Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | July 2008 32 49 Shailesh Naik Managing Director, CryptoLogic Asia-Pacific 50 David Briggs CEO, Orchid Sports 48 Aaron Park Executive Director, Paradise Entertainment to Mr Park. Paradise is also the only gaming machine manufacturer to have secured profit sharing agreementswithMacau casino licensees,while other suppliers are restricted to either lease or purchase agreements. A graduate of the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University, Mr Park has developed extensive knowledge of the Macau leisure, real estate and gaming sectors. Previously, he was a partner at ACP Capital, Inc, a private equity investment firm focused on real estate and leisure transactions in Macau and mainland China. Prior to that, he was a Senior Associate at Capital International, a global institutional fund management firm. He has also served at Houlihan Lokey Howard and Zukin as a financial restructuring professional. Mr Naik’s management style is considered more cooperative and of east and west within the betting and gaming sector. Mr Briggs took Ladbrokes away from its core focus on horse racing and football betting to become a “full service” operator, pioneering poker in the European market and leveraging sports sponsorship and online marketing to take the company to the market leading position in the UK. Though a relative newcomer to Asia, Mr Briggs brings a strong pedigree to the region and his influence can already be seen in the step-change in innovation amongst the large Asian operators he has worked with, particularly as branding, customer relationship management and a broader product range beyond just Asian Handicap betting and baccarat are called for. Hong Kong-listed gaming and leisure company Paradise Entertainment operates the world’s largest electronic table casino— the Paradise Entertainment Casino in Macau. Paradise also holds the Macau patent on electronic baccarat terminals based around a live-dealer game. Paradise’sLIVEBaccaratisahybridsystem, with players sat at electronic terminals that process bets on a game dealt by a live dealer. Having a live dealer makes LIVE Baccarat appear “more fair and believable” according A founder and former managing director of Ladbrokes’ online division, Ladbrokes eGaming, Mr Briggs moved to Asia in early 2007. His move surprised the European market and signaled his belief that Asia boasted the greatest online gaming growth potential going forward. Mr Briggs has already worked with some of the biggest online gaming companies in Asia, building a network and reputation that gives him an almost unique position from which to bring together the best Shailesh Naik is representative of a new generation of senior executives in the gaming industry—technical experts with a strong strategic vision. He is currently leading the efforts of award- winning online gaming software provider CryptoLogic to expand into Asia’s nascent markets. CryptoLogic has chosen Singapore as its regional base for this expansion, with aspirations to enter India and other neighbouring markets. Singapore doesn’t specifically ban online gaming, but the industry hopes it will soon issue formal licences to give operators the cachet of association with its respected regulatory system. brainstorming than the hierarchical command and control structures typically associated with larger and more traditional corporations. While this characteristic of many young companies can be lost as a business expands, there are encouraging signs that CryptoLogic will stay true to its roots. In its sales pitch, the company—listed in Toronto, London and New York—stresses content and delivery convergence in online gaming.Successinsucharapidlydeveloping market requires nimble thinking and an equally nimble response. As a product of the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and of Henley Management College in the UK, Mr Naik has the intellectual training to maintain such a deft approach.His practical experience was gained in previous posts at Ernst & Young and Capgemini, and as former Managing Director of Strategy & Operations, Asia, at US-based Cisco Systems, a leading supplier of networking and communications technology.