Episode Transcript
[00:00:16] Speaker A: Welcome, everybody. We are back. It is episode 13 unlucky for some of Right to the Source. My name is Robin Harrison and I am here as ever, with my faithful sidekick, Mr. Ed Birkin. Ed, how are you today?
[00:00:32] Speaker B: Good, good. I'm just wondering what the word faceful means.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: Faceful.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Faceful, as you describe me, does that mean faithful with a good face?
[00:00:41] Speaker A: No, it's a.
It's just my accent messing up faithful. But a face full, like a face full of.
You could have like a face full of a food of makeup, that kind of thing. So a face full is actually. Is actually a word.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: A face for just too much. In your face, perhaps?
[00:01:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Two in your face too.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: In your face. Okay, now I'm back and I've got a confession to make. I have actually prepared for this podcast which is either gonna make it seem slick or just take away all the magic. So we'll have to see.
[00:01:14] Speaker A: Scared as to what might happen that.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: Well, I wasn't on holiday, was I? So, you know.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: Yeah, it's the first time for everything, I suppose.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Have you prepared, though, because we need story of the week off you. We'll do that after start of the week. Should we?
[00:01:28] Speaker A: Yeah, we need story of the week and we also need start of the week before we go into discussing our two countries, which, as I recall, is Slovenia and Chile.
[00:01:38] Speaker B: Correct. How do you want to start?
[00:01:39] Speaker A: Let's start with start of the week.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: Okay, so slightly off.
Off piste. I was going to give an H2GC stat of the week. Instead I'm going to give. It's not based on our data, but stat of the week is the number 22. 22 is the number of senior squad players and coaching staff that have left Sheffield Wednesday since the end of the season, none of which have been replaced. And 73% is the implied probability that Sheffield Wednesday will get relegated from the championship this season, having finished 12th last year and being top of the league after the first. First game of the season where he beat Wayne Rooney's Portsmouth Plymouth. Is it four zero or four one? I think it was four one.
Another stat is it took me five and three quarter hours to get up to that game even though it was televised. But yeah, Sheffield Wednesday in a lot of shit. So all parts of being a football fan.
[00:02:29] Speaker A: Well, funnily enough, actually, I think there might be a connection to the story of the week because we've done a lot of really interesting things. You know, for example, I think Kyle Goldsmith's coverage of like the Brazil tax data, I think that Was very interesting.
Great piece by Jess Marquez on the Caesar's hearing for a downstate casino license which involved Jay Z.
Funnily enough, the other hearing, which was I think for the Queen's property, involved Naz, who famously had a feud with Jay Z. I.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: Wasn'T aware of those feuds, but famously in certain circles. Good. Look out, look how diverse we're going. Christina Aguilera, Nazi Jay Z. I mean it's like J.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: Like Jay Z is not as good as Nas Naz was.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: I mean I'm don't know much of Naz's music. We're not going to get into basketball, but Jay Z is pretty iconic.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: Yeah, Jay Z is iconic, but Naz, you know, albums like Illmatic, things like that, they are, you know, kind of, they're incredible albums, you know, and he's a great rapper.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, Billie Piper had a good album in her day and also a good TV career. But I think we're going off track.
[00:03:35] Speaker A: Yeah. And it was Resorts World.
[00:03:37] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: That was the, that was the operator, that was the operator for the Queen's casino. So I just had a moment there. But yeah. So off the back of that start of the week about a current crisis, Club du jour Sheffield Wednesday.
What I thought would be an interesting one to discuss is player account restrictions. So last week the Gambling Commission responded to, you know, a request for information and they said that 4.31% of UK betting accounts have been, have, have had restricted restrictions placed on them. So that equates to 600 and I think 643,000, something like that. 643A700 I think the number was. But interestingly directed accounts were more profitable than non restricted. 46.78% of restricted customers were in profit compared to 25.42% of overall active customers. I think it was, I think it was around 51% of the restricted account holders were loss making compared to something like, you know, kind of like something in the 70s for unrestricted. What do you think of that?
[00:04:59] Speaker B: Well, my initial view would be that my impression of it was that restrictions were there to prevent people from having such high losses rather than a restricting wagering of people who are actually winning money off the bookmakers. But for those people who are trying to work out the very tenuous link between Sheffield Wednesday and the Gambling Commission, freedom of information, that's probably related to a story I just told Robin off air where I to being a football fan going with my heart, not my head. Sheffield Wednesday 1 to 4 on of getting relegated, but only 5 to 1 of getting in the top half of the championship, which is pretty terrible odds anyway. But I thought, you know, I'm a Wednesday fan, let's just go with it. So last night, on a major UK betting site that I won't name, but they're kind of main sponsors of the championship etcetera, That, I mean, you might as well have, Justin, that I would place a wager on Sheffield Wednesday, you know, finishing the top half the championship and was restricted to a 38 pound wager, which I just thought was ridiculous when I saw some maximum winnings, £228. And this does actually happen to be an account that is in profit. There's nothing to do with deposit restrictions because I haven't deposited in nine years because I happen to win a decent amount on it and it's nothing to do how much I bet because I haven't placed a bet with them for a few months. And I just could not believe that I was being restricted to a 38 pound bet on a 5 to 1.
And so in that case, whether it's because it's in profit, which I hadn't even thought of, or whether it's just because the risk of a 228 pound loss to them is too high, but you would have thought on the championship it is the best league in the world. Some in the Premiership would disagree, but for the true football fans, best league in the world, you would have thought that the trading teams etc would have much higher risk limits than the £200 potential loss. But anyway, so that was frustrating. But as anyone with any, any sane knowledge of football would say, it was a terrible bet anyway. And the fact it was restricted to 13.
[00:06:55] Speaker A: Yes, it was. And it's, it's a bold prediction. Top half in a league like the championship.
[00:07:00] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean I would have just, you know, I would have just laid them against relegation, but there's just zero liquidity on it in bet fair, so you can't do that. I couldn't place on them not getting relegated. I wasn't going to do it on them winning or top two. So it was the only real wager I could get. The handicap of them winning with 36 point deduction was just pointless because there's no chance of it. But you know, what if they end up bottom of the league and get beaten every week, then, you know, that's just part and parcel of being a football fan and you go through that. So it is what it is. The other thing though, I was looking At? I was looking up the Consumer Rights act in the uk.
Wow, you're.
[00:07:36] Speaker A: You're taking this to the highest court in the land, are you?
[00:07:39] Speaker B: No, this is due Sheffield Wednesday. So, you know, can.
When you advertise selling a season ticket, can you be done for false advertising? So the season ticket that they were selling, they advertised nine players and a manager, so 10 people on there. So effectively saying, buy a season ticket. You'll be seeing these players in action. Now, I get. There's movement, you know.
[00:08:00] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It's part of the cadence of football. So we have summer transfer windows, but.
[00:08:06] Speaker B: Nine of the 10 are no longer at the club and the one who is probably won't be there much longer. He's just injured at the moment. So you kind of feel that when you're advertising something with pictures and 90% of that is not there, that's got to come down to some kind of false advertising.
[00:08:19] Speaker A: At the time the tickets went on sale, those players were contracted to Sheffield Wednesday though, right?
[00:08:24] Speaker B: Yeah. But it's a bit like taking a picture of, you know, Oasis and selling a concert ticket and saying, at the time we thought they were going to be playing, but now they're not. You've got, I don't know, Naz or some lower tier person that no one's really heard of.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: Christina Aguilera.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: So anyway, so that was my rabbit hole. But look, let's get on to stuff I've actually prepared. So Slovenia.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: Okay, yeah. So let's talk about Slovenia.
I think, as we discussed last week, did we do population, things like that.
[00:08:57] Speaker B: Do you remember what the population was?
[00:08:59] Speaker A: It was around 2 million.
[00:09:01] Speaker B: Yeah, you guessed 8, but it was.
[00:09:02] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Four times higher. I remember. I quite literally just divided 4. And the national dish is a form of buckwheat pancake, I think.
[00:09:12] Speaker B: Veal and buckwheat dumplings.
[00:09:14] Speaker A: Veal and buckwheat dumplings. It's a land of. It's a multifaceted land.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: Do you. Do you want some gambling statistics?
[00:09:20] Speaker A: Gambling statistics?
[00:09:22] Speaker B: You tell us.
[00:09:25] Speaker A: So it's a monopoly for betting and lottery and then there are two categories of games of chance. I think it's. Is it special games of chance and then classic games of chance. And I think it's classic. If you'd like to kind of explain a bit more about what these different ones are.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: Okay, so almost there. So, yes, there was a monopoly on lottery in sports. However, I believe now both of the operators can offer both products, so effectively there's a duopoly between them. But yeah, there's a lottery sports operator. Gaming is a commercial market.
So this factory split between casinos and gaming halls.
It's limited to 15 casinos and 45 gaming halls. Currently 12 casinos are in operation and 25 gaming halls. And online is allowed, but limited to those with land based concession. Effectively there's no regulated onshore online market. Of note. GGR 89 million euros for lottery in 2024. 105 million for gaming calls and 176 million for casinos. A few more stats because I've done the work. The average number of slots per gaming hall is.
I'll give you multiple choice. 50. 1502-503501-50150.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: 200. 350. I would say probably 150.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: Correct.
And the average number of slots per casino is almost double that at 29319 tables. Now the average spend per visitor I will give you for the casino is €136.
[00:10:51] Speaker A: 136.
[00:10:52] Speaker B: There's either 1.2 or 1.4 million visitors. Similar number of visitors for gaming halls. So what do you think the average spend per visitor in a gaming hall is? If it's 136 in the casino.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: 136 in a casino. So I would, considering the casino market is bigger, I would assuming it's a bit less. So 136, maybe 108. Between 80 and 100.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: Yeah, 74. So I thought maybe a bit lower because people tend to go to the casino, you know, for kind of more of a session, so to speak. Yeah. So that's my statistics on the Slovenian market. So we get good data by the Ministry of Finance. So if anyone wants to look at our model, they're more than welcome to. And the next one was Chile.
[00:11:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
Are we just literally listing the stats and then moving on rapidly.
[00:11:37] Speaker B: So do you want to talk anything else about Slovenia?
[00:11:40] Speaker A: Well, just on the tethering because obviously in Eastern Europe what we tend to see is the kind of land based companies transitioning into online.
So it's interesting that they have these kind of tethering requirements, similar to what we see in the US but effectively more restricted in the US because they're limited to one skin and it has to be the same operator. But you said the online market was pretty negligible. That's quite interesting. Yeah.
[00:12:10] Speaker B: And I suppose actually, and you're right, we probably should talk about things rather than just stats. Yeah. I suppose if it were a larger market, perhaps there'd be an argument that if you're an online operator, you know, folks in Eastern Europe, you know, do you.
Either in partnership or.
I know you have to. They say it's domestic operators. Whether that means there can't be a foreign owner in them or what level you need, or even just partner up a bit like people do in Belgium, you know, or Switzerland.
But, you know, do you actually get a casino? There are still three licenses left. And then use that to really take, you know, control of the. The online market. I suppose if you've got a population of any 2.2 million, then, you know, maybe it's. Maybe the viewer is not worth the investment. If you had the same regulations and adult population of.
What do we say it wasn't Chile? 15 and a half, 15.47 million.
[00:13:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:05] Speaker B: Then, you know, perhaps it becomes a lot more. A lot more attractive.
But no, I'm not aware of any.
Anyone really gone online, you know, in any meaningful way in the market.
Unsure.
[00:13:18] Speaker A: All right, well, we've managed to stay on track to an alarming degree, but actually.
[00:13:24] Speaker B: But then what's the population, as you say. No, this. Of adult population of Belgium.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: I wouldn't have a clue, to be honest.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: Switzerland. I mean, I know Switzerland's probably a much higher.
[00:13:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:34] Speaker B: Switzerland GDP per capita than. Than it is in Slovenia, but.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, Belgium. Belgium also is hobbled by restrictions on the online market. I mean, it's worth noting that people.
Super bet, I think they acquired. Napoleon Kindred, acquired a casino in Belgium. So there are kind of examples of these operators coming in and then acquiring a foothold in the market, which gives them online access.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. The Belgian population is 13 million, so it's quite.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that's difficult comparison to go out.
[00:14:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:14:09] Speaker A: Okay. Well, let's talk about Chile then. Chili's an interesting one because. And just to reiterate, Pastel del Choclo is a national dish.
[00:14:18] Speaker B: It is.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: I wrote that down because I remembered a.
I remembered the word chili. Carnation.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: Was that. Or.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: I think so.
[00:14:26] Speaker B: Slovenias. Was that Slovenia?
[00:14:27] Speaker A: No, I think. I think chilli was a. Some form of carnation, their national flower. Well remembered.
[00:14:33] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you. Anyway, please.
[00:14:37] Speaker A: Thank you, Ed. So Chile's an interesting one because during that period where Brazil was kind of ramping up and pushing towards some form of regulation, when Peru was working on this, Chile was also in the mix. So I think it was around.
I think it was December 2023, the Chamber of Deputies passed an online gaming bill. And I'll be honest, one of the reasons why I Remember that is 22. When the bill was first introduced, the bill came with basically a history of gambling.
Like from the start.
The bill literally started with gambling first came about in this form and however many centuries back, which was punchy, it was an interesting way to start. And at the end of 23, going into 24, it felt very much like Chile was probably going to regulate that year the market was going to open. And really since then it's stalled. You know, there's no other way to say it, it's stalled. They removed the urgency clause which then kind of makes essentially the political will doesn't seem to be there to push things forward.
[00:15:50] Speaker B: Stuck in the Senate and doesn't look like moving anytime soon.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: Exactly. And then there was earlier this year there was talk about looking at, you know, kind of some form of a blacklisting or kind of SP blocking to push out, you know, kind of online offshore companies.
That's not really come to anything but it does feel just sort of a bit stuck. But having said that, interestingly, it does seem to have quite a robust land based market. I mean I think, I think it was actually it might have been a little company called H2. We quoted in the story. Kyle Goldsmith, you know, reporter covers, senior reporter covers last time. And I think it was something like $790 million, something like that for the land based market alone.
[00:16:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I think we should stop quoting Kyle's name. He's going to, he's going to start thinking he's good at what he does. But yes. So there is a land based market. So let's talk about what is legal lottery, which is the only legal sports betting and online sports betting as well as lottery products. And they have, they actually have a strong horse race betting sector. Yeah, Teletrack is enormous lad online. So market size lottery, 125 million euros and there's about a thousand pesos per Chilean pesos per euros if you want local currency. If I say 125 million euros, it's like 125 billion pesos. So sports of that 5 million onshore sports, 5 million euros. But there's another 55 million from horse race betting. So you know that that is a big part of the market. But yeah, land based casinos, 463 million.
So yeah, I mean that's probably under $600 million or so depending what exchange rate we're using 650. But yeah, it's a strong land based casino market which is split into two. There was the municipal casinos and then under the 1995 act they have these effectively privatized casinos. But they had. They were showing very strong growth. I think last year the revenues actually came down a bit.
But yeah, there is a strong land based market. Put that into context where the offshore market is.
It's interesting talks about the 2022 when legislation was introduced. It was widely accepted offshore market to the point where Betsun was the main sponsor of sponsor the main football league. They actually renamed it Campionate betsun for the 2023 season. I think that was going to sponsorship was going to even cover sponsoring the national football football national team. But in 2023, September 23rd the Chilean Supreme Court I think partly maybe due to this regulation was coming through stated that any gambling that is not expressly legal is illegal as a come down. So they had to spons cancel sponsorship. October they announced that the sponsorship was finish finishing things year one of three. Rumors were that it was two and a half million sponsorship deal going up to 8 million euros by the end of the third year. So or in the third year. So you know it's a reasonable amount of money. So suddenly you've got these football teams, a league, you know, in limit of that money. My understanding is that all of these operators have stopped their sponsorship deals but continue to operate there. And it'd be interesting to see what happens if they as you say some form of blacklist or they say, you know, if you continue to operate in the market you're not going to get licensed. Which they haven't done yet. But we have offshore betting in gaming at the moment generating 450 million euros. So 97% of the market is offshore. So if you compare that to the Lancashina 563 Lottery 125, you know it is a huge part of the market. Main operators.
[00:19:21] Speaker A: I'm waiting for you to tell me so the one. So like I don't know as much about the Chilean market obviously. Njoy SA.
[00:19:30] Speaker B: Yeah, so I mean so to the main offshore ones, you know Betsun who has seen you know, revenues come down or at least the visibility come down. Cool bets a Juggerbat, a Botanos actually seems in terms of web traffic, you know, have made huge leaps in the past couple of years, you know, as they have elsewhere in Latin America. We actually did some survey data as well and this is quite interesting. It probably doesn't reflect bullying me on the surveys in some way but six what we found, we found this in Brazil. Talk about a bit and other places is that in a lot of markets people don't really understand what operators are licensed and which operators aren't licensed. So 60% of players that we surveyed, and we survey enough players at 90, so we do it all statistically, you know, it's called, yeah, 95% accuracy, blah, blah, common technical term now but 60% of people state they only use licensed operators, yet 34% of people also have three or more accounts and there's only two licensed operators in the country.
I think the fact is that when you having people like Betson sponsoring the league, people will assume that they are licensed or at least local. I mean, you know, fine. And fairness. Perhaps we should change the question to be more locally licensed because they clearly are licensed, let's say licensed onshore. But I think it is emblematic of the issue that is in a lot of countries, especially where comes more of an issue with advertising restrictions being put in, is that a lot of players are not aware which operators are licensed and which ones are not licensed. And in terms of view of the industry, the last statistic we have, last statistic, I'm going to share for free. 48% of non gamblers have a negative view on the industry.
[00:21:11] Speaker A: 48% of non gamblers, but only 5%.
[00:21:16] Speaker B: Of gamblers have a negative view.
You can see maybe why actually so about 46% I think have an average view and of non gamblers and lasted 6% of kind of have a positive view. But I suppose when you've got a lot of the non gamblers who have a, you know, online have a apathetic or negative view towards it, you know, there's perhaps one of the reasons that there isn't as much push for anything to happen to regulate it. But it is still a big market and I don't really see why they're not, you know, wanting to regulate it, tax it, you know, increase the consumer protection and all of that. It just seems a shame, especially when they see the success that there's been in Peru.
[00:21:58] Speaker A: That's always kind of the million dollar question, these ones where things essentially can slow down.
Because we arguably saw that in Europe with the Netherlands. That was a lengthy, lengthy process. It just kept getting a shelf because of a lack of political enthusiasm for passing legislation. And well, we all know what happened there. It passed, but honestly, should it have even passed? Because like the snapback against the industry just showed that that was really a kind of pretty loose, you know, kind of like pretty kind of, you know, thin support. Ultimately it was.
[00:22:36] Speaker B: But I think this is where it's difficult because the industry doesn't help itself. But as an individual, you know, operators there, you kind of have to go along with it is we saw the Netherlands and we're now seeing in Brazil and pretty much choose a country and it's the same kind of thing is that a market regulates and people just throw money at marketing because they want market share. And there's just far too much marketing. And everyone goes, this is just, it's just taking the piss and then there's a clamp down. But if you're one of the operators and you say we're not going to do this marketing, you're just not going to share, there's no point being in the market. So because everyone's doing it, you kind of have to. But guess what? And I said this in Brazil at the start, I was like, it's going to be the same in Netherlands and any other country, you know, you're just going to screw yourselves. And funnily enough, now they're trying to stop marketing.
You know, let's say I was watching one of the games there and at one point on the screen you could see seven different, just in one still shot, taking a goal kick. You could see seven different gambling companies being advertised on that one shot. So, you know, if you're an operator there, yeah, you have to sponsor a football team to get visibility. But you can't be surprised when there's pushback.
[00:23:35] Speaker A: No.
Well, this is it. The industry is essentially kind of put in this catch 22 situation.
I mean, like could, you know, could part the solution be, you know, there's some sort of, I mean, whether it's quotas or something a bit more kind of robust on like proportion, you know, kind of like a proportionality of advertising. Because obviously, you know, within like, for example, like advertising blocks is usually a limit of like no more than two gambling ads per block or something like that. But if they, you know, kind of. Do you think, you think that's an area with regulation where it would actually help to be quite prescriptive?
[00:24:14] Speaker B: Maybe. But then we talk about the importance of advertising to advertise the legal brands and is one of the biggest tools to fight against illegal operators. And then as the survey data in Chile seems to imply, you know, with, you know, I'm just using the best example to sponsor the league, change the name, league's names, their name, then people can associate that with being a licensed operator, you know, is legal. Of course, it's got some form of trust and license and legality about it because they've named the whole league after it. So why wouldn't they assume that that's a licensed operator? So, you know, if you want people to play with licensed operators, you need to be able to give them the opportunity to have this branding and advertising, but it doesn't at the same time need to be shoved down their throats.
[00:24:52] Speaker A: So I think the point, the point.
[00:24:55] Speaker B: Of advertising doesn't mean that it should be a free for all. So, yeah, I think it should be.
[00:25:00] Speaker A: The, the idea of it being kind of shoved down people's throats, I always kind of struggle a bit with. Because for the.
Especially with like television, radio, billboards, things like that, that only comes after regulation and licensing for the most part. So it goes from zero to existing. And I think just that change, you know, this wasn't there before, this is now there. I'm very conscious of it being new because it's new. I notice it. I think that almost kind of. It feels like that almost actually skews perception a bit like. Yeah, there is.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: You know, and if that is the case in some market like Chile, obviously it wasn't, it was there before regulation.
[00:25:40] Speaker A: Well, this is it. I mean, like, I think there's a. I think there is kind of definitely a difference between this is new. Oh, look at that. I didn't see that before. And my God, this is everywhere. I feel bombarded because I think like, when you watch sports coverage in the U.S. there is a lot of advertising, you know, for the industry, like as you do, you do very much notice it.
[00:26:02] Speaker B: The US is ripe for having the same thing happen, quite frankly. It's fine. I can't imagine any U.S. regulators watch our podcast, but the amount of advertising there. Then again, the US is just a big advertising nation, isn't it? So maybe they don't care as much.
[00:26:13] Speaker A: You know, and they do have some great adverts as well.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: Yeah. But I mean, it's, it's everywhere. But I suppose it's kind of synonymous with the sport. But I feel as though we are probably moving towards the end. We are sure you've got important calls with people to do so. Random country generator.
[00:26:31] Speaker A: Yes. What are we going to talk about next week, aside from Brazil? Because we'll look at the Brazil tax numbers next week.
[00:26:37] Speaker B: Yes. And actually as a spoiler alert, what do you call it? Preview hook.
[00:26:43] Speaker A: A preview.
[00:26:44] Speaker B: Trailer.
[00:26:45] Speaker A: A trailer, Yeah.
A sneak peek. Teaser.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: Teaser.
[00:26:51] Speaker A: Yeah, There we go.
[00:26:52] Speaker B: We've done some kind of quite deep research based on picked transactions looking at the offshore market. We just don't believe the. Quite frankly, if people are talking about the size of the offshore market as a percent of the total market. We should say how big it was based on the January data and maybe February data, which was lower. And now you've seen how big the onshore market has got. They're still talking about the offshore market being the same percent, and it just doesn't make any sense. And it also doesn't help them because suddenly you've just got this astronomical market size that's being claimed. So we've actually used data, funnily enough, looked at pix. Yep. Since analysis of pix transactions to look at what the implied pix offshore market share is, and also analysis of crypto use there. Because as we said in our previous podcast, some of the numbers on crypto are just ridiculous. And actually crypto can be tracked. So we look at the kind of crypto use and we've got more survey data that looks specifically at Q2. So, yeah, we'll do a bit of a thing on Brazil and we haven't talked about it for a while. And the other one will be, how much do you know about Albania?
[00:27:56] Speaker A: Actually, a few little things about plans or attempts to build a casino over there.
[00:28:03] Speaker B: I mean, there are casinos over there, but Tirana. Good language.
[00:28:09] Speaker A: A O Albanian.
[00:28:11] Speaker B: Yep. Currency.
[00:28:12] Speaker A: See live or live. Something like that.
[00:28:16] Speaker B: Albanian lek. National flour is the red poppy. And the national dish is tave cossi, which is baked lamb with rice, which actually looks really nice.
[00:28:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it was a. Anthony Bourdain ate it on an episode of, I think, maybe Parts Unknown, which is a.
[00:28:34] Speaker B: Lamb, yogurt, eggs replacement, sour milk, wheat flour, butter. So Albania and Brazil. I know we talked a lot about Brazil. We haven't talked about Brazil for a while, but I think now we've got this data on it, I think it's quite interesting to revisit because a lot of the views on the market, I think, are quite outdated, especially with the size of the offshore.
[00:28:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:51] Speaker B: But hey, why would you want to look at. Why do you want to use data to look at the offshore market when you can just tell people it's 60% and just leave it at that for six months?
[00:28:59] Speaker A: Well, that's what we're here for, to bring data into it and to make it fun. Next week, as Ed says, we'll be talking Brazil, Albania, like World cup, third round, group stage match.
So.
[00:29:12] Speaker B: Well, hang on, isn't the new World cup gonna have about 20 group stages now? They've expanded it to about 3,000 countries just to.
[00:29:19] Speaker A: Oh, God. At this point, it's at this point, it's basically, it's basically just. It's a literal World Cup. Every team seems to play itself.
[00:29:28] Speaker B: Do you think that the new expanded World cup, which includes 90% of the countries, do you think Scotland will actually make it through to the finals out of qualifying?
[00:29:39] Speaker A: I actually genuinely don't at the moment. We don't have a decent goalkeeper under the age of 40.
We don't have a striker coming into their prime and no, you have Scott.
[00:29:53] Speaker B: Scott McTominay, who was the lead goal scorer at the thing, used to play up front in the youth team for Manu and is now. Well, his girlfriend is called Queen of. Is it Queen of Napoli or Queen of Italy, something like that.
[00:30:04] Speaker A: I mean, he had.
[00:30:05] Speaker B: I don't like to use the word heroics for footballers because there's nothing heroic about it, just good at football.
[00:30:09] Speaker A: He did have an excellent first season at Napoli and, and some of the goals he scored in World cup qualifying, like free kick against Spain, he is, he is good. He'll be about Callum McGregor won't. John McGinn's probably going to be getting on a bit at that point. So we're, we're, we're a team in transition and the problem is I don't really know who's going to be transitioning in.
[00:30:35] Speaker B: Well, I mean, Barry Bannon could still be. In fact, he's not even Scottish. Is he Scottish? Yes, he is Celtic.
[00:30:41] Speaker A: Yeah, he is Barry Bannon.
For people who don't know about the lower leagues of English football, Barry Bannon, is he still at Sheffield Wednesday?
[00:30:50] Speaker B: Well, I'd rather not publicize the fact that he is technically a free agent because he's out of contract. He is training with the team, he can be signed. But because of Sheffield Wednesday's financial issues, there's a ban on them signing anyone on more than £7,000 a week. But I don't want it to be known that, you know, he is potentially available. Or as one QPR WhatsApp group said, when we played away and beat them, he said, Barry Bannon, he may be 40 something years old, obviously in his late 30s. He's 40 years old. But when it comes down to QPR, he plays like Iniesta because he can be that good. Just pulling the strings of wee little Scotsman. But again.
[00:31:29] Speaker A: It'S not that unusual a thing. Scotland occasionally has.
There's a strange track record of short, slightly players that perhaps don't look the most athletic, but being really good, you know, tricky players, I mean, like John McGinn I think, doesn't really fall into that category because he's just a great player, you know. But like, back in the 90s, someone like Stevie Fulton was at Hearts, was at Partick Thistle at the end of his career. He was actually a pretty tricky midfielder, you know, good passer, didn't really like to, you know, chase the ball a lot, but he was, you know, we can actually create these things. Even Billy Gilmour, he's maybe a bit kind of smaller and skinnier, but he's a great player.
[00:32:14] Speaker B: Well, if we are needing to cut down the length of podcast, we know we've got some filler we can cut out at the end, but, yes, Albania, Brazil, and probably another mention maybe of Sheffield Wednesday or the Jags or whatever team I then decide to follow next in a random sport. And possibly another mention of some random musical artists from Robin.
[00:32:34] Speaker A: We might. Might just try and do that. So after that slightly extended outro, we hope you enjoyed the episode and we'll see you in the next one. Bye, then.
