Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | September 2010 32 25 (19) Tan Soo Nan Chief Executive Tote Board, Singapore 26 (-) David Punter General Manager Asia Pacific Aristocrat Technologies An important question for Tan Soo Nan is whether the opening in Singapore of two integrated casino resorts this year with their world class gaming products will eat into theTote Board’s revenues. An early clue may come from the Singapore government’s budget estimates for financial year 2010. It calculates that income from duties on betting and sweepstakes (i.e. Tote Board products) will increase by 25% to S$1.75 billion (US$1.29 billion), while income from private lottery duties will fall five percent to S$323 million. Casino gaming duty is itemised separately as ‘betting duty’and estimated at S$2.07 billion (US$1.53 billion) for the year. Singapore’s Tote Board was set up in 1988 and holds the legal right to operate horse racing and totalisator (pari-mutuel) betting operations through its agent and proprietary organisation, the Singapore Turf Club. Tote Board also runs Singapore’s popular 4D David Punter was appointed in December tothekeyroleofGeneralManagerAsiaPacific for Aristocrat Technologies, the dominant supplier of slot machine technology in the regional market. In his new role, he has the vital task of developing strategies to ensure Aristocrat stays market leader through sustainable growth. His early experience in Australia of gaming floor management prior to joining Aristocrat means he has valuable insight into the industry from an operator’s perspective. One key strategyMr Punter must execute in his new role is to deliver a greater quantity of products to Asia Pacific markets by customising the extensive library of games Aristocrat has developed in the United States. He stresses, however, that doesn’t mean taking the US product and simply dropping it in to the regional markets. Under his regional leadership, Aristocrat is continuing and developing a policy of listening very carefully to operators and players and giving them what they want. A key plank of that policy included a series of seminars for operators held at G2E Asia in lotteries drawn at weekends, along with Singapore Sweep and football betting through its agent and wholly-owned subsidiary, Singapore Pools (Private) Limited. The latter was acquired by Tote Board in 2004. Tote Board manages the operational surplus generated from the operations of Singapore Turf Club and Singapore Pools to fund Singapore community projects. One of those projects is a public awareness campaign on problem gambling. The government’s budget estimates for 2010 imply that Singaporeans and Singapore residents who bet on horse racing and the 4D lottery are a discrete group from those gambling in the integrated resorts. That suggests the government’s primary motive for imposing the S$100 per day or S$2,000 per year casino entry fee on locals is to deter middle class players from overindulging a casino gambling habit, rather than to prevent cannibalisation of the Tote Board’s revenue. A longer term challenge for Tote Board could be maintaining the popular appeal of its core horse racing product. There’s certainly a perception among some gaming analysts that horse racing in general is struggling to attract to young people and is in some kind of long term decline across the Asia Pacific region. But as the experience of the Hong Kong Jockey Club also shows, traditional totes that retain political support have the opportunity to diversify into other betting products with great contemporary appeal. Asian Gaming 50 – 2010 Macau this June. The development of FA FA FA, Aristocrat’s highly successful Asian link slot product, several years ago was a direct result of close consultation with operators. Mr Punter says the value of this strategy in maintaining market leadershipwasprovenby thenumber of rival suppliers that followed Aristocrat in releasing Asian link products. Successful leadership involves appropriate policy innovation as well as execution of proven policies. To that end, Mr Punter will be looking to add value to the broad principles set down last year by Aristocrat Leisure’s incoming Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Jamie Odell. Those principals are: for Aristocrat to be player led and technology driven; to have the best games and systems; to be in the right markets and right segments; and to have world-class organisation. “Our staff work very closely with the operators to get to know their business. We like to celebrate our mutual success with our clients and we get excited when a new product is well accepted in a casino and performs well,” Mr Punter told Inside Asian Gaming recently. After graduating from university in Newcastle, New South Wales, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce majoring in marketing, Mr Punter worked in the hotel industry, including gaming room management—at the time when slot machine gaming first came into the hotel industry in that state. Realising more gaming industry opportunities would be available in nearby Sydney, Mr Punter applied for and was accepted on Aristocrat’s sales cadet programme. About a year into that two-year programme, he was appointed marketing manager for the whole of New South Wales—a major market in Australia with more than 100,000 machines mainly in pubs and clubs. Mr Punter was in that post for three years, and then moved into a sales role in metropolitan Sydney working with some large clubs andhotel groups. He thenworked his way up to become Marketing Director, Asia Pacific, for Aristocrat Technologies Australia before being promoted to his current post.