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TWST: Can we start with a brief historical sketch of Sportech (SPO.L) and then just bring us up-to-date?

Mr. Speakman: The Littlewoods Gaming Business is one of the oldest established businesses in the UK. It’s got a near 80-year history, and until two years ago it was part of a very large privately-owned company in the UK, probably one of the largest private companies in Europe in fact, the Littlewoods Organization. But the football pools business, which was part of the organization, and other gaming interests such as betting and lotteries were sold to a UK listed company called Rodime Plc in September 2000. Rodime had a history as a disk drive company of all things. So there was no linkage at all with gaming. Once it acquired the Littlewoods business, Rodime was renamed Sportech Plc with full listing on the UK exchange. We are a multi-product, multi-distribution channel business, principally focused on the softer side of gaming. So we don’t have any venue casinos, we don’t have any bookmaker shops, but we do offer products ranging from football pools to lotteries to sport betting, but all bydirect channels: by telephone, by Internet, and, in terms of football pools, by a very unique channel, which is the door-to-door channel – there is a legion of some 20,000 self-employed agents, not agents of the company but agents of the customer, who walk the streets, so to speak, and deliver our football pool’s products every week to our customers. Going forward, we also see television as the channel, which will give us a step change in our distribution reach.

TWST: Interactive TV?

Mr. Speakman: We actually look at it slightly differently. We regard television as a means by which people can play a game, so you are right, interactive; it could be the interactive red button, for example, or it could be the telephone. But we also regard television as a means by which we can stimulate interest in our games and products, which actually then might be played in an online or offline way. So it could be a simple paper product, but the television is the stimulant for that particular game. We’ve signed a groundbreaking deal with the ITV Network, which is the largest commercial broadcaster in the UK with a weekly reach of some 50 million viewers. And that deal is for up to seven years and covers all television programs that are broadcast by the ITV Network across all of the channels, whether they be terrestrial, analogue or for that matter digital. So we now have the distribution breakthrough to really go for a significant share of what we believe will be an emerging and big market.

TWST: Can you summarize the gameplan and objectives over the next couple of years?

Mr. Speakman: We will be looking to take a meaningful share of the new interactive marketplace. There are consensus forecasts around which indicate very, very significant numbers. There’s a consensus forecast led by Data Monitor that we often refer to that says the UK interactive gaming and gambling market will be GBP 2.8 billion by 2006. It’s hard to know whether that number is right and I don’t know if it is half of that or double of that, but it’s our view that we have the tools, we have the product, we have the distribution reach now. With the deal we’ve got with the biggest commercial broadcaster, there is some logic which says whatever that number is, why wouldn’t this partnership between Littlewoods and ITV look to take a significant market share? If you recognize that ITV has a more than 20% audience share, then clearly 20% or GBP 2.8 billion is a very large number. We will start with the 20% and we’ll see what the absolute figure is. In addition, the UK National Lottery operator has created a GBP5 billion market, which is a sort of low ticket dreams market. We currently have GBP 100 million of that market and clearly we are looking to take a much larger share. So I think there are two quite big markets for us to pitch at and we’d be looking to take significant revenues through the distribution arrangements we’ve already got in place and obviously through our new distribution arrangements.