Dermot Smurfit Jr takes a punt on new games company in wake of departure from GAN

Former GAN chief executive Dermot Smurfit Jnr

John Burns

Dermot Smurfit Jr, who stepped down as chief executive of the US-listed gaming technology company GAN last year, has set up a new venture.

The businessman announced on social media that he has become the president and CEO of Paydirt Games, and confirmed to the Irish Independent that this is a company he has established.

Mr Smurfit set up GAN – Game Account Network – in 2002, and became its chief executive eight years later.

Among the early investors in the gaming company were his uncle Dr Michael Smurfit, and his father, Dermot Smurfit, a former deputy chairman of the Jefferson Smurfit Group, which later became Smurfit Kappa.

His cousin Tony Smurfit, now the chief executive of Smurfit Kappa, was also an investor in GAN, as was financier Dermot Desmond, and Andrew Black, the founder of Betfair.

In 2013, management took the company public on the London and Irish stock exchanges, but in May 2020 moved its listing to New York in a bid to capitalise on the legalisation of online gaming in America.

​GAN aimed to be the “go-to” software provider for casinos across America.

It signed agreements with casinos in several US states, including Michigan, Colorado and Pennsylvania.

At one point the company was valued at about $1bn.

However by April 2023, GAN announced it was putting itself up for sale and, last September, said it had accepted Mr Smurfit’s resignation.

Within two months, the Irish businessman sold $2m worth of shares in the company, according to filings to the New York stock exchange.

This followed an announcement that GAN was being sold to Sega Sammy, the Japanese manufacturer of computer games such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Mega Drive and Dreamcast.

It bought GAN for just over $86m, with the $1.97 a share it paid representing a premium of more than 120pc on the market price.

The sale followed a strategic review after a period in which the company struggled, with its share price dropping from a high of $30 in early 2021 to less than $1.

Jan Svendsen, the founder of Coolbet, which was taken over by GAN, criticised management in a post on LinkedIn in 2022 and called for Mr Smurfit to be ousted. Mr Svendsen had been paid for his company with GAN shares which promptly lost their value.

Born in Ireland, Mr Smurfit Jr was brought up in England and qualified as a lawyer there before becoming a merchant banker in New York.