PATIENCE is a virtue, they say. In John Kelly’s case, it’s also something of an art form. For three years now, as the charismatic head of Gala, one of Britain’s biggest gaming groups, he has been working towards the much-touted liberalisation of our gambling laws. Pushing, prodding, proselytising.

In the next couple of weeks that hard work should come closer to paying off when the government responds to a parliamentary committee report on the changes proposed.

The changes, which are likely to lead to a spate of casino building across Britain and may revolutionise gambling as a social pastime, might even come into force before the next general election. Light at the end of the tunnel? “It’s been a bit frustrating,” admits Kelly, sitting at a meeting table at Gala’s fourth-floor London base, “but that’s the way legislation is introduced.” As a man who has learnt how this government works — it doesn’t like to be criticised — Kelly is not about to complain. He just remains, for someone whose business could be transformed at a stroke, remarkably sanguine.

That’s the Kelly style, say colleagues. For seven years, since he bought 130 bingo clubs from Bass backed by private-equity funding, he has juggled satisfying the demands of his backers with providing a plausible front for gaming-industry concerns and, all the while, growing his business in preparation for the changes. Gala, with a £462m turnover, now has Britain’s largest licensed bingo business (166 clubs) and third-largest casino operation (28 sites).

Kelly, 57, a veteran of the Granada and Mecca bingo groups, has also made himself hugely rich — some estimate a £20m- plus fortune — by changing his private-equity backers twice in the same period. Gala started with backing from PPM Ventures, was sold off to a group led by CSFB in 2000, then picked up by Candover and Cinven in 2003. How does he do it? And why, if Gala is such a good story and gaming is about to undergo a revolution, do these backers keep selling out? Put it to Kelly and he shrugs benignly. “They get their return, they take their win and they go. That’s responsible, because they are managing funds.”

And as the man who runs the roulette table, Kelly seems adept at making more money every time the wheel is spun. “Yup, we have made money from the refinancings,” smiles Kelly candidly, “the management is a major shareholder in this business so the agenda of management and private equity is significantly the same. And we have made more from changing the financing twice, as have 500 of the team, because the equity goes right down through the organisation.”

But for those of us not in City pinstripes it seems mindboggling, especially if the real opportunities have yet to be laid out. Among the coming changes to gaming legislation could be a loosening of restrictions on where you can build casinos, how many slot machines you can offer on each site, on membership rules (punters now have to wait 24 hours to become members and play).

These offer interesting possibilities to those already in the market and those waiting outside. Only last June Gala announced a joint-venture deal with Harrah’s Entertainment, America’s largest casino network, to develop new sites here after the deregulation.

Kelly has so much on his plate — newish backers, legislation coming, Americans waiting, a business to run — that his zest for getting things done still comes as a surprise. Tall and angular, a laugh never far from his lips, he mixes sober reflection with bursts of bubbling enthusiasm. Worried that he might be demotivated by his wealth? Don’t even start.

“On a Richter scale of where Gala could be, we’ve only reached six, so I still get up in the morning caring as much about Gala as I did seven years ago. It’s fascinating. It’s hypnotising.”

It’s the same oomph he’s put into selling bingo to the mass market — ad campaigns full of glossily good-looking young people — and to a sceptical City crowd as well. “The City was snooty about it,” says Kelly, “but I tell you, play bingo in a coach full of bankers and suddenly they see that what they perceived from a distance as a seedy business, is not that at all. Once they become engaged in it . . .”

They love it, he insists, particularly when they look at Gala’s returns: £59m pre-tax on £190m turnover in 1999, rising to £141m profit last year. “It’s a terrific business, it throws off cash, delivers great results and you get a lot of response to cost.”

Perhaps Kelly’s smartest move was sniffing out that value in the first place. He snapped up the Gala clubs from owner Bass at what now looks a ludicrously low price, and has since built his group shrewdly, bolting on small chains, buying Ladbrokes casinos in December 2000, and investing in clever marketing.