Poker industry legend Len Ainsworth doesn't think much of Aristocrat Leisure's chief, Jamie Odell, but Len's family have a billion reasons to thank the departing CEO for an incredible run at the poker machine maker.
The full-year result he delivered on Wednesday capped off a jackpot eight years for investors who have watched the share price quadruple over that time.
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Poker machine profits come from poorest suburbs
Surging gaming industry profits are coming from the pockets of those in Sydney's most disadvantaged suburbs.
This added roughly $1 billion to the value of the Ainsworth family's shares in the poker machine maker that was founded by their father.
And it is just as well Len forced the kids to keep the Aristocrat stock he gave to them when he first retired 20 years ago. Ainsworth included a clause that would force them to give him 85 per cent of the proceeds if they did sell their shares.
He then went on to found Ainsworth Game Technology – a rival to Aristocrat – when the prostate cancer he was diagnosed with proved to be far from terminal.
But Ainsworth was unimpressed when an underperforming Aristocrat hired a Foster's executive to run its business.
In Len's view, there is a world of difference between selling beer and wine and selling poker machines.
When asked if he thought it was possible for someone with no industry experience to run a company in the electronic gaming machine market, Ainsworth says there is not much chance "unless they get a right-hand man to sit alongside them who's going to take them through it and teach them [about the industry].
"It's like you decide you'll be a doctor and operate on people. They'll die on you."
The markets probably don't agree with Ainsworth. The fact that Aristocrat's market value briefly dropped by $1 billion when Odell announced his retirement this month says plenty.
And the full-year result showed why. Net profit rose 88 per cent to $350.5 million, and it received a significant boost in dividends.
Most significantly, this included lifting Australian sales of its poker machines by 30 per cent – including latest hit Son of Anarchy – in a market down 5 per cent.
The sales lift almost certainly came at the expense of Ainsworth Game Technology, which saw its stock plunge last month after flagging soft sales in the Australian market. Luckily Len had already sold all his shares to Austrian outfit, Novomatic.
"$680 million of cash generation was probably the highlight of the result. Money talks," Odell told analysts. Not that he was bragging, of course.
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