Online gambling comings and goings

News on 17 Nov 2011

With 2011 drawing to a close there are management moves afoot at Mfuse, Centrebet and Bwin.party digital.

Starting at Mfuse, marketing ace Andrew Pegler is leaving the mobile technology company after just seven months in the business development director hot seat. According to his Linked In profile, Pegler set up his own mobile consultancy a month ago, making his considerable experience with large companies in the industry like Chartwell, Jadestone, GamArena and BSkyB more widely available.

His duties, which included business opportunity identification, evaluation, analysis and implementation, commercial negotiation and project management have been taken over by Mfuse chief executive, Geoff Read.

Pegler’s departure follows that of co-founder and former chief executive officer Marcus Wakeham, who has set up a consultancy business in London

Strong street rumour has it that Bwin.party digital has followed up its online poker deal with US giants MGM and Boyd Gaming with the appointment of Michael O’Malley to the senior post of project director for the venture, with particular emphasis on the marketing function.

Subject to the legalisation of online poker in the US, the three companies have some ambitious plans to get in on the ground floor of American regulated internet poker.

O’Malley certainly has all the qualifications after an impressive management career with Party and Bwin as Director of Poker in the merged group, and prior to that as the director of VIP marketing for Party Poker. It is understood that he will also hold management responsibility for the group’s poker events department going forward.

Centrebet has seen two marketing execs depart, the first being CRM manager Daniel Hillege, who left two months ago to start his own Sydney-based internet gambling consultancy. During his two or more years with the Australian betting company, Hillege was responsible for retention, campaign development, implementation and evaluation, SEO, website functioning and customer service liaison.

Also on the way out into “semi-retirement” (if one is to believe his latest tweets) this month is Centrebet’s marketing chief and surfer extraordinaire Luke Brill after almost five years of senior management service in charge of all marketing aspects at the company.

Brill is far too energetic an executive to remain at ease for long, so expect his respected name to surface in some other high profile industry post in the not-too-distant future.

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