times start to get tougher.
