Adrian Bailey has been through three acquisitions in nine years as managing director of Pariplay. Now in charge of Aristocrat Interactive’s Content & Aggregation division, he explains why North America is a major strategic focus for the company.
Aristocrat Leisure’s ‘build and buy’ strategy to enter the online real-money gaming (RMG) sector began in February 2022 with the acquisition of B2B content supplier Roxor Gaming. The division was rebranded as Anaxi in October 2022 and introduced its first online content offering through a partnership with BetMGM in February 2023.
This was taken to another level through the acquisition of NeoGames in April of this year, combining Anaxi and NeoGames’ businesses (NeoGames, Aspire Global, BtoBet and Pariplay) as a single, integrated global business under the name Aristocrat Interactive.
It has been quite a decade for Bailey, who has served as managing director of Pariplay since February 2015. During this time, he oversaw three acquisitions as Pariplay was first acquired by Aspire Global in October 2019, with Aspire Global subsequently acquired by NeoGames in June 2022. The Aristocrat deal is the culmination of the journey.
“It’s been a fascinating journey,” says Bailey. “This is really, as they say, living the dream. Coming off the early days, the first acquisition by Aspire Global was amazing. Looking back now, and of course, as the business has grown, the acquisition from a strategic perspective was really a game-changer for Pariplay.”
Being acquired by Aspire Global, which had its own B2C operations at the time (which was sold to Esports Technologies in October 2021), came at the right time for Pariplay.
“We had really good customers and we had some vendors, but we didn’t really have any of our own traffic to have any leverage in the industry,” Bailey explains. “By having Aspire Global come under the same family, and having ownership of their traffic, that really changed the game quite strategically.
“I do think it’s a natural progression, but I also think that it was, in a way, picture perfect. There was no better company to acquire us other than Aspire Global. Of course, there were existing relationships, because I came from the Neo- Games/Aspire Global family previously.”
Prior to joining Pariplay, Bailey worked for both NeoGames as Vice President of Marketing between 2006 and 2020, and Aspire Global as Managing Director between 2011 and 2013.
In May of this year he was appointed Managing Director of Content & Aggregation, one of Aristocrat Interactive’s five key go-tomarket businesses alongside iLottery, Gaming Systems, iGaming & Sports, and iGaming White-Label.
“For the last two or three years strategically, we’ve been trying to put together a recipe of must-have content, because we’ve now expanded our list of vendors and ultimately we want to have access to every operator in the world,” Bailey says. “And the way that you get that is by having must-have content.”
With the inclusion of Pariplay’s Fusion aggregation platform and Ignite studio development program, Aristocrat Interactive now has a portfolio of more than 440 online slot games, including titles developed by Aristocrat, Wizard Games and Roxor Gaming.
“From being a company with one customer to where we’ve scaled it today, where we are in the multiple tens of millions of dollars in revenue, has been fascinating,” Bailey continues. “I think taking this leap together as Aristocrat Interactive is just next level.
“Coming off the history and the legacy of Pariplay moving into a new world, I think that this is just amazing for us. Of course, Pariplay as a brand no longer exists. We’re moving into a new future. We are now Aristocrat Interactive but signing off on Pariplay, there couldn’t have been written a better story, even if we tried.”
Heading into the next stage of its development, Bailey believes that there could not have been a better company in a better position than Aristocrat to take Pariplay into its future.
“I say the same thing for Aristocrat. I don’t think that there’s a better company culturally positioned to support Aristocrat in their endeavours to become the number one content provider globally.”
Full array of content
For Bailey, content is the key component for any successful supplier.
“This is the big opportunity that we have between the two companies,” he explains. “If we put aside the rest of Aristocrat Interactive’s go-to-market segments and only speak to Anaxi and Pariplay’s businesses and the content offerings, the two couldn’t be more complimentary.
“Pariplay was really successful for two reasons. Number one, we were very focused on customer success and customer relationships, and worked very hard for our customers. The second thing that we did well, we were very B2B focused and understood how to scale. We scaled very quickly.
“If you look at any company that’s integrating a lot of vendors in a year, they add 10, 15 or 20 vendors. If you look at Pariplay, we added 150 vendors in five years, which is a phenomenal pace. Same with our operators.”
On top of that, prior to the NeoGames acquisition, Pariplay was already approved in 30 regulated jurisdictions.
“With the purchase of Roxor, Aristocrat Interactive (which was Anaxi at the time) really became experts in creating and delivering content,” Bailey explains. “Roxor came from a B2C legacy, where it was originally a supplier to a single operator business. The way they developed was because of their legacy and the need that was created by their type of business.
“Pariplay needed must-have content. Aristocrat needed the licensing and the scalability from an interactive perspective. I don’t think that the two businesses could be more complimentary. It’s just unbelievable. Even when we look at the technology of the two businesses, how we bring the technologies together, everything is just incredibly seamless.”
One of the biggest challenges for Aristocrat Interactive has been integrating NeoGames into its vast operations, and how to bring teams from all over the world together.
“I would say that the integration is complete, but it’s probably not as simple as it seems,” says Bailey. “We have a lot of work still to do, but all the work that we set out from an integration perspective, has been completed.
“We still have a lot of learning as individuals. A lot of people have come together from a lot of different countries and different teams. It’s getting to know each other a little bit better, and getting to know the processes, because all the content now will flow through Fusion. It’s about setting those new processes in the organization, how we enable content and distribute content, and how to get all of these things set.
He adds: “I couldn’t be more complimentary of Aristocrat as an organization, the way that they have taken this purchase on. The way that they have embraced us, the way that they have supported us, has just been phenomenal. For me, coming off two purchases and then coming into this behemoth Aristocrat, I’ve just been massively, positively, surprised.”
North American focus
Aristocrat Interactive’s Content & Aggregation business is going to put most of its focus on North America, which is Aristocrat’s largest market for land-based gaming.
“We have a very strategic focus,” Bailey continues. “We almost see that the Aggregation business will lay the tracks for the future, and then the Content business will follow. Right now, we’re very focused on the US and Canada markets, but there are plans for expansion in the next 24-36 months into additional markets.
“The ambition is definitely to put ourselves up there with the tier one providers and the best of the best. In my opinion, Aristocrat Interactive deserves to sit at the top of that list, and that’s our ambition, to sit at the top.
“If we look across the market, we see around 80 to 120 games being released from most big studios per year. This is the ambition that we have. We’re not very far off in terms of that today.”
Land-based to online transition
One of the positives in releasing online versions of Aristocrat’s land-based gaming content is that the company already knows which games are successful. Bailey’s job is to take those successful games and bring them to the online RMG market.
“Ultimately, the clear objective is to get Aristocrat Gaming content online,” he says. “If I look at the financial opportunity that we have, there’s no secret about the success that Aristocrat, as a land-based gaming business, has in the market, and it’s very obvious that if we could just take what they’ve done from a land-based perspective and repeat that online, the business will be hugely successful.
“First and foremost, our job is to make sure that we support the vision of Aristocrat to replicate and create the dominance in the North American market that they’ve had from a land-based perspective, such as the success of Buffalo going online. We are strategically thinking through how to continue bringing these games online through the already existing success of the Monarch (part of Anaxi), Roxor and Wizard Studios.
Through its previous incarnation as Anaxi, Aristocrat Interactive has already been quite successful in a short amount of time, and is gaining some reasonable market share in the US. The next step is to further expand that footprint with some of Aristocrat’s most popular games.
“What we’re really focusing on over the next six to twelve months, is making sure that we start bringing some heavy hitting games out into the market,” Bailey says. “Going forward, the ambition is extremely different. We’re bringing jackpots to market and we have some huge titles coming out. The content coming from Aristocrat Gaming in the land-based sector is extremely sophisticated. It really is the best content in the world, and the teams are starting to bring some of the most sophisticated games live in the next six months.”
A learning game
“All of us who came from Pariplay are learning,” Bailey points out. “We came from a much smaller company. In the NeoGames world, each of the businesses did operate to a certain level of independence. Now, under Aristocrat Interactive, we’re really working hard to try and create a single business with go-to-market segments and single identity.
“There’s always that feeling or tendency that when you are brought into an acquisition that things slow down while everyone gets accustomed to the new business. I think quite the opposite. I think Aristocrat has been extremely professional in trying to understand our business, to learn from the people within the organization, the pieces that challenge them, and worked very hard to make sure that the businesses don’t slow down.
“Even culturally, I think one of the biggest pieces that we’re trying to navigate, at least for me, is we all come from an entrepreneurial spirit. We’ve built small companies into medium, big companies. Nothing to the scale of Aristocrat, but we’re very much entrepreneurial.
“It’s a very interesting journey and it’s fascinating, but I must say that Aristocrat has been extremely supportive and understanding of what they’ve purchased and making sure that we have what we need to continue growing and scaling. It’s really been a such a positive experience.”
It’s clear that over time, the challenges of any business changes.
“For me personally, it’s just an amazing opportunity,” concludes Bailey. “It’s not every day that an opportunity comes along where you can change an industry, and I think Aristocrat has the ability to have a huge impact on the industry.
“We’re on our way. We know what we need to do, there is a clear strategy set in place, and we’re ready to go.”
This interview was first published in the October 2024 print edition of Gaming Intelligence North America (GINA).