What is iGaming? And why should you care who’s top dog in the industry? Stay along, dear reader, as we pop the lid off this skyrocketing field and find out who’s laughing all the way to the bank (and oh how we wish it was us instead…).
What Is iGaming?
First cab off the rank is to explain iGaming. No, it’s not Apple’s new gaming platform — although that does sound pretty neat. iGaming is the friendly-sounding field of online gambling. It’s betting online.
So that includes the gamut of gambling activities you can do online; we’re talking from sports betting, to playing the slots, fantasy football, poker, blackjack, and a billion other casino games, coin flipping, and even betting on who’s going to win this season of Big Brother.
It’s not quite gaming, it’s definitely gambling, but because it’s called iGaming it doesn’t have those negative connotations that may be associated with gambling — or it tries seriously hard not too.
So now that you know iGaming = online gambling, we can investigate who the major players in the industry are — and who their CEOs are. Let’s see who’s winning big off our winnings (and losses).
To see who’s on top, we will take into consideration things such as revenue, number of employees and year over year growth. Before 2019, the world’s three largest iGaming companies were International Game Technology PLC, GVC Holdings PLC, and bet365. However, #1 has now been knocked off the top spot by Flutter Entertainment Plc (formerly Paddy Power Betfair), after a series of acquisitions.
Flutter Entertainment Plc CEO: Jeremy Peter Jackson
Despite the name, this Peter Jackson is no Lord of the Rings hero, simply an online gambling conglomerate businessman. The British businessman goes by the name of Peter Jackson, or J Peter Jackson usually, dropping the Jeremy for who knows what reason.
This CEO has an undergrad degree from Cambridge and has served as CEO of Travelex, Managing Director of Consumer Banking at Lloyds, the Head of Corporate Innovation and as Chief Innovation Officer at Banco Santander, as well as Company Director of a string of other companies.
Jackson joined Flutter in 2018, after the then-CEO (of Paddy-Power Betfair as it was still known at the time) Breon Corcoran stepped down.
Jackson was born in 1975, making him a relatively young CEO, particularly as he heads a $4.6 billion iGaming empire. In his first year at the head of the company, it was reported that he took home a €2 million package, including salary plus bonus. A third of that bonus was divested into shares in the company instead of being given in a dollar form.
With Flutter expanding into the US market, now that sports betting is scaling up across the country, it only means more growth for the company, and we’re sure that Jackson couldn’t be happier.
You can follow the Flutter CEO on Twitter at @jpeterjackson, where he spends time retweeting important iGaming news from his companies, regulators, and market watchers, plus his own market interests and some personal bits and pieces. His bio reads: “CEO @flutterplc NED @airescore Tech investor Member @ypo Supporter @Pembroke1347 All views my own.”
