What's in a name?

In what is a week of continuous dinners, I spent a fascinating and extremely enjoyable evening tonight at the League Managers' Association's annual shin-dig at the Marriott Hotel on Grosvenor Square.

More detail on various parts tomorrow, perhaps; but for now, I shall tell one passing story.

The night's entertainment started quite oddly. It is, in a way I had never considered, really weird to walk into a room of people who are instantly recognisable, when in reality you don't actually know anyone.

It's made even worse when you've actually been introduced to a bundle of them: every fifth person, it seemed, I had met in my youth, courtesy of trailing round - happy as a sandboy - after dad, as he went from weekly match to weekly match.

But I could hardly expect any of them to remember: Garth Crooks, Ron Atkinson, Steve Coppell, Martin O'Neill, Mick McCarthy, David Pleat, Jim Rosenthal, Brian Barwick, Trevor Brooking (although in his case, he was remarkably, and impressively, on the ball, and greeted me with great warmth).... So many had been contacts, colleagues (or bosses!) of my father's, whose acquaintance I have made on numerous occasions; but bumping into them tonight, way out of context of any past meeting, didn't really seem a good reason to accost them while they were deep in conversation.

Neither did my recent association with the first person I saw as I walked in: I thought that, to be fair, Sir Alex Ferguson probably wouldn't have taken our brief lunch on Wednesday as good enough reason for me interrupting his tete-a-tete with Fabio Capello.

I found refuge in David Sheepshanks, the former Chairman of Ipswich, who I sat next to last time I attended an LMA function. He was utterly charming, and with great skill almost successfully covered the fact that he didn't remember that we had met before (why should he, frankly?). But having heard the latest good news about the National Football Centre, I felt it would have been rude to keep his company for too long; and I moved from him to one of football's managerial names whom I regaled with a story from my youth...

I first met him at the Dell, I think in 1977, when I went down with the Match of the Day cameras; and the Monday after the Saturday before, I had to write, as kids do, about what I had done over the weekend.

Aged six, I had a spelling book which had to be filled in by the form teacher with the spelling of any word which you couldn't write yourself. I wandered up and asked about the first name of the Southampton manager.

It was only when I got back to my desk that I discovered that my form teacher was under the impression that I was too stupid to know how to spell the name of a long vehicular conveyance. Even as a six-year-old, I wasn't over-amused.

Hearing the story thirty years on, Lawrie McMenemy was polite enough, despite being surrounded by many greater calls on his time, not just to laugh at some length; but also then to ask, in great detail, after both of my parents.

What a gent.

Florida

I'm a bit slow on this, but I was fascinated to read Lloyd Levine's take on hearings about poker licensing in America - in Florida, specifically - in which he states that

"Representatives from several current foreign online operators also spoke and suggested that the Committee adopt alternatives proposals that would advantage foreign operators over Florida licensees. They proposed allowing current operators to simply be licensed in Florida, rather than create a state-owned hub in which current land-based Florida licensees could participate."

One of those 'foreign operators' was Betfair, but Mr. Levine's version of the position we have always taken - worldwide - on licensing, just goes to demonstrate how different people see things differently.

Our view of licensing has always been that the best way for governments to retain control of (and a portion of tax from) the greatest number of players in their jurisdiction is to ensure that offered within their jurisdiction is product that consumers want. Given that consumer tastes change, and that things move on, this is not best achieved by issuing a fixed and limited number of licenses and then hoping that that fulfils consumer demand.

A far better option, as I see it, is to require operators to achieve a given standard in whatever areas you legislate for, and then grant them a licence if they achieve that standard. If you want, it's the basis on which people get driving licences: if you're good enough on a series of measures, you get one. You don't get told, even if you prove to be Best In Class, that it's a great shame, but your neighbour got your street's (or even your town's) allocation first.

This is the position which Betfair put at the hearings in Florida. I know that even though I wasn't there, because we were represented at the hearings by one of my team, Laurie Itkin.

She put forward my oft-repeated (as nauseam, you might argue) proposition that in an internet age, consumers will go and find the product they want at the price they want to pay for it, and if they can't find it in their home jurisdiction, they will go and find it on the web. It is very difficult to stop them from doing so without taking a draconian, Chinese-style, approach to the internet;and even there, it doesn't work in preventing it happening.

I'm surprised that anyone should think that this approach seeks to advantage foreign operators over state ones: it simply means everyone needs to achieve the required standards, whether those standards are tools to protect people or levels of tax to pay.

Personally speaking, I'd certainly never defend the idea that any individual or set of operators should get special treatment, to any government. But I would certainly advocate future-proofing legislation, to the extent possible, in a fast-changing world.

Lucky Luc

Betfair's first commercial director, Tim Levene, told me over lunch the other day that he has started to take his son Luc to Stamford Bridge this season for the first time. Tim has been a season-ticket holder at Chelsea for many years.

Luc's first appearance at a football match was the home game against Sunderland on Saturday 16th January. As most of you will know, it finished 7-2.

You can see where this is going, can't you?

On Saturday 27th March, Luc was trotting along down Fulham Road to see the Villa game and telling his dad he's looking forward to seven more goals. No, says Tim, that doesn't happen. You were very fortunate the first time, but don't get used to it. Luc is confused, and asks, "but Daddy, what will happen if they do score seven goals?" Tim promises that they will dance all the way home. I guess it could have been worse.

Enter Luc on Sunday 25th April to watch the 7-nil demolition of Stoke. No rash promises from Tim this time, but also no bets placed. Foolish man.

Seems like a safe assumption that Luc would have been there this afternoon. Perhaps we can persuade Tim to let us know when he's going to take the nipper along next? After all, seven or more goals was matched at 17.75 on Betfair today...

More AFL stuff

In a similar vein, I thought this was an interesting piece. Again, I have a view; but I don't want it to be confused for an official Betfair one, and I know that some recent posts have been seen by some of my readers to confuse the two, so I shall leave you to guess at it!

http://m.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/afl-penalties-on-gambling-a-fair-hand-20100508-ukyx.html

Tabcorp up in arms

I thought this was an interesting piece, and perhaps you will too in the context of stuff I have written to date. You will doubtless draw your own conclusion. I will leave you to guess at mine (assuming you're bothered by my view!).

http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/05/07/2893740.htm

That was the week that was

I've been a bit quiet this week on the blogging front, partly because I've been out of the office a bit. My first week into my new decade has been interesting, starting at the one racecourse in the world which fights Goodwood for a place in my heart as my favourite horseracing venue: Chester.

I went up on Tuesday night to catch up with the racecourse's MD, Richard Thomas, who treated me to dinner at a fantastic new on-course restaurant (well, new since I last went) called 1539. We chatted all things racing, over a good meal and a decent bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.

If you're of the view that racing is short of progressive thinkers, I recommend you make a visit and fish Richard out. Over the years, I've grown used to discussing ideas which in my view would do no more for racing than start the game of catch-up on time that has long-since passed; but on Tuesday evening, I enjoyed listening to some genuinely strategic thoughts designed to get ahead of the curve. It made for stimulating conversation.

I stayed overnight at the new Abode Hotel overlooking the racecourse (genuinely new this time: it had been open a week; and very nice it was too), and on Wednesday did something that you can't claim to do every day: I sat next to Sir Alex Ferguson for lunch.

I kept my BBC history quiet in case it meant he didn't speak to me, and I found him very friendly and down-to-earth, if for some reason remarkably more difficult to understand in real life than he is on the telly. I don't think that was because we chatted mainly about racehorse ownership, although with my limited knowledge, that's always possible. Still, it didn't seem appropriate to grill him for footballing wisdom, tempting though it was. It was, after all, a day off. For him, I mean. :)

A large part of Manchester United's squad came with him as guests in our box, while in the box immediately next door, Michael Owen was hosting family and friends, including our very own Bert, who has, of course, gone into partnership with him at Manor House Stables. They sponsored the opening race of the day, and won it, to great celebration across the two balconies. No-one was booked for taking off a shirt, though.

It was a shame to head back down south, particularly as doing so also meant a trip back down to earth. From relative glitterati, I was soon back in the world of French forums, which are inevitably buzzing with chat from consumers planning to get around French legislation. That and the Higgins snooker story have dominated the questions I've been asked by people this week. I suspect my personal view of neither will come as a surprise to anyone who has spoken to me or has been a regular reader of this blog, because I've written in the past about the issues which form the basis of both stories. If you've missed them and are wondering, you can see them here and here. I'll save the rest of you on-going repetition!

Happy Anniversary

It's been three thousand, six hundred and fifty-two days, which is 87,648 hours, or two days short of 522 weeks. More traditionally, it's exactly ten years: Tuesday, 2nd May 2000 was the first day I walked, as an employee, through the door of a tiny office in Putney, along from East Putney tube station, to begin the adventure that has been Betfair. It seems incredible to think it.

I'd spent the previous two months reluctantly working my notice in the City, having signed a contract with two enthusiastic Founders on the back of a prototype idea whose execution was eye-poppingly brilliant, and a long-standing desire to get the hell out of a job that didn't suit me. The two Founders, in turn, had spent the same period furiously trying to raise money, and hiring people. Jojo Primrose - the best-named girl outside a Bond film - had agreed to join and started straight away, such that she already had a couple of weeks under her belt; and the picture that has always stuck in my mind of that first morning is of the 6ft 6in Jon Cumberlege, his head almost touching a protruding beam in this tiny and largely empty room, extending a long arm in welcome. He had, it turned out, arrived about ten minutes earlier; but somehow, at the time, he already seemed like an old hand.

The adventure we were embarking on was completely different from anything I ever thought I would do, and despite a naive confidence that we were going to be building a business which we would one day sell for a billion, my expectations were not high that I would be there very long. Partly, that's because Betfair was only meant to be a stepping stone to my goal to be a broadcaster; and partly because this was, after all, the dot.com era: I'm not sure anyone in those days had a time horizon longer than about 36 months.

When I went through the five-year mark and realised that nothing I had ever done in my life had lasted as long as that (five years at pre-prep school; five years at prep; five at senior school; five at university; and four-and-a-half at JPMorgan), I was surprised to have stayed for as long as I had. But now here I am, a further five years on: not quite the old man of the company, but probably a little bit wiser than the 29-year old who walked into the converted Edwardian building called Dunkerry House on Upper Richmond Road, opposite a branch of the Tote that we used to joke (as we went to get our lunchtime sandwiches across the road) had no idea what was about to hit it.

Within a fortnight, it wasn't just Jon who didn't seem to fit in the space we had, and we moved to larger premises at 45, Russell Square. There, there was a room on one floor of a townhouse for the contractors who were writing our code, and then two more upstairs for us: one became an office shared by Jojo, Jon and me; and one had Ed, Bert, our first finance director Sean Paterson (who started as a consultant before signing full-time after our launch), and, a few weeks later, our first legal director, David Williams.

Jon, Jojo and I would joke that theirs was the serious room and ours was the fun one, and on regular occasions they would complain that we were doing nothing but giggling, and say that none of them could concentrate because of the noise coming through the wall. Bert would wander through occasionally and say he wanted to change seats because it sounded more of a laugh with us, and we would throw paper balls at him and tell him to go back to the library.

People often ask me what I think was the secret of Betfair's success, and aside from the obvious answer about the brilliance of the product and its execution, my view is that we had the happiest and arguably most fortuitous combination of people, whose various strengths came to the fore at crucial moments. Whether Ed, who did all the hiring (to the extent that Bert would sometimes wonder if any of his own contacts would ever get a look in), realised just what a combination he was putting together, or whether we all fell into it by chance, I honestly don't know. But what is clear to me is that the complimentary skills of that Founder Team was crucial in making the business a success.

My own contribution in the early days was pretty well zero. The key player, in my view, was Jon, whose can-do attitude and set of organisational skills - both the legacy of his army career - were the main driver, I always felt, in making the first year as effective as it was. Jon had energy which I suspect matched the rest of us put together, and his enthusiasm was infectious. So, too, was his sense of irony and his black humour. The day, late in 2001, when those of us who hadn't been working overnight to try to bring the site up from its longest and most painful outage ever got into work to the unhappy news that we were still down, will never be forgotten: with his hands in the air and his body falling forwards in the mock-dramatisation of a man being shot, Jon greeted us with words, "That's it! It's all over! We're totally and utterly f*cked!"

After the first eighteen months or so, Jon's mantle as the most important player was, in my view, passed to David Williams. I've often been credited with the company's public positioning from late 2001 into '02 - principally with the Morning Line appearance from Lingfield which many have kindly said was transformative in our development, and subsequently in the run-up to the Gambling Act 2005 and the various battles that have come since - but the reality is that I was just a mouthpiece: David had all the ideas, nailed all the arguments, and did all the work. When he first arrived on the scene, we didn't get on terribly well (he even fished Ed out for a drink to ask him why the company didn't just fire me, given that I was adding no value: a fair enough shout, frankly), but we ended up a good double-act: I've never been briefed as effectively as I was by him, and to this day I have his voice ringing in my ears whenever I explain anything about the actual mechanics of our system relative to the marketed product. He set the standard which our exceptional legal department has continued to this day: I don't think we have ever made a bad legal hire.

Of course, the caveat I put at the start ("aside from the obvious answer about the brilliance of the product and its execution") is a huge one. It's easy to forget, now, just how ground-breaking it was; and I've lost count of the number of people who tell me that they'd had the idea before, as if it's something that anyone could have come up with, and Bert just happened to luck out.

It may well be true that plenty of people were thinking about it: the idea that you can effectively (although not actually) take out the middleman and therefore deliver better pricing is hardly revolutionary, and five other competing products being released in a six-week period around our own launch prove that it was front and centre of many minds. But they also prove that it's not the idea that matters, but the way it was executed, and that was Bert's genius. His eureka moment has been well-documented, and probably needs no further embellishment from me.

So, too, has Ed's role, and the tale of how the two of them got together. Ed's biggest strength is analysis: in the face of some now serious competition from some of Betfair's current commercial team, he remains the best analyst of a business that I have worked with, and he'd be the first person I'd speak to if I wanted someone to look at a spreadsheet and point out the cell with the error in it. His attention to strategic detail is microscopic and impressive: it's easy to feel stupid and ill-informed in front of it.

Ten years on, none of the members of that Founder Team remain in an executive capacity, other than me. Ed is our non-Executive chairman, of course, and is often around; and Bert is a non-executive director, although that makes him a very rare visitor. But the others have all moved on.

Jojo, who was behind the coffin-carrying launch that I will perhaps blog about next month when we hit our birthday, left in 2003 and is now a full-time mother in Shropshire, actively supporting a number of charitable causes in whatever time her children leave her spare. Sean departed the same year, and has since spent his time between London and Monaco; a business angel.

Jon went in 2004, and briefly helped a start-up called Glasses Direct before embarking on a new career teaching maths at Whitgift School. And after briefly coming down to Australia, to help Ed and me get the business licensed and set up down there, David left in late '04 to go and work with homeless children, first in Mexico and now in Thailand.

Their replacements, today, have taken up their legacy, inasmuch as Betfair continues to be an exciting and vibrant place to work.

Of course, it's a very different place from that first week: we now have a global headcount north of 1800 people.

But as I celebrated my ten-year anniversary on Friday by taking our Events team out for a long and enjoyable lunch to thank them for having done a brilliant job at Cheltenham this year, I was reminded (if indeed I'd ever forgotten) that while it might be different, Betfair is still, because of its people, what it always was: a lot of fun. The Founder Team can be confident that from the bottom of the company up, their legacy is in good hands.

For my part, I go through ten years much as I went through five: surprised, in a way, but still loving the place and the people I work with. It might be a long time since we started the company, but in relative terms, we're really still only just embarking on a journey. There's a long way for Betfair to go yet.