Matt Wilson, president and CEO of Light & Wonder, says the company’s financial profile has rebounded from “the buzzsaw that was the pandemic. … The next great idea that a game designer has, we have the capacity to go all in on that.
Friday, Nov. 25, 2022 | 2 a.m.
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In March, the slot machine maker formerly known as Scientific Games made a big change.
The company switched its name to Light & Wonder, a change necessitated by the sale of its sports betting and lottery businesses, the latter of which kept the Scientific Games moniker.
The past year has been one of change for Light & Wonder, which employs about 1,300 people at its headquarters in Las Vegas and about 6,000 worldwide.
The Sun recently spent some time with new Light & Wonder President and CEO Matt Wilson at the company’s Las Vegas facility south of the Strip.
A native of Australia and a gaming industry veteran of 20 years, Wilson, 41, took over the top post at the company last month. A Wharton Business School graduate, Wilson has big ideas and an eye for attracting the top gaming talent.
Tell us about the company’s rebrand and why that decision was made.
When we decided that we were going to sell our lottery business, we knew that name (Scientific Games) belonged with it. It went with the sale, so we were left without a name.
We figured that there are three stakeholders who are really important to us — shareholders, customers and employees.
Shareholders, they basically care about whether your stock prices goes up or down; they don’t care what your name is. Then, there are your customers, who care about the quality of your products and your ability to deliver on your commitments. They don’t really care what your name is either.
Employees, however, are really the engine of our business. Those are the ones that make us tick. We realized that we’re a creative business and that there’s a whole new group of potential employees coming out of college who are great engineers, mathematicians and designers.
We wanted to call out to them. Hey, we build games for a living, so we’re fun and we wanted to be known as a company that can attract the next generation of employees. It’s really an employee-facing brand.
It’s been a challenge for employers in many industries to find workers. Has that been the case for Light & Wonder?
We’re in this niche category. We make slot machines and different types of technologies, so it’s about finding animators, engineers and mathematicians.
Yes, it’s a bit of an arms race right now. Companies that have the best people are the companies that win, and that’s what Light & Wonder is trying to create. We want our people to have a career, not just a job.
We have an interesting collection of businesses all across the world, so you could work for Light & Wonder and take an assignment in Tel Aviv or London or Australia or Sweden or somewhere in Asia. There are some great opportunities there.
Light & Wonder divorced itself from sports betting and its lottery business interests. What are the company’s main areas of focus now?
We had a huge amount of debt at one time. We were 10 1/2 times leveraged at the end of 2020, so we decided that we wanted to get ourselves in a much more suitable financial position.
We went on a strategic review and wanted to figure out which bits of our portfolio fit together and which ones we could sell to generate cash to help pay down debt. We sold those two bits of our portfolio — lottery and sports betting — for over $6 billion in net cash proceeds.
What was left in the business were three assets that I say are very complementary — our land-based business, the social casino business (free casino games like those often found on social networking sites), and the i-gaming (or online gaming) business. We essentially build games and technology and deploy that. There are multiple touchpoints now for the casino patron, and the consumer expects you to have that level of infrastructure.
You make all these different types of slot machines. What’s hot right now in the slot machine world?
To the untrained eye, slot machines all look very similar, but they’re really not. There are categories that are shrinking and categories that are growing.
The metaphor I use is that it’s a fashion industry. Every season, there’s a new set of styles, whether it’s with sweaters or suits or whatever it might be. Is it going to be skinny jeans this year or bell bottoms?
We do have some massive franchises in our stable, things like Monopoly and Wizard of Oz and Willy Wonka. … Those are timeless brands that players love. We always come out with new versions of those brands.
We also have internal proprietary brands. We’re always looking, though, for the next big fashion trend. We look at data and try to figure that out.
Right now, there’s a category in the gaming business called hold and re-spin, which is a simple mechanic where players are able to easily understand how they win jackpots. That’s been a big trend in the industry. Asian-themed games are also huge right now.
You’re the CEO, so you’re responsible for a lot of different areas, but do you ever wake up in the middle of the night with a great idea for a game?
It would be dangerous for the CEO to dabble in the games (laughs). We just hire great game designers. Our savants know how to build the next big game. The game designers we have, they’re usually players themselves, so they leverage that knowledge with the data to really understand the consumer.
You came to what is now Light & Wonder as an executive from Aristocrat in March 2020, basically right before the world was changed by the pandemic. What have these past two-plus years been like?
It was a rude awakening, to be honest with you. I came here with a mission and a dream and all these ideas, and I ran right into the buzzsaw that was the pandemic.
Right away, I took a 100% salary reduction for the first three months I was on the job. I think my wife was wondering what was going on at that point (laughs). To think about the transformation that we’ve been through of late to where we are now, it’s been a ride.
The way I think about what we’ve done with our financial profile is to compare what we were at Scientific Games to a family whose income is basically the same as its mortgage payment. There was no capacity for us to invest in our dreams, ambitions or aspirations. Now, we have the ability to do that. The next great idea that a game designer has, we have the capacity to go all in on that.
