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What has been the highlight of 2007 for the company and why?
PartyGaming had a remarkable year in 2007. We focused on transforming PartyGaming into a multi-currency, multi-lingual and multi-product online gaming company with a broad appeal to an increasingly diverse and international customer base. Our business goes from strength to strength, building on the four pillars of our stated strategy. We grew the player base, continued to localise the customer offer, further broadened the product base and continued to raise our already high standards for responsible and compliant gaming.
What has been the worst moment of 2007 for the company and why?
The worst moment for us in 2007 was concluding the downsizing programme that was a direct result of the changes to the law in the United States. We were forced to let go a number of great, hard working and very professional colleagues.
What has been the biggest win of the year by a punter on your site?
We have had a handful of players win just over $1 million each on our jackpot slots in 2007. The most remarkable of which was $1.09 million and some change, which was won on an 18-cent spin by a customer in the UK.
What steps has PartyGaming taken to ensure that their site provides a great online experience?
The user experience is a big focus for us and we have to ensure that we give customers what they want, and not just what the industry has provided in the past. We made a significant number of enhancements to our flagship Party brands and we transformed PartyCasino site by adding new slots and upgrading roulette. We also enabled ITV to launch a full suite of excellent online gaming sites, including Emmerdale Bingo, Friends Reunited Poker and ITV Bets.
In what ways are PartyPoker’s tournaments better than the competition?
Our players love playing for big cash prizes in tournaments. PartyPoker offers $2 million in guaranteed tournaments every week starting from as little as $1. We also offer over $100,000 in guarantees for packages to three separate offline events every week, including the PartyPoker Million Cruise, WSOP and European Challenge II. With a further $100,000 in guarantees for qualifiers into these satellites, every player, no matter the size of their bankroll, has a chance to win a package to a major televised event. All tournaments on PartyPoker provide players with $3,000 in tournament chips, blinds starting at $20/40 and plenty of play time. With 15-minute blind levels we give players plenty of time to play poker how it should be played. But if you want to play at speed we also have sit-n-gos and speed tournaments.
How many staff does the company employ and where?
We have just over 1,200 employees who are located in Gibraltar, the UK, Bulgaria, Israel and India.
What do you have planned for 2008? What sort of year is it going to be?
Our business never stands still. We have plenty of development work in the pipeline and are getting close to launching the first of our casino games that will be themed around the blockbuster film rights that we secured under license from Paramount Pictures towards the end of 2007. We are planning further alliances with third parties that each seek to leverage our existing technology, brand and infrastructure to help us meet our long term objectives.
John O’Malia, chief games officer, PartyGaming
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