THE founder and former boss of Stanley Leisure, one of Britain’s biggest betting firms, is to invest in and chair an American business that has developed an electronic, scratchcard-style game.

Lord Steinberg, 71, has taken a stake of more than 5% in Electronic Game Card, a US-listed leisure company, as well as becoming its chairman.

The American company has developed and sells a credit-card size electronic device which allows players to enjoy instant-win games.

The group has a market value of about $29m (£14.7m), valuing Steinberg’s investment at about $1.5m.

A Conservative peer, Steinberg is one of the most respected figures in the British gaming industry.

He started with a betting shop in Belfast in 1958, and grew the operation to become the fourth-largest bookmaker in the UK, behind Ladbrokes, William Hill and Coral.

The company also developed a casino division, and became the UK’s biggest operator of casinos, with 45 sites.

Stanley sold its 600 betting shops to William Hill in 2005 for £504m, and a year later the remaining casino division was acquired by Genting, the Malaysian leisure group, for £639m.

The decision to get involved with electronic-game cards represents Steinberg’s first foray into the sector since he sold Stanley.

He said that he was a “strong believer” in the company’s technology and that the group’s target market offers “extremely large” potential.

Joining Steinberg on the board are two other new nonexecutive directors, Eugene Christiansen and Anna Houssels.

Christiansen is a consultant to the gaming sector, while Houssels has been working on the massive CityCenter development in Las Vegas, a joint venture between MGM-Mirage and Dubai World, and one of the largest construction projects in the US.

Steinberg’s other business interests include Medgenics, an American biotech company, where he has a board seat.

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