Chris Sheffield warns of "challenging year" for UK market
Former Betfred Digital MD says impact of PoC will see some operators "hit problems"
UK-facing operators face a “challenging year” following the onset of the Point of Consumption (PoC) tax, according to former Betfred Digital MD Chris Sheffield, who believes the industry needs to do more to “tone down” TV advertising.
Speaking to eGaming Review after being appointed MD of interactive at US racetrack and casino group Penn National earlier this week, Sheffield said PoC would see some operators “begin to hit problems”.
“It’s going to be a challenging year and I think we will see peoples’ revenues not grow like they have been doing over the last few years,” Sheffield said.
“There is also the election and what might happen to the high street, especially with FOBTs, and all of the noise that is being generated around advertising,” he added.
Sheffield said that during his last few months in the UK marketing strategies had become “too much” and said the sector wasn’t “doing itself too many favours” if wanted to be seen as a more responsible industry.
“If you watch a football game, God knows how many gambling adverts are on there, or watch daytime TV and it’s all bingo, which is slots driven as well. I don’t think the industry is doing itself too many favours by being so brash with it, and I hope the Senet Group is going to tone things down,” he said.
After leaving Betfred in July, Sheffield said he received a number of offers from European gaming firms but his move stateside was “a bit of a David Beckham scenario” in that he didn’t want to work for a firm that competed against his former employer.
“I absolutely loved working for Betfred, Fred [Done, owner] in particular, and I didn’t really want to get into a model where I would be competing with them.
“The European market is pretty well defined right now and for me it’s not as exciting as it was due to all the challenges of PoC and some of the other things that have the potential to happen this year,” he said.
“What really excited me about America is that it’s new market that is growing slowly, but if it does get there is has the potential to be huge. It is a massive challenge with the opportunity for me to learn a lot.”
Penn National operates 26 gaming facilities across 17 US states, including Nevada, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and is one of the largest operators yet to enter the regulated US egaming industry.
While Nevada and New Jersey have regulated egaming, Pennsylvania has yet to make progress despite two poker-only bills being introduced to the legislature last year.