Coinslot: It’s been a year since you took charge at Game Nation: has the reality lived up to what you anticipated and how much have you enjoyed your first 12-months in charge?
Mark Jepp: From the outset I knew that the challenge wasn’t going to be for the faint hearted and that has certainly proved to be the case! But I have to say that I’ve have loved every minute of it! I had a great year or so back at Mecca but in many ways this was the role my whole career was leading up to.
All the hard-earned wisdom over the years has helped me to get some real traction in a short space of time and of course navigate the odd bump in the road.
I should add that I have been blown away with how suppliers such as Blueprint, Novomatic, Boomerang (and others) along with the major competitors have been on hand to provide their insight and support.
Coinslot: Can you provide a fly-by of the changes and what’s been achieved since September 2024?
Mark Jepp: I was determined to avoid making knee jerk decisions and acting for the sake of it. I committed to visiting every venue which I completed in a month. I met with the Venue Managers to discuss their thoughts on the business and chatted with the customer-facing teams to get their at the coal face opinions which are often not sugar-coated! In terms of changes I have recruited key individuals to complement some of the great people I inherited, particularly in the areas of compliance, machines management and finance
We have delivered several improvements and initiatives including the installation of over 200 new machines. Every venue has new coffee equipment, we have a new team uniform and we have invested heavily in a comprehensive training programme including social responsibility, the delivery of a world class hospitality experience and conflict management.
We have launched a Set For Success in-venue charter that the teams have signed up to, enhanced our internal comms, improved our marketing and promotions, introduced new staff incentives and overhauled our reporting processes. In general the management team is much more visible and on-hand to assist and support. It’s been a busy year!
Coinslot:: What was your take on the Game Nation business when you took charge?
Mark Jepp: There is no denying the business had hit the buffers, however, it was far from being broken and just needed a bit of direction and love to get it back on track. It’s been a collective effort which could not have been achieved without the support of the central and venue teams .
We have come along way but there is still lots to do. The year one journey has been both frustrating and exciting in equal measure – frustrating because I want to move at a faster pace and exciting because I can see the scale of what’s possible.
Coinslot:: Taking a macro perspective what’s your view on the main challenges facing the Adult Gaming Centre sector?
Mark Jepp: Public perception that has been fuelled by negative misguided/miss informed individuals with their own agendas. AGCs have been a legitimate leisure activity and an important part of the high street for over 50-years – so why should today be any different from when I started giving-out change at a Showboat in Derby?
When you consider retail Bingo and LBO’s the overall number of B3s has declined over the last decade. No one – and I mean no one – has more player safe guards in place than a well-run AGC which makes the negative narrative so fundamentally wrong and so fundamentally unfair
Coinslot:: In your opinion what can and what should be done to change the negative narrative surrounding high street gaming – why does the sector seemingly have so few allies?
Mark Jepp: In any sector there will be some businesses that fall short in terms of professional standards and as a result feed the negative narrative. However, the good guys should stop being so apologetic. In my opinion as an industry we should be loud and proud about what we are, what we offer and the player protection undertakings that we have in place.
We have got nowhere with what I believe is an over apologetic approach. I do believe that the bigger operators such as Admiral and Merkur alongside Bacta and the Gambling Business Group have the will to counter the current narrative. It will be a long journey with plenty of bumps in the road but it’s a journey worth making in order to defend and promote a legitimate part of our entertainment culture and what is a truly British pastime
Coinslot:: How important is it to bring more fun to the high street gaming experience and what plans do you have in this respect?
Mark Jepp: It’s extremely important for two reasons. Firstly, it softens our offer and makes the venues feel more relaxed and secondly, I think customers want to have fun in a safe and comfortable leisure environment.
We are bringing fun to our venues by celebrating dates and events such as St Patricks Day, Halloween and Easter as well as some that are not so obvious such as National Tea Day and Sausage Roll day – we call them Cherry on the Top promotions.
We have also invested in technology that allows us to deliver fun games to our customers such as Pig and Dog racing, Open the Box and Fortune Wheel delivered via our partners Boomerang and Willow. We want to bring the fun atmosphere found in the bingo sector to our High Street venues
Coinslot:: You’ve been quite critical of policy makers and politicians – if you had an audience with Baroness Twycross what points would you be keen to make?
Mark Jepp: To really understand the business, policy makers have to spend some quality time with the best operators and people active in the sector.
It’s essential to get a rounded view and not just respond to headlines which by definition will provide an exaggerated and distorted view of the sector.
Coinslot:: What has been the response to your Bingo Nation brand and how do you see it evolving/developing?
Mark Jepp: The response from customers, from the Game Nation Team, and even from our competitors has been better than I could have ever envisaged.
Although not ground-breaking I believe we have created a great bingo-led brand that delivers a very legitimate offer. From day one I have really loved the Game Nation brand and Bingo Nation is a nice extension of that. It’s very early in the pilot and we are analysing where we take the brand next in terms of towns and venues.
Coinslot: Finally, you recently added two sites to the portfolio – what is the Game Nation growth plan over the short, medium and long-term(s) both in terms of the number of venues and geographical spread?
Mark Jepp: The recently acquired venues made sense geographically and in some ways came about ahead of schedule.
There’s still lots to do in terms of continuing to improve our current portfolio via refurbishments and we have some exciting plans to bring venues to life courtesy of additional new machines, even better marketing and promotions along with rolling out more of the technology platforms that will drive the future of the business and where we want to take it.
It’s a very exciting time for the business – so watch this space or Follow the Cherry as we say internally!
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