The Golden Nugget Prepares to go Virtual

• Published: September 4, 2013
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The famous Golden Nugget Casino has decided to go virtual, and in an effort to provide the best quality online gambling to their customers they already began their recruiting campaign. Landry's Inc., the company that owns Golden Nugget Casinos, has announced the name of their latest hire, Thomas Winter.

For those of you who have not heard the name, Thomas Winter, 39, is the former head of Betclic Ltd., a Gibraltar based online gambling operator. Winter will be running Golden Nugget's online business and is already involved in the initial stages of development for their online gambling website.

Golden Nugget Casino plans to begin offering online gambling services in New Jersey and Nevada this year, so Winter has arrived at a stressful time for the company and the new project. However, Steve Scheinthal, executive vice president and general counsel for Landry's Inc. believes that Winter is a perfect match for the job.

Winter's resume includes four years at Betclic as chief operating officer, and then vecame the chief executive officer. Winter played a significant role in the company's revenue expansion from $20 million to $200 million in three years. He then moved to the Scandinavian firm Expekt.com when it merged with Betclic. Winter will come on board as vice president of online gaming, and Scheinthal believes that this move will enable the company to start offering online gambling services even sooner than planned.

Landry's will also be partnering with the reputable Bally Technologies Inc. to provide online gaming products and general support. Scheinthal explained that as a US casino operator they are looking for insights from European executives since they have been working in an industry that is legally established in 10 countries. Bally Technologies Inc. and Thomas Winter will bring full European online gambling expertise to the table. “They had the experience with gaming in Europe and we didn’t want to do business with someone who will compete against us here,” Scheinthal said.

The current introduction of legalized online gambling in the US has set the stage for US and European collaborations. Scheinthal believes that this merge will turn out profitable and will reform the online gambling industry at a global level. “The Europeans are the only companies with real-money gaming online expertise on any scale -- yet the U.S. gaming operators have the gaming licenses, customer data bases and local knowledge,” he said.

Are you looking forward to the Golden Nugget online? Don't worry, we will keep you updated on whether the final product is worth your while.