Ladbrokes Online Chief Richard Ames Axed

The head of Ladbrokes online division Richard Ames has been dismissed after the company’s online business continued to struggle following its profit warning last month. According to a Ladbroke’s statement Richard Ames “has ceased to perform his executive duties with immediate effect.”
Richard Ames has been a Ladbrokes board member since 2009, and was chosen to lead the online division in July 2011 by Ladbrokes CEO Richard Glynn in order to make its online offering more attractive. The UK based gambling company then invested £50 million into a website revamp hoping to have the job completed by the Euro 2012 Football championships. However, the project ran into delays leading to Ladbrokes announcing recently that its online division’s half-year profits would be around £15 million, down from £31 million compared to the same period in 2011.
Nevertheless, much of the frustration for the dismal online situation has been directed towards CEO Richard Glynn, who was keen to make boosting Ladbroke’s online division a prime directive of his tenure in charge. As Investec analyst James Hollins was quoted saying in the Financial Times:
“It’s a very poor situation [which] calls into question Mr Glynn’s turnround strategy – he’s been there two and a half years, walked away from potential online acquisitions and announced an additional investment programme. [But] what we’re looking at is a nine-month delay in the launch of a new online gambling sports platform to compete with William Hill and Bet 365 – and not having that in place for start of the UK football season is a significant miss.”
Compounding the problem further, the UK’s second largest bookmaker had to contend with its bigger rival William Hill revealing this week that its online operating profits were up an impressive 23% to £68.9 million. Following Ladbrokes releasing its dismal news, the company saw its shares shed 4.1% of their value to close at 158.3p.