Betfair places its bets on new CTO

Betfair will focus on offering gambling services via mobile

Following a six-month search for a chief technology officer (CTO), online gambling firm Betfair hopes to use the experience of recently hired IT veteran Tony McAlister to support the company’s international expansion.

Since previous CTO Rorie Devine left the company in May last year, responsibility for IT project delivery was shared by IS director Tony Rigby and development director Tony Stansfield, while the company looked for a replacement.

In September, McAlister – who was looking for a job after having left US-based mobile content provider Motricity – was contacted by Betfair, but the lack of familiarity with the sector was initially a little off-putting.

“I have never been in the gambling business before and I am not that much of a gambler myself. I play a little blackjack and poker and have been on a horse race once in my life and picked a horse because I liked its name,” said McAlister.

“Initially, I was not really sure if that’s what I would like to do. But later, as I found out more about what Betfair wanted do with technology and how they wanted to take the business forward, I was absolutely amazed,” he told Computing.

After an intensive period of research on the company and a meeting with chief executive David Yu, McAlister was convinced that Betfair would be a perfect match for his 30-year experience in systems development, web and mobile, which included launching the data service Vodafone Live across Europe (see career path, below).

“I am already pretty familiar with the typical challenges that internet companies face. The fact that David had been a CTO previously was also very compelling to me and when I met him, we hit it off very well and we spoke the same language, being both technology guys but also very strong technology-minded people,” he said.

“After that meeting, I knew that was the job I wanted. I had other options, but having tried to take companies with very strong tech focus and grow them to become huge global brands, I though this was my once-in-a-lifetime chance to achieve that goal.”

In early November, McAlister received the job offer from the gambling firm, along with two other propositions from firms in the US and Germany, all on the same day.

He started the new job on 19 January, with a mission of getting on to the ground and learning about the business as quickly as possible.

“My initial brief was to take was what used to be a UK-focused company and leverage what I had done at Vodafone to turn this into a global company. Most of that is from an technology aspect but in a company like this, the technology is the business,” said McAlister.

“That is challenging, but a lot of foundation work has been done before my arrival, which is going to make the process a little bit easier. The idea is to spread the architecture and the technology around the globe where regulations will permit and make Betfair a destination workplace,” he said.

Understanding the business priorities, as well as regulatory issues surrounding the expansion plan, is more of a challenge for the new CTO than learning the details of the gambling business.

“Being able to work in different jurisdictions is something I am used to, but I’ve got to learn about Betfair’s business. David and the executive team knew that from the start, but I think the things that attracted them to me was to have someone who would have a much more objective view than somebody coming from the gaming industry would have," said McAlister.

“My background fits very well with what the business is trying to do – the particularities of the gaming industry is something that our experts can teach me,” he said

“What I bring to the table is being used to manage volume transaction systems, global organisations, disparate technologies and multiple vendors.”

As a reflection of McAlister’s background, the IT agenda at Betfair over the next couple of years will have a strong emphasis on mobile customer-facing technology, as well as structural enhancements to the firm’s core exchange platform to accommodate international growth.

Because of differences in gambling regulations worldwide, the firm’s intention is to carry out the platform overhaul ahead of legal changes in countries where it does not have a presence.

“We need to create a platform that can go easily into those countries and products and services can be turned on and off based on what’s legal. Right now, that’s not as easy to do as I want it to be,” said McAlister.

“The idea is to develop a ‘Betfair in a box’ system that can be rapidly deployed. Our goal is to be able to expand into new countries when regulations start falling – I don’t want the US rules to change, for example, and have to take a year developing systems,” he said.

“I will use regulations as my friend – I don’t need to be in certain markets right now, but I am going to build as if I were, so we are ready when the time comes.”

McAlister’s team will also be working on adapting the core platform to allow the business to open up its exchange to the mainstream public in addition to the existing services for professional customers.

Most of Betfair’s development is carried out in-house with the support of a facility in Romania, but the platform overhaul will require a re-organisation of the firm’s staffing resource and vendor network as the company focuses on proprietary work.

“There’s some intellectual capital that Betfair has and some unique differentiators that we can’t buy anywhere. Having said that, there is no need to spend those valuable cycles on what makes us different, on something I could easily buy,” said McAlister.

“So my goal will be to reach out to the typical vendors that we know and deal with, as well as some other vendors in the outskirts and find out who’s doing things that could be helpful to us. ” he said.

“I want to be much more prescriptive about how to spend my money. Vendors are not selling a lot of products right now but I am willing to buy if it’s for a good price and if I know I am going to need that in the long term.”

Part of the globalisation process at Betfair involves hiring more staff. The company is not forecasting any staff cuts and wants to hire more experts to support the priorities of its IT agenda and equip in-house workers with business skills.

“The tech folks are some of the smartest people in the business and are often ignored – you have an immense amount of brain power sitting in a department and they are overlooked because people don’t understand them or what they say, they just know that they’re needed,” said McAlister.

“I want to leverage on that because they are smart and their opinions are very valid. So I am pushing staff on the ground at Betfair to start thinking about this as a business proposition, not just as a technology problem."

More outsourcing may also be in the horizon. McAlister is “a huge fan of flexible staffing” and will look at the model to support the firm’s growth objectives and to address peaks of demand or for the temporary provision of specific skills.

People management will be one of the CTO’s core focus areas as the company wants to expand worldwide.

“We need to have a view of the global experience from a customer standpoint of how other markets would deal with gambling online, so having people from different cultures within the team is very valuable,” said McAlister.

“We want make this a destination workplace, not just in the UK or Europe, but I want to hire the top global talent,” he said.

While keeping the show on the road, McAlister’s main leadership challenges will be related to learning about the business while managing technology plans carefully.

“Regulation in the gambling industry is not something I am used to dealing with. The rules are much tighter than in other industries I have ever worked in, so I have to get my head around them to create an application that will allow us to move into new markets while meeting the regulatory requirements,” he said.

McAlister’s experience of running IT departments during the rise and fall of the dot com era will be valuable when making decisions in his current job.

“It is all about being prudent about the decisions you make and understand that, regardless of how successful you may be today, that can change in a moment’s notice and the issues may be beyond your control,” he said.

“That is something the whole world is currently experiencing but fortunately, Betfair is a very strong business. We are using much of our experience from the dot com bust and taking prudent steps on how we deal with the recession, unlike some of the hell-bent for leather attitude seen back in 2000.”

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