Dhrupal Amin leads G-Bets’ charge into horseracing at Summer Cup

There’s an idiom which says that if you have an important task that needs to be done, give it to a busy man.

G-Bets will break new ground at Turffontein Racecourse today when they sponsor the R2 million Gauteng Summer Cup for the first time and the man driving this initiative for the company, Dhrupal Amin, is certainly a busy man.

G-Bets is part of the Goldrush Gaming Group and Amin holds the position of managing director: online gaming. The group was established in 1998 and at that point bingo was their primary focus. However, the group has grown and their decision to branch out into horseracing was a natural progression.

Amin grew up in Brits. “It was an interesting place to grow up,” he explains. “Small town, but an amazing community. It provided a solid grounding and because it was a small town there was very little influence from anything that was bad. We were forced to be outdoors and sport is part of what we did.

“It was a very clean upbringing. I remember coming to university and getting exposed to alcohol for the first time. It was something you drank occasionally but was not something that was abused. We were not used to getting it freely available.”

While he studied accountancy, once he left articles, he felt being an accountant was not for him. “I needed to interact with people and develop some broader skills. I was fortunate enough to get a role with Guardrisk, which was part of the Alexander Forbes group. I worked as a portfolio manager which gave me two things.

“I could still keep my technical skills working as an accountant, yet hone other skills to innovate new products in the insurance industry.

“I was fortunate enough to work with really good customers and Tsogo Sun was one of them. They gave me the opportunity to take new concepts to them and in the short space of 18 months, we grew their portfolio from almost meaningless to their business to something that was really strategic. They created their own insurance company as a result and realised a ton of savings. It was through that interaction I was headhunted by them.”

That got Amin into the world of operations, strategy and a bit of risk. It was that time, around 2007, he was introduced to the world of casinos and gaming.

“I will never forget my first day. I get to the Tsogo Sun head office which is in the Montecasino precinct and got told I was first going to meet the general manager of Montecasino.

“His office is on top of the casino and to get there we had to walk across the casino floor. On a Monday morning, at 8.45am, there were not tens of customers, but hundreds of customers on the gaming floor.

“This was not something I was used to. I believed gambling only happened at night. As we walked through the casino I thought ‘what have I got myself into. This is going to be disaster’.

“I quickly had to grasp that the industry, even though it’s a form of entertainment, has some really hard edges to it.

“Often the lines between work and entertainment can get blurred.”

With the new job came new challenges. “It’s that retail discussion. You are providing product to millions of people a year. How do you keep that fresh?

“The job provided the excitement of working with diverse marketing teams and finding new ways to promote a product.”

He was also given the opportunity to study some social issues. “I took on the opportunity to look at items such as black economic empowerment and entrepreneurial development to figure out how, as an industry, we can create an impact beyond just paying taxes.

“I certainly believe there are places where the gaming industry could do more to uplift people.”

He left Tsogo Sun about five years ago and started doing private equity work. Through that consulting and interaction, he did some work for the Goldrush Group.

“It is the largest independently owned alternative gaming group in the country. Because they were growing at such a rapid rate, they had challenges and I had the skills set that could assist them, so I started helping them on quite a few key projects.”

Amin soon discovered that he and CEO Mergan Naidoo had the same belief that online gaming was the future.

“We decided to travel around Europe and went to explore various models in a whole lot of countries, including the UK. We liked what we saw.”

That’s when Naidoo invited Amin to “come and run the business”.

“That’s essentially how it started and that was my introduction to sports betting.”

However, they had to break into a market that was highly competitive and contained companies that had been established for years. “You have a first-to-market advantage in business but you also have a last-to-business advantage. I visualise us as sitting on the runway.

“We’re about to take off but the beauty is that as we look above, we can see were everyone is flying and we can clearly see where they are with customer service and their technology.

“As we don’t have legacy issues or a legacy strategy, we were able to look at those gaps in the market. Traditionally, the bookmaking industry, online and retail, have used the Ts & Cs to protect them.”

So why have G-Bets chosen the Summer Cup?

“It’s important to us because it’s that introduction to the sport. As entrepreneurs, we believe that if we see something and we can make it work, we go and make an investment. Horseracing is very much now in our top three priorities. We’ve invested in it, we’ve already seen a good return and there is nothing to suggest we’re going to stop the investment.

“Horseracing has been all about betting from its genesis. It was almost created for that purpose.”

Amin believes that the speed to keep betting fresh is driven by technology.

“Soccer has gone from four or five betting options, to about 100 options and it is going up every day.”

The most important aspect of the business, for Amin, is not to lose sight of the customer. “It is always about satisfying the customer. We have to keep engaging with them and understanding their needs.”

G-Bets only came on board the Summer Cup train the day before the official launch, but they are already looking to a bigger and better event in 2019.

“This has been a phenomenal engagement,” says Amin. “Yes, we came on board late but we already have plans for next year to bring Gautrain on board. If we are to bring people from the north to Turffontein we need to offer to them the chance to get on to a train or a bus and get them back home at the end.

“There are beautiful partnerships we are looking at and that is our commitment to the race.

“I guess we want to change the status quo a bit. How do we think about it differently? What are the issues that are preventing guys from getting to the racetrack?

“Hopefully next year we can have a section of the pavilion for first-timers. How can we change the experience for them?”

– news@citizen.co.za

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