Kenny Alexander’s late-night poker skills appear to have come in handy for his day job.
As the boss of the £4.2bn gambling giant GVC, the FTSE 100 owner of brands such as Bwin, Ladbrokes Coral and Sportingbet, Alexander has shown he knows how to play his cards right.
While Britain’s biggest bookmakers have been hammered by ever-increasing regulation, which threatens to take a chunk out of their revenues, the Ayrshire-born chief executive has kept a trick up his sleeve.
A key parliamentary vote tomorrow to enact legislation to reduce the maximum stake punters can wager in one spin on controversial betting terminals — from £100 to £2 — is set to hand GVC an early Christmas gift.
On the surface, a purge on fixed-odds betting