After an absence of five years, founder of the Fortuna betting agency Michal Horáček will again become involved in the company's affairs. As of June, he will become a member of the supervisory board of Fortuna Entertainment Group which comprises Fortuna's subsidiaries in Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Alongside his supervisory duties, the company also expects him to provide strategic impetus.

"Fortuna is set to take some important steps this year. We would like to strengthen our position in the respective markets and also significantly increase our product range. Michal Horáček's arrival will greatly benefit Fortuna, especially with his strategic insight and excellent knowledge of each of the three markets concerned," said Jiří Bunda, CEO of Fortuna Entertainment Group.

"Since the time we sold the company, Fortuna has changed markedly," added Michal Horáček. "In spite of this, or perhaps precisely because of it, I found the current management's offer very interesting. I view it as an opportunity to partake – albeit now as a consultant – in a new and without doubt extremely exciting stage in the history of the company that I myself co-founded."

Michal Horáček

In the 1980s, Michal Horáček worked as a journalist for Mladý svět magazine. In 1990, he and three colleagues established the Fortuna betting agency where he became chairman of the board of directors. Fortuna became the first to introduce the phenomenon of fixed-odds betting to Central Europe, gradually building up a network of hundreds of betting shops. In December 2004, Horáček, together with the other founders, sold 100 percent of Fortuna's shares plus shares in various other companies to investment group Penta Investments.

Horáček graduated in American Studies from Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA (1984). He also graduated from the Institute for the Foundations of Education (Institut základů vzdělanosti) at Charles University in Prague (bachelor’s degree – 1999) and in general anthropology from Charles University's Faculty of Humanities of Charles University (master's degree). He is currently reading anthropology at the Faculty of Humanities of Charles University.

In 1999, he struck a bet with a colleague over which of them would be faster to run 5,000 metres. The stake was one million crowns. Horáček won and donated the proceeds to various charitable causes. One of the recipients was Centrum Paraple, a charity representing people with spinal injuries. Since then Centrum Paraple has organised its own annual 5,000-metre run in which people continue to raise money for paraplegics with their "bets".