Rod Phillips has resigned as president and CEO of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. to take an unspecified role in the private sector. Longtime OLG executive VP Tom Marinelli will serve as interim CEO until a permanent replacement is appointed, a function Marinelli has served during past instances of transition. The OLG board issued a statement saying OLG had “achieved its highest level of public confidence” with Phillips at the helm and wished their former colleague well in his new endeavors. Phillips doesn’t intend to reveal his next gig until February, but expressed confidence in having left OLG “well-positioned to modernize the lottery and gaming industry and to achieve great success in the years to come.”
Phillips’ exit comes two and a half years after he accepted the reins at OLG and just eight months after OLG chairman Paul Godfrey was unceremoniously ousted from the board after reportedly clashing with new Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne over OLG’s modernization program. Wynne has publicly stated her unease with the province’s reliance on gambling revenue and reportedly told Godfrey that she intended to steer OLG in a different direction than its current path. Plans to bring Vegas-style resort casinos to downtown Toronto came to nothing last spring after the province balked at Mayor/Crackhead/CunningLinguist Rob Ford’s demand for a $100m annual hosting fee.
It remains to be seen whether the executive shakeup will have any impact on the pending launch of OLG’s online gambling operations. Last April, OLG awarded Spielo G2’s Boss Media AB a five-year deal to power the province’s PlayOLG.ca gambling site, which is supposed to begin offering online slots and casino table games later this year, with poker, bingo and parlay-type sports betting to follow. In announcing Phillips’ departure, OLG chairman Philip Olsson said the corporation was “looking forward to the next phase of modernization as we begin to choose service providers later this year.”
OLG has estimated its online gambling business could add $375m in net profits over its first five years of operation. Currently, provincial lottery corporations in British Columbia, Quebec and Manitoba have launched ‘proper’ online gambling sites serving customers within their borders, while the Atlantic Lottery Corporation serving Canada’s Maritime provinces offers online lottery ticket sales and some pedestrian lottery games. Manitoba’s site is the most recent to come online as a skin of the BC Lottery Corp’s PlayNow.com but the Manitoba site’s initial revenue report came in well below government projections.
