- Gala Coral Group
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This article is about a UK betting, bingo and casino operator. For GALA Group, the online gaming group based in Japan, see Gala Inc.
Gala Coral Group 
Type Private Industry Betting and Gaming Founded Coral (1926), Gala (1991) Headquarters Nottingham
EnglandEmployees 17,189 (2005) Website www.GalaCoral.co.uk Gala Coral Group Ltd is a British betting shop, bingo and casino operator owned by private equity houses Candover Investments, Cinven and Permira. In October 2005 it merged with Coral Eurobet for £2.18 billion. The acquisition made it the UK's third largest bookmaker and largest bingo operator. It also owns over 30 casinos. Coral will remain a brand and trading division of the new group.
The Group headquarters is in Nottingham Gala Bingo and Casino, Barking Coral & Woking Gala Coral E-commerce.
The Group through acquisitions and new developments have over 1630 Licenced Betting Offices.
Contents
Group Divisions
Gala Bingo
Gala Bingo operates over 175 clubs throughout the United Kingdom, with approximately a 24% share of all clubs and nearly 40% of National Bingo Game ticket sales up until the operator's withdrawal from the National Game in Summer 2008.
Gala has around five million bingo members, of which approximately 1.2 million are active players. Gala Bingo has an average of 600,000 admissions per week.
The bingo division began participation in the Nectar loyalty card scheme on June 1, 2007.[1] Nectar points were originally awarded for club admissions, and additionally for slot machine play from 1 September 2007 - a first for the UK Bingo industry.
On 31 July 2007 pensioner Pauline Clarke, 62, became Gala's first GBP millionaire, after winning a tie-break against another online player.[2]
Gala Casinos
Gala Casino operates 20% of the UK casino market through its 32 outlets (30 of which are UK based).
Gala Casinos has 1.3 million members. Roulette is the most popular game by far, accounting for 63% of gaming income. Punto Banco/Baccarat is next with 19.1% and blackjack 11.1%.
In December 2000, the Gala Group made its first move into the casino sector with the acquisition of 26 Ladbrokes casinos from the Hilton Group. This established the Group’s leading position within the high volume, low stake sector of the gaming market.
Private equity firms Candover and Cinven acquired the Group in February 2003 and in August 2005 a third investor, Permira, bought a stake in the Group.
Coral
Coral is a bookmaker in Britain, and currently has over 1700 betting shops in the UK as of October 2011 as well as hundreds in Italy trading under the Eurobet name.
Joe Coral began his bookmaking business in 1926, after borrowing some money off of a local cafe owner who happened to be a good friend of Joe's, operating betting pitches at greyhound courses. His great friend, Tom Bradbury-Pratt ran speedway meetings at Harringay and a number of other venues. He, and Joe Coral, went on to establish many speedway and greyhound tracks and Joe was one of the first bookmakers to take advantage of the 1960 legalisation of off-course betting shops and opened his first shop in 1961. In those days Coral were not afraid to lay large commissions, even to shrewd customers.
Coral was acquired by Bass in January 1981, by which time Coral was one of the largest leisure groups in the United Kingdom, comprising approximately 650 betting shops, two greyhound stadia, social clubs, casinos, hotels and holiday camps. Although the betting shops and stadia retained the Coral name, the other operations were integrated into Bass.
In December 1997 Ladbrokes acquired Coral from Bass. However, the acquisition was referred to the UK Monopolies and Mergers Commission and they concluded in September 1998 that Ladbrokes should not be allowed to retain ownership of Coral (however they were allowed to keep Coral's betting offices in the Channel Islands and integrated these into their own retail division).
Coral Group was then sold in a management buy-out backed by Morgan Grenfell Private Equity in February 1999. At the end of 1999 Eurobet, an internet betting business was acquired and the Group’s name was changed to Coral Eurobet.
The Coral Eurobet Group was then sold in a further management buy-out in September 2002 which was backed by Charterhouse Development Capital.
Coral owns two greyhound racing stadia in Britain, at Romford and Hove. Coral also operates betting shops at three of Britain’s biggest racecourses – Cheltenham, Epsom, and Sandown Park (venue of the company sponsored 'Coral Eclipse' race) , plus one each at Gatwick Airport (South Terminal) and Stansted Airport. Coral also has a successful Telebet business, based in Barking.
Coral also operates an online casino, an online gaming site, and an online poker site.
Coral was the first major UK Bookmaker to sign to Turf TV on 22 December 2007.
Coral employs over 11000 betting shop staff within the UK
In 2007, the Group commenced the rollout of betting shops in Italy (under the 'Eurobet' brand) following its success in December 2006 in winning 403 sports and horse race betting licences, through a government-led auction. The Group also set up a joint venture in China.
In July 2009 Coral announced the relocation of their broadcasting department to Milton Keynes to a purpose built studio to manage the inception of its new TV channel, Coral TV.
In May 2010 Coral bookmakers launched the Coral Dugout</ref>[1]. Coral Dugout is designed to offer in-depth football knowledge from ex-Premier League referee Graham Poll and sports presenter Jeff Stelling during the FIFA World Cup 2010. The Coral Dugout </ref>[2] features the Coral Insider who posts daily betting odds and tips on the FIFA World Cup 2010 for all online visitors.
Marketing and Advertising
As part of their experiential marketing campaign strategy, Coral engaged in the ‘RUN 4 IT’ campaign, requiring brand ambassadors dressed in trademark robber costumes, to physically ‘steal’ customers from competitor bookies. Over the course of this 3 week campaign, punters were encouraged to change their betting habits with the lure of a guaranteed win loyalty card and then walked by the ambassadors to the nearest Coral. This campaign saw a 7% conversion rate and 2,447 customers were ‘stolen’ from 900 bookies. [3]
E-Commerce Division
The division is responsible for the development, management and operation of all the E-Commerce activities of the Gala Coral Group. The division is also the online betting and gaming arm of the Gala Coral Group, offering a wide variety of products and betting opportunities both in the UK and internationally through the Group’s branded services.
- galabingo.com,
- GalaTV.co.uk,
- galacasino.co.uk,
- coral.co.uk
- eurobet.com
- sportpress.com
Eurobet serves clients in over 130 countries, providing online sports betting in the following languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Chinese, Greek, Russian, Turkish, Bulgarian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Albanian and Czech.
Other services operated by the division include Gala TV.
Main article: Gala TVGala TV is a TV gaming channel that launched on October 4, 2006 on Sky Digital and Freesat channels 861. The channel shows bingo games.
International Division
The international division of Gala Coral was formally established on 1 October 2007. The aim of the International division is to develop an integrated multi-brand strategy. The first example of this is Italy with Eurobet retail and eurobet.it
Italy The Group won 403 betting licences in the open market tender in December 2006 under its Eurobet brand.
China The Group set up a joint venture to launch land-based bingo in China, with bingo being seen as the most appropriate point of entry for the Group.
Group History
Coral Eurobet History
Joe Coral (born Joseph Kagarlitski, 11 December 1904) began his bookmaking business in 1926 and, although primarily concerned with operating betting pitches at racecourses, he did open a credit office in the West End of London in 1943.
He was, though, one of the first to take advantage of the new legislation and duly opened his first licensed betting office in 1961. The new law was, however, not intended to encourage betting and therefore shops were positively unattractive in appearance and devoid of any comforts.
By 1962 there were 13,340 betting offices of which Coral owned 23. During the seventies the situation changed completely and by 1977 four major bookmakers had evolved (including Coral) who owned nearly 24% of the 13,254 shops operating. Coral's number had originally grown to 589 as a result of a merger with another bookmaker, Mark Lane in 1971.
By 1975 the company had become the Coral Leisure Group and had diversified to include a variety of other leisure activities comprising social clubs, casinos, hotels and later holiday camps.
In January 1981, however, the Coral Group was acquired by Bass plc and although it continued to retain the Coral name it became an integral part of the growing Bass Leisure. Bass is one of the oldest established UK companies, William Bass having started the brewing operation in 1777.
With Bass support the number of Coral shops continued to grow during the 80's via acquisitions of Bartletts and Heathorns in 1984, with 13 and 47 shops respectively, PTS in 1985 with 41 shops and Leisure Bookmakers in 1989 with 60 shops.
The private ownership meant that more acquisitions were to come and by the time Coral joined Gala the number of shops had grown to 1260. Coral also owns and operates two greyhound stadiums at Romford and Brighton & Hove (the latter being named the most scenic Greyhound Stadium in the UK), both of which operate using the Coral brand.
At the 2006 UK Gambling Awards, Coral was named "Bookmaker of the Year".
Gala History
Gala Bingo was formed in 1991 when Coral Social Clubs (owned by Bass plc) merged with Granada Social Clubs. Gala was officially launched on October 17, 1991 when 17 clubs re-branded and launched a new image. In 1997 a management buy-in purchased 130 Gala Bingo Clubs from Bass. The management team led the management buy-in. The deal was backed by PPM Ventures.
In December 2000, the Gala Group made its first move into the casino sector with the acquisition, of 26 Ladbrokes casinos.
In October 2005, Gala Group and Coral Eurobet merged, creating one of the top 100 companies in the UK.
Private equity firms Candover and Cinven acquired the Group in February 2003 for £1.24 billion, and in August 2005 a third investor, Permira, bought a stake in the company valuing Gala at nearly £1.9bn.
In January 2006, the Group acquired the County Clubs Bingo chain in Scotland, taking the total number of Gala Bingo Clubs to 174. A new bingo club in Cheltenham, Glos, is due to open 29 March.
In February 2006, the Group went on to acquire the Leo Casino in Liverpool, from Dolby Management Ltd (which, as of February 2007 has retained its own separate brand), increasing the number of casinos in the estate to 31 (at the time).
Gala owns 174 Clubs, 32 Casino venues, two Greyhound stadiums, and over 1500 licensed betting offices.
On 7 November 2006, Gala Coral tabled a bid for the 540 state owned Tote licensed betting offices. The sale of the Tote was a manifesto commitment by the Labour Government. The bid was shortlisted, however the group later those to withdraw it to concentrate on restructuring.
References
- ^ Gala Bingo joins Nectar
- ^ Daily Telegraph, 1st August 2007 Issue Number 47,325 Pensioner is bingo's first £1m winner
- ^ "Coral Experiential Marketing Results". iD Experiential. http://www.idexperiential.co.uk/Clients/Coral#content.
External links
Categories:- Bookmakers
- Gambling websites
- Poker companies
- Gambling companies of the United Kingdom
- Private equity portfolio companies
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