The man who established the online casino at CoolBet.com has reportedly issued an official statement criticizing the site’s new owner, GAN Limited, as well as its executive team and boss.
Jan Svendsen (pictured) published his May 24 reproach on LinkedIn condemning the management team at real-money online casino and sportsbetting technologies developer GAN Limited for taking large salaries and bonuses despite delivering less than stellar financial results. The iGaming entrepreneur also disparaged the larger firm’s Chief Executive Officer, Dermot Smurfit, for pushing him out post-sale and subsequently failing to conduct business in an appropriate manner.
Sizeable stake:
The man previously behind the domain at NordicBet.com sold his interest in Baltics-facing CoolBet.com to GAN Limited in January of 2021 and was consequently awarded with 840,000 shares in the Californian owner. However, the value of this considerable investment has dropped by almost 89% since February of last year to now be worth something like $2.86 million.
Read the condemnation from Svendsen…
“I must be very clear that this is posted only from me as a worried shareholder. I don’t have any ambition or intention to have a management or director role in GAN Limited.”
Damaging design:
Svendsen stated that his own post-sale investigations revealed GAN Limited to be not very well structured particularly with regards to its information technology team although he did praise Chief Technology Officer Jan Roos for doing ‘a good job of trying to clean up the ineffective mess that was inherited’. The online gaming mogul moreover declared that the board of directors at the new CoolBet.com owner is not very professional with this team featuring a Chairman in Seamus McGill that ‘is an old friend of the Smurfit family’ as well as Demot Smurfit’s uncle, Michael Smurfit, Jr.
The attack from Svendsen read…
“In addition, the Chief Financial Officer for GAN Limited, Karen Flores, serves on the board. In my opinion, one of the responsibilities of the board is to look after GAN Limited’s money and it does not seem wise to have the Chief Financial Officer serve on the board. My general impression is that the board is weak and more like a ‘yes Dermot’ board.”
Bonus beef:
Svendsen additionally pronounced that 2021 had been ‘a horrible year’ for Irvine-headquartered GAN Limited with the company having seen a large drop in its share price for failing to ‘deliver on the bottom line.’ Despite this and he contended that the firm’s leadership team gave itself ‘huge bonuses’ with CoolBet.com, which was recently licensed by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, now being the only part of its business that is ‘making the money.’
Svendsen concluded…
“I’m writing this with a hope that it can start a process, a process that leads to a new board and a new Chief Executive Officer for GAN Limited. It’s a company with great potential because of what CoolBet.com brings to the table and we need a leader who can collect the troops and who respects all the employees of the company. Someone who can keep up the quality and be more vigilant about spending money.”
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