People news 27/09/12
A round up of industry moves from the last week (21 September to 27 September 2012).
Andy Wright confirmed as Ladbrokes trading director
Former Betclic Everest sportsbook director is joined by Oddschecker founder Tony Robinson, who will take charge of trading strategy.
Former Betclic Everest sportsbook director Andy Wright has been confirmed as Ladbrokes’ new trading director.
Wright, who will report directly to chief executive Richard Glynn when he takes up his role next month, had been in talks with the operator since last month and is tasked with driving the London-listed company’s ongoing trading improvement programme.
He had spent little over a year with Betclic Everest, joining the French operator in June 2011, initially as group trading director before taking over as sportsbook director in August last year. Previously he spent more than a year at Stan James including a six-month spell as managing director.
His appointment comes three months after former head of trading Jon Thompson was dismissed for alleged “gross misconduct for failures to follow company procedure” having served less than two years in the role.
Dan Phillips to take over at Virtue Fusion
Recent departures mean only a handful of original employees prior to Playtech’s acquisition of bingo software business remain.
Former Cyberarts and Fertitta Interactive European managing director Dan Phillips will take over the operation of Virtue Fusion in the wake of Aaron Johnson’s resignation, eGR understands, with only two members of the original team remaining following Playtech’s takeover in February 2010.
Phillips, who is currently on leave following his departure from Fertitta “ that acquired the Cyberarts poker platform in October last year “ will take over from Johnson who had been with Playtech and its major shareholder Teddy Sagi for nine years.
eGR learned earlier this week that Johnson is understood to have recently “fallen out” with Sagi, however the supplier is thought to be preparing to offer the highly regarded executive a more lucrative position in order to retain his services.
Seven days in people moves:
Full Tilt’s Burtnick pleads guilty
Former Full Tilt Poker director of payments Nelson Burtnick has pleaded guilty to several offences including bank fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to commit unlawful internet gambling, the United States Attorney’s Office has confirmed.
Canadian citizen Burtnick, who held an equivalent role at PokerStars before joining Full Tilt, pleaded guilty before US Magistrate Judge Gabriel W Gorenstein, admitting also to what the USAO has described as “Gambling offenses in connection with a scheme to deceive banks into processing hundreds of millions of dollars of Internet gambling transactions.”
According to various sources, Burtnick told the magistrate “I knew what I did was wrong,” adding that “We had to do this type of deception to enable U.S. poker players to load their accounts.”
Passoker founder launches fixed odds sports betting and online slots
Passoker founder and managing director Stuart Carr has launched a new venture, Reel Sports, which will feature fixed odds sports betting and online slot games.
The new platform will include Reel Football “ a slot game featuring licensed FA Cup content and commentary from England footballer and Passoker partner Viv Anderson “ and the incident-based roulette-style game Racing Riches.
Carr said the launch is designed to complement the existing Passover offering, which allows players to bet on the occurrence of incidents during live televised sporting events.
The Rank Group has announced the appointment of Shaa Wasmund to the board as a non-executive director, to take effect from 1 November, while Bill Shannon will stand down from the board on 31 December, having joined in April 2006.
Former Instant Bank senior sales manager Christian Maglia has rejoined Wirex after nine months of experience in the payment industry, to help drive international sales and business development for the Italian egaming software provider. Maglia previously spent more than two years with Wirex as business development manager, having earlier held a similar role with Globet.