GAMBLING.COM
SETTING UP
My son, Craig, told me about the Internet. “Craig, what’s this Internet thing?” “Dad, it’s THE Internet”
For weeks I was walking 2 feet off the ground.
I had discovered a jurisdiction without boundaries and free from government regulation (at that time).
How could I build a business on the Internet?
I had specialised in Games activities, but could see no way to monetise that knowledge. I had spent some time in casinos on the wrong side of the table. I had also published Games & Puzzles magazine.
It occurred to me that I could set up a magazine to attract punters and redirect them to the gambling operators for a fee. We subsequently referred to this as a “portal site”. There were only a couple of other portal sites when I started. Casino City run by Michael Corfman and Rolling Good Times run by Sue Schneider and a partner. I didn’t want to get involved in operating a casino, primarily because of the burdensome, time-consuming, costly and complex licensing regulations as well as the threats at the time to criminalise online gambling.
BETTERZONE
I registered the domain “Betterzone.com”, commissioned a couple of programmers to develop the portal and raised funds from 12 investors. These investors included Myron Pollack and his father, Ron Weissenberg, a friend of mine, and Mark Swanepoel an entrepreneurial key person in the Free Market Foundation which he helped create. Gail Day did the design work.
We arranged to have one of our meetings in a central place. Four of us were to travel in the same car. As we backed out of the driveway, we were stopped by a couple of carjackers. One shakily pointed a gun at us and demanded we exit the car and lie on the ground. “Demanded” is a polite word to describe their threats.
I raised GBP25,000 from 10 small investors. The syndicate was put together by Ian Wilson. For putting up the money, they received 50% and I kept 50%.
BUYING GAMBLING.COM
In those days, there were no Social Media as we know them. On a news group site, I found that Gambling.com was for sale. Keith Dufour was advertising the site. I had no money at that time and asked him how little he wanted. He asked $3,000. I said he must be crazy. Senator Kyle was moving a bill to ban all online gambling. We agreed a price of $1,850 over 3 payments. But he took my money and disappeared.
It wasn’t easy to trace him with the rudimentary tools available. Eventually, with persistence, I located him and demanded delivery of the domain. “I know where you live”. In those days, transfer through the Internic was a clumsy process. But I got the domain, and he got his $1,850.