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Exclusive interview with Alexandre Dreyfus Chairman and CEO of Chiligaming

Casinoweb had the pleasure of meeting Alexandre Dreyfus Chairman and CEO of Chiligaming in his Malta office. This young, unrivalled  chairman and CEO invited us into his company, which plans diversifying soon. An excellent commmunicator, Dreyfus speaks to us about his beginnings in the world of the net, his professional life to date as well as his alliance with the Iliad group ( Free, editor's note). This meeting gave us the chance to meet an extremely nice, very professional company head with his sights set on great things.

Casinoweb: Hello Alexandre Dreyfus. Tell us about your professional life up to now and how you created Chiligaming.

Alexandre Dreyfus:  Alexandre Dreyfus, 31 years old, from Lyon, I've been involved in the web for in and around 15 years, I started up my first company in Lyon in 1995, a web-agency which was sold to Publicis in 1997. Then I started another company which is called Webcity supported by different investment funds and with 90 staff, 40 of whom are in Lyon. Then this company went bankrupt, was reformed and sold to Orange for 30 million but unfortunately I wasn't still a shareholder but it was an excellent experience. Then I worked a bit for Lycos Caramail France. Then on the 22 of April 2004, ten days before the ten new countries ( including Malta) joined the European Union, I wanted to  gain international experience and set up a company abroad. I said to myself why not in Malta. While surfing the French economic expansion site, I surfed many sites like Cyprus, Malta, Lithuania, Estonia etc and I found a document dealing with online gaming in Malta. That started me off, in 3-4 days I read many articles on online gaming and I got to know a little of the world of gaming. In 1999-2000 I had Casino.net as an announcer on Webcity, we showed it from midnight to 6 in the morning because it was more or less legal but given that the company was based in Gibraltar, as a support, we were afraid of not being paid, at the time we didn't know a lot about the reliability of the online gaming groups. Then going further into the world of online gaming, I discovered that it was a very well structured world, very clean and  in conclusion I decided that was going to be my next “pet project”. In 2004 I decided to start in online gaming: first of all in sports betting because poker and casinos didn't entice me at all and for me they were more obscure than sports betting.

Casinoweb: But did you start off alone?

Alexandre Dreyfus: At the beginning I said to myself that I'd start off in this adventure alone but then I wanted to associate myself with other people technically. I linked up with two friends and we bought the Winamax company which at the time produced fantasy games. In 2005, we got a bookmakers licence in England and we launched from the United Kingdom a sports betting site aimed at the French market. That started well and we decided to get into poker. Then my relationship with one of my associates wasn't going well. The first decision was to buy back Winamax because I was the originator of the project but I didn't have sufficient funds to buy out my associates. I decided then to leave the company and start something else. In 2006 I left Winamax and I came to Malta to set up Chiligaming with the ambition of setting up a very transparent online gaming site.

Casinoweb: Do you have associates or are you alone at the head of Chiligaming?

Alexandre Dreyfus: The company is 100% mine and two and a half years after its creation it has 40 staff. In 2008 the company generated 8 million dollars in business. Our vocation is to be a major operator in the online gaming industry. We have seven languages ( french, english, german, spanish, hungarian, portuguese, polish) and 13 nationalities in the company. Even though I am french my target wasn't France because I started in September- October 2006 when there were problems between France and the operators of online gaming ( The directors of Bwin had been arrested, editors note) and it wasn't the monemt to draw attention to oneself.  We developed in the foreign markets and it must be said that 80% of the business comes from outside French territory. The main markets are Germany, Poland and Hungary. I must say that poker represents 95% of Chiligaming's business.

Casinoweb: What is the situation regarding casinos and sports betting?

Alexandre Dreyfus: We are going to launch Chilicasino soon and later Chilivegas. In June we'll launch Chilibets, a sports betting site. We intend having the casino in all languages and the sports betting will be translated into four or five languages including french.

Casinoweb:The media reported your association with the French operator Free. How is this going?

Alexandre Dreyfus: We have a partnership with Free and for the moment the strategy is for us not to be exposed on French territory. As the director of the company, I communicate, I speak of the opening up of the market but Chiligaming doesn't do offline advertising, a little affiliation but not more than that. We aren't active on french territory. We accept French clients because it's legal but we don't communicate in France. When the market opens up, in partnership with Free, we will be very visible on French territory but not before then.

Casinoweb:Does Chiligaming have a good chance of obtaining the French gaming licence when the market opens up?

Alexandre Dreyfus: In France, Free will apply for the licence since we'll have a joint product on offer so I'm not worried.

Casinoweb:What do you think of the system of taxation on poker unveiled by Eric Woerth?

Alexandre Dreyfus: France is going to put a 2% tax on bets, which is enormous. In fact it's every time that you put money in the pot, it's 2% and it's not capped. So to-day it's a huge problem. It must be profitable for the player. In fact, a player who is going to win every second time, because of this 2% deduction, this player must be a “Super winner” to make money, and to be a “super winner” one must be extra aggressive and that kills the point of the game of poker. In fact  the Game is being killed off. ( with a capital G, editor's note). I try to explain this to different MPs.

Casinoweb: Which markets do you hope to conquer in the future in online poker?

Alexandre Dreyfus: We will go more for Europe notably Spain and Portugal but also the eastern european countries with Hungary and Poland and then of course France which will be our “pet project”.

Casinoweb: So will we see you on the French market on D-day?

Alexandre Dreyfus: Of course, we'll respect the regulations so I'm not worried about that. We'll enter the French market even with the 2% on bets and we'll do it all legally. Given that we are associated with a French operator (Free, editor's note) we couldn't do anything illegal. Any company in Europe could ask for approval on French territory.

Casinoweb: Does Chiligaming plan to move its office to France one day?

Alexandre Dreyfus: I have 42 staff in Malta and I don't plan moving the company to France. We will certainly open a branch in France for the French part and France remains a country among many others and it represents 20% of the business.

Casinoweb: Thank you Alexandre Dreyfus for this meeting.

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