Episode Transcript
[00:00:13] Speaker A: Hello everybody and welcome back. It is episode 19 of Right to the Source. My name is Robin Harrison and I'm here as ever with the Thelma to my Louise and the slightly bleary eyed Ed Birkin. Ed, how are you? And how is Lisbon?
[00:00:29] Speaker B: I am fantastic, thank you, Robin. Lisbon is a little overcast today, but compared to the weather back in the uk, I think it's tropical pretty much.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: Wow. So how have you found it? What's been going on? Tell. Yeah, give us an idea of what's been happening on the show floor. The conversations, the gossip, all of that.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: Well, I must have. So I haven't been to SBC Lisbon before. I've been to a couple of SPC events. But it's a good show, it's been a good show and actually everyone I've spoken to said last year wasn't it, I think they moved it here from Barcelona for the first time and you could tell it was having some TD problems. But this year the feedback's been good. I know it's not ICE or IGB Live as you guys would say, but hats off compared to other ones I've been to. Yeah, it's good. A lot of people here, I mean, we'll just get straight into the data and rant and numbers of the week. So, not wanting to go back to our old friend the sleeping giants, but the Steve Sidwell of IGB was conducting his interviews on the show floor yesterday and the feedback to me was that the range of estimates for the illegal market in Brazil range from 15% to 90% now seems to be growing. I mean, 90%, that would put the market at more. The illegal market at about 335 billion reais, or about 3% of the whole of Brazil's GDP size. You know, there's people who genuinely believe that apparently. I know so. And it's, you know, I think it's just one of these seething problems the market has where there's just so much disinformation that's going around there.
Disinformation, misinformation, you know, and they need to sort it out, quite frankly. Unless everyone's going to be on the same page. It reminds me a bit of a story I was told years ago about Greece when Greece was first trying to regulate and the operator, the commercial operators couldn't really get in. And I was speaking to one of them afterwards and he said the main problem was we were just arguing between ourselves. We were trying to argue that you shouldn't allow betting exchanges because you could bet against things happening. They were arguing that they had more transparency and they were better than we were as normal commercial bookmakers. So, quite frankly, the government just listened to OPAP and said, why do you want any of them? We're this trusted monopoly. We've been doing this for years.
And they pretty much closed the market initially to them all. With all the different trade associations and all the different numbers out there, I think unless everyone gets on the same page, it's going to be very hard to fight against what is, to be honest, quite a hostile environment with the media and with the legislators. But, you know, that's something they'll perhaps going to learn the hard way. So that's my numbers. The other numbers is 0, 0 wins for any of my teams this week. The Jags lost to the Bengals in a very closely fought 2731 game. And Sheffield Wednesday unfortunately went out the Carabao cup to the mighty Grimsby, who, having knocked out. Man, uh, I wouldn't say this is a giant killing to beat Sheffield Wednesday, if I'm honest, but, you know, it's. We want to concentrate on the league, you know, that solitary point we've got in the league. You know, I think it's important to build on that.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: How did you get on at the weekend in the league?
[00:03:31] Speaker B: I mean, so we're three nil down at halftime and they had had two shots on target, so, you know, adding a solid own goal. Let's just say I was glad it was a game I didn't actually go to, but congratulations to Bristol, you know, your newfound home team. Oh, do you want to hear something else? Very amusing that I heard. All right, this was hilarious. So I'll just get that to make sure that I don't misquote it whatsoever. So to do with your team, your first love, which is Celtic.
Okay, I don't. I recognise the name. Do you know Ryan Nolan?
[00:04:02] Speaker A: Ryan Nolan?
[00:04:03] Speaker B: It's from his account. Celtic are the biggest club in the uk and it's not even close. If we were in the Premier League, no one would have as much pull as us. And the English hate it. I mean, for starters, if they're in the English League, they would not be in the Premier League. I mean, and also, how diluted is that the biggest club in the uk? Even for someone who's a fan, you've got to admit that's absolutely not.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: We do have a lot more international pool than you'd expect. Maybe not to the level of the big commercialized, corporatized Premier League clubs, but it's Organic, genuine fans around the world.
[00:04:35] Speaker B: I'm not arguing you have organic genuine fans, but to claim you're the biggest club in the uk, it just. Obviously. Anyway, I think that's probably enough for false claims, be it on the show floor or on the Twitter sphere or whatever it's called. The X tier.
[00:04:49] Speaker A: Xsphere. Twitter sphere. Well, yes.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: So can I ask you a question, Robin? You're. Well, you know, you're in the media side of things. Have you got telegram accounts? I don't, I don't. And someone asked me that when they wanted my contact details and I said no. And they just looked at me in complete shock, as if they didn't know what to do. I mean, I don't. I don't know anything about it really. I assume it's like Twitter, is it? No. Instagram?
[00:05:11] Speaker A: No.
I suppose, like what's happening. It's an encrypted messaging platform.
[00:05:15] Speaker B: Maybe. Maybe we need to get down with the times. Anyway.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:18] Speaker B: Onto the podcast. What are we talking about this week?
[00:05:20] Speaker A: Yeah. So what are we talking about? Do you want a top story?
[00:05:24] Speaker B: Yes, please.
Well, I mean. I mean, given it seems that every single person at Clarion is in Lisbon, I'm not sure what work's been done, but. Go on.
[00:05:32] Speaker A: Well. Well, it's actually a bit cross promotional, but on the right to the source Sister podcast, shall we call it the World Series of Politics?
[00:05:43] Speaker B: I'd probably call it Parental Podcast.
[00:05:45] Speaker A: Parental Podcast Master Podcast. A so really interesting one this week.
[00:05:51] Speaker B: Very, very serious. Much more serious Older brother.
[00:05:54] Speaker A: Yeah, the grown up podcast.
[00:05:58] Speaker B: The one who went to university. One that's off to college and, you know, wears its chinos and, you know, slacks and shirt and.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:07] Speaker B: Stumble around.
[00:06:08] Speaker A: Yeah. The Springsteen to our fugazi.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: Actually talking about slacks and. Sorry to interrupt your cross promotional story of the week. So I was asking Sauna about dungarees the other day and I do actually, we do have. Have something there. Painters. Painters and decorators do often wear dungarees.
Welcome to Long Couples and Fishermen.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: You know, you think like the trawlermen.
[00:06:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:32] Speaker A: That counts as dungarees.
[00:06:34] Speaker B: Yeah, There you go. So it's not just Mario and Luigi. And if anyone, no one's got an idea what we're talking about. You should have listened to the last podcast.
[00:06:40] Speaker A: Exactly. But no, the. The one that I'm going to bring up is latest World Series of Politics. So we have Dave Reebok on. So Dave Reebuck was obviously a director. Executive director of New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement. And he's now Left that role.
And I think when he was at the dg, obviously he's kind of, you know, he's kind of at State Ambassador. You know, there. You know, there's kind of like a limit to what you can see, but having left that role, the gloves are off. So it's Dave talking about sweepstakes and predictions, and it's. It's good. It's worth a listen.
[00:07:19] Speaker B: Okay, so I haven't listened yet. And not wanting to give away all the.
All the juicy stuff, but I imagine he's anti sweepstakes and prediction markets and think they're just getting around what is effectively, you have well crafted or attempted to be well crafted legislation across various states. And if they don't want gaming or betting, they don't want it. So this just is trying to get in the back door.
[00:07:42] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. That is very good.
He's. Yeah, he's very good. And also we will be doing an episode, this podcast on the show floor at G. Okay.
[00:07:53] Speaker B: So that will be in.
[00:07:56] Speaker A: Las Vegas.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: You know what?
Thanks. I think it's. Is it two weeks or three weeks?
[00:08:01] Speaker A: I think three weeks.
[00:08:02] Speaker B: You know what we should do? We should maybe skip a week, and then we could have our 21st show in Vegas. You know, because 21 is the legal age. You can do everything in the U.S. blah, blah, blah, blah.
[00:08:14] Speaker A: I got it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was very good. Very good. Very. Well.
[00:08:18] Speaker B: I was thinking the other thing we could do is our 21st show. We can make it special by having a guest, but that's not gonna happen. So I thought we could be us two talking crap.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: I thought it'd be good to have.
[00:08:27] Speaker B: A guest in Vegas or just generally in Vegas.
[00:08:30] Speaker A: I mean, in general. Yeah, we should probably look at getting guests. Yeah.
[00:08:34] Speaker B: Okay. So Vegas, let's get a guest. Yeah, I'll leave that to you. What day are we going to record it?
[00:08:40] Speaker A: Well, we have a podcast schedule, so I mean, this literally. I was just working out logistics live on a podcast, so let's move away from that. But it was just to give people a teaser rather than to discuss the ins and outs of doing a podcast on the show floor.
[00:08:54] Speaker B: Don't forget, we've got the NHL game. No clashes for that. Okay.
[00:08:57] Speaker A: Okay. I won't do a podcast in the middle of the evening.
[00:09:02] Speaker B: The clip from the NHL game. Yeah, yeah, if you can. If you can cut it in somehow. Anyway, okay, so story of the week. That's good.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: Yep. So what? So this week we are talking about the Congo. We are talking about Mauritius. And we are talking about Zynga. So because I just mentioned sweepstakes and predictions, I think it's actually quite interesting to talk about Zynga because if you hark back to 2012 or well probably around 2011 kind of onwards, it was this a sort of boom in the industry of social casino games. Free to play casino rather than the kind of dual currency sweepstakes model. No ability to take money out, anything like that. But at the crest of that wave was Zynga. Was Zynga Poker. No. Built up huge audience of monthly active users but was one of. One of many. So you also had Platica which was acquired by Caesars Interactivists. It was then you had Buffalo.
[00:10:05] Speaker B: They then sold out for good profit I believe the play.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I think they sold the platika business for 4.4 billion, something like that. Then there were things like Buffalo Studios with a bingo blitz or you know, there's a whole, you know, weight. Double down.
[00:10:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I was igt. Bought double down, didn't they?
[00:10:25] Speaker A: Yeah, 500 million.
[00:10:27] Speaker B: Then they sold it again for double down interactive to a Asian consumer.
[00:10:32] Speaker A: Korean business. Korean business called W Games.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:10:36] Speaker A: Yeah. And then you also had things like the assets that form side play all these, all these things. You know. So there's this real kind of boom and it's, it's just quite. I think the parallels between that era and the current one are quite interesting because at that time the buyers were really the legacy US land based businesses.
These were the companies buying up essentially kind of light touch interactive assets, you know, game, you know, kind of like apps that were essentially a way to engage players and then ultimately I suppose kind of cross sell them into kind of like the in person real money gaming offering.
I mean that's, that's really what was kind of happening.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: Okay, so yeah, guess what? The top two markets in social casino works. We did actually have spent weeks putting together this very detailed social casino data set.
But we don't. It's still there. It's not something we focus on now as the interest is kind of moved away from it. But the top two, the top two biggest markets for social casino Us. Yep. Followed by Asia if you're taking age of the whole country wise Australia, the two markets which at the time so looking at 2023 with the exception of a couple of small ones, not small, a couple of states and don't have legal ic and it was. So with Australia, you know, it's not trying to push it towards an aristocrat bought.
Did they buy A big fish, Big fish, big fish, you know, which has social casino but also has non casino gaming. It's just generally social gaming. So I don't think they're necessarily looking to push them into real money gaming. It was just a way, it's not for everyone, but it's just a way to try and monetize it. And it started off with people playing on Facebook, playing these games.
Then the dedicated apps. Yes, there is the casino aspect to it. But then Singer, you know, farmville I think was their biggest term.
[00:12:30] Speaker A: Yeah, well, the reason why I bring up the why I made that kind of, you know, presumably at some point cross sell them into real money is from that whole era. I don't think we ever really saw the end game of what was essentially meant to happen with that. Like so when you think about that kind of time, you did have that kind of Facebook real money kind of test.
So you see how that you had gamesys doing, you know, paid prod, like a real money gaming product on Facebook.
You had a Zynga offering. You had a company, I think it was Bonza they were called, they were doing kind of like slots on Facebook. Real Money888 had an offering as well. But none of these things ever really kind of, you know, like set the Heather alight. I mean, obviously there were very kind of limited in terms of the markets they could go into, but it felt like there was never really a kind of like clear end point for these things. You know, how this kind of linked up with the rest of the business. And you could even argue that something like that psy play, you know, with light and wonder, I mean that was obviously acquired, built up, then spun off and is now being kind of like reabsorbed. You know, there was like the. So I suppose these social casino products, while they did engage that audience, was it. Was it really just a revenue stream, just an additional revenue stream? Or was it. Or do you feel there was ever grander designs and kind of integrating this into kind of like a kind of, you know, like a kind of gaming flywheel.
[00:14:08] Speaker B: So okay, so let's not use the word flywheel. A flywheel effect and noise the hell I've made is something that has stopped. I think entane were the ones who used it first and now flat to do it and it's just oh, anyway.
But yes, okay, the non flywheel. Look, I think there's been, I think there's two. There's a couple of aspects. So my understanding which could be wrong is the likes of Cyplay Aristocrats And I think while they were buying it one of the main or one of the reasons was they're saying that we, we have all this products that we use from real money gaming. We can just use this product for social casino. Not to try and then get players to convert them did let's say in Australia, you know unlike casino, it's very, very unlikely to ever get regulated. You know they have so but just as you know we've got all this content and people are willing to spend money buying coins. They can't change back to real money. I don't understand why but people are willing to do that. So why not just have it as a revenue stream but also non social casino products. If you look at Zynga, I mean in 2017 they made US$380 million in revenue from Social Casino. And in 2021 last set of results for this sold was 588 million. So they grew it. But if you look at their total business, the split of social casino versus casual games.
In 2017 social casino was 44% of their revenues, casual games 56. By 2021 social casino was just 21% casinos and casual games was 79%. So you know that yes, they kind of started off with I suppose most well known for us anyway Zynga poker, you know, Farmville and stuff like that really, really took over. So yeah, they managed to get growth but it was, it was massively slowing. It wasn't the driver of their business.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: No, but, but they also, there's also a lot of M and A and they were, they were acquiring a lot of like hyper casual games, like really, really basic kind of gesture based kind of titles. So they have, they have been diversifying and they, you do have, you know and like when you think back, you know they had like Game of Thrones slots, like free to play Game of Thrones slots. They did put a lot of money into building up these things. But then equally you look at something like aristocratic social offering essentially pivoted away from social casino into these kind of different, into you know, kind of I suppose kind of formats you'd associate more with video games.
[00:16:33] Speaker B: Yeah. And look if you look at now the owner is Take Two Interactive. The owner of Zynga's 2021 Zynga was 2.8 billion revenue.
Take Two Interactive, you know what did they get? They bought it in May 22nd for 12.7 billion fuzzies to do the math. But you know four, four to five times revenue. You know, so I Say that's a big multiple. You know there was good growth in the business. What are take two now? They are 5.6 billion of revenue. 60% is from the US and their most significant titles were Grand Theft. Also NBA 2K. I suppose that links back as well to, you know, got NBA 2K and then going back to esports and you know, back to real money gambling again.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: Well also in the Grand Theft Auto online there was a casino product. You could go to a casino, you could play it. Because we, we had an interview with one of the directors of Take two about that guy called J. Moses on.
[00:17:33] Speaker B: A really not interesting story.
I reckon I played Grand Theft Auto when I've been like 17. So let's say 2000, 2001 when it was kind of really like the graphics it was just proper old school and he's kind of getting into.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: Yeah, it was old.
[00:17:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Ambulances and the fire engines, the motorbike. It was great. I mean now it's probably just a completely different thing. I wouldn't even recognize.
[00:18:00] Speaker A: Oh yeah, no, they're. They're bringing out another one which is. I mean the last one was pretty amazing.
[00:18:05] Speaker B: Well, they've delayed the latest one to according to notes that someone else in my team did for me. Grand Theft Auto, how's it only 6? 6 is planned for FY27 after being delayed. Although in fairness that they've got a March year end so FY27 does mean from April 26th. Oh, and then Zynga. Yeah, the one we forgot which was huge. I never played it was Words with Friends.
[00:18:25] Speaker A: Yeah, Words with Friends acquired that though, didn't it?
[00:18:28] Speaker B: I will nod along and say absolutely.
[00:18:32] Speaker A: I think it did. I think it did. Yeah. It was kind of like a Scrabble type game. Yeah, I think it might have acquired that. I might just made that up though. So is it. But I mean do you feel there are parallels to be drawn between that kind of era of people kind of diversifying by bringing these new products out and the current era of the kind of sweepstakes predictions, competitors.
[00:18:55] Speaker B: No. I mean there's a loose connection, but I'd say no because I think the big difference is these were businesses that were bought as legitimate revenue streams making money on social casino, possibly of getting the, you know, list for anything that was were to be real money. Although I don't think that'd work. I remember speaking to it was B win party. I can't remember whether it was the B win guys or the party guys at the time who said it Must be a pod faker. They had a free to play poker site before it all got closed down. They had a free to play poker site in the US and they tried to convert those people to their real money poker and less than 1% of people converted. So people who play social casino are not necessarily going to play real money casino if the legislation does change. So I think it was a legitimate revenue stream for diversification and also because of the content they had the likes of Cygames, the rest of crap that they could then use that you know, away from just the real money gaming side of things. I don't think any of them in my view were in any way trying to circumvent legislation in order to get some form of real money gaming content. And I think that's the big difference between sweepstakes and predictions. Not saying that, not questioning the legality or anything of it. That's nothing to do with me. We'll let Brendan and the guys talk about that. But without a doubt they are trying to circumvent that legislation is blocking real money gambling or they're doing it in states where you are allowed it but without the real money gambling license and the social casino. We're never trying to do that.
[00:20:24] Speaker A: Couldn't have paid a bit of myself.
[00:20:25] Speaker B: There we go. I think we've done that pretty well because. Which is good because the country wise I'm thinking isn't going to go as well.
[00:20:31] Speaker A: Don't. Damn it. Before we start.
[00:20:34] Speaker B: Expectations low.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: All right. I mean I think anyone who's listening is probably already lowered their expectations quite far.
But should we start with Mauritius or should we start with the Congo, Democratic Republic thereof.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: Are we sure? Was it. I don't think it was.
Was it the DRC we're going or was it the Republic of Congo?
[00:20:59] Speaker A: I thought it was a DRC because DRC is quite interesting because that's a pretty huge market in terms of population. It's like. I think that's about 100 million people. Isn't it Tim?
[00:21:12] Speaker B: It is larger but I'm pretty sure that's a Republic of Congo which is a very small market or simply the Congo rather than Dr. Congo. So we're now talking about different markets. Might as well as we start talking about it gone to that in Congo. The only. Well there's. There are two bits of.
I think the main one is effectively Congolo which is there lottery. It's been around since 1991 and runs a lottery in betting. You can probably tell. I'm now reading this. It's been declined for a number of years and it's pretty much insolvent, even though it has about a thousand outlets. Yeah, it is.
It's just a mess. So been around a long time. No one trusts it. They don't, you know, question about whether they can pay any, can afford to pay their commissions, can afford to pay prizes. So I just don't actually see that very surviving. So they did regulate the online market in the second half of 2024, I think it was around September. I don't know exactly. And I actually don't have data on that. We are doing a deep dive of our Africa numbers at the moment. I think Africa is a very interesting market for us where it's very hard to get data and there is no decent data there, quite frankly. I told you the story when I was at ICE two or three years ago, a South African dude came up to me, really nice guy and he obviously had a drink and in a pub and he was like H2. Yes, I love your data. Everyone's data. Data in Africa is really shit. But yours is the least shit. It's great. And I was like, I don't know how to take that. And so I was a bit. He goes, it's fine. He goes, everyone's got two sets of books so you'll never get the right data. But yours is the most realistic. I can take that as a compliment. Yeah, I take that we need to do a deeper dive. So anyway, so not. Not the DLC I haven't looked at because we did talk about conga. So it's a 12 and a half percent GGR tax, relatively attractive market, but the population is only six and a half million, bulk population, about three and a half million because young demographic and fast growing back of the envelope, we'd probably put the online market maybe 150, 200 million US dollars. But we need to do analysis on that. That's just me kind of top level looking at tax rates, analysis, drc, very different, much bigger market. The kind of regulated market has been around for a lot longer. Although again you say regulated market, you kind of have to take that with a pinch of.
[00:23:31] Speaker A: Well with the, with the drc. And the more I think about it, maybe we did say Congo rather than drc. It feels like there was, there was something I read a couple of months ago, maybe even, maybe even a year ago where there was some kind of like vague estimate of it as potentially being a billion dollar market. But the government gets like a fraction of that. So it's like a Big kind of.
Basically the market was much bigger than, than there was actually coverage of it. So I think there's been some efforts to introduce kind of like a monitoring system to try and better kind of like size up and quantify the DRC's market. Because for a market of 100 million people, you know that's, that's kind of thing where with the level of oversight there is definitely potential there.
[00:24:23] Speaker B: We've done some reports on this and on Africa recently and one of them was looking at the monitoring and the problem with the monitoring is certain countries details of which one or how it's being done. But certain ones are using a single operator where then everything has to go through to track all the, all the deposits withdrawals and it's just causing huge issues. You know, they're not capable of having that level of volume. They then put on fees and it seems like a small amount of fee and they have to may go I will charge two and a half percent of deposits or two and a half some withdrawals. Well if it's a mania casino market, that's a huge amount of ggr. Whereas actually because all the payments tend to go through mobile money operators, the operators can give what's called like view only access to it. So there are much cheaper ways of monitoring the market. But I think this is something. Yeah. That needs to be done more widespread because whereas we look at most markets, let's say about Brazil, you know you've got the legal.
So locally licensed and not locally licensed. And in Africa you've got locally licensed that's paying some form of tax or you know their tax they should be paying locally licensed, they're paying a lot less tax than they should be and non locally licensed. And you just know that they're not paying the tax just by the tax revenues, by the fact Kenya, the kra, Kenya Revenue Authority, they say our tax revenue has increased 79% this year because we're collecting more tax, not because the market's going around that much.
You look at some and you work out the theoretical tax rate and it's 100% of GGR. So clearly people aren't paying full tax because it can't.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: No, actually no.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: Yeah. I say numbers at heart. We need to try and get some better numbers. DRC even Mark Demand is talking about given its size and everything, it's got huge potential regulated. It, it's not going to get those people onshore and paying them.
If the tax rate is something which is a sustainable level which the Congo.
[00:26:18] Speaker A: Has done and There is also, I think in DRC there's also. Is that a 10% tax on player winnings and love a player winning stacks.
[00:26:27] Speaker B: People do love a player winning stacks. I could actually tell you again, just tell me what we're talking about.
[00:26:36] Speaker A: But I, but we. Well, I mean on this I will hold my hands up. I was wrong in what we're talking about.
[00:26:42] Speaker B: It's. It's all good.
Why don't you tell us something about Mauritius?
[00:26:49] Speaker A: What do you want to know about Mauritius? So it's got.
[00:26:52] Speaker B: Oh, here we go. I was final back now. So I think there is a withholding tax of 4%.
No, 10%. Yeah, yeah, okay. It's more 10% calculated customer winnings.
Then you also have VATs, 16% of GTR, which only came into effect in September 25. You know this, they love just, you know, some markets, they look at Europe, it's quite simple. Yeah, it's like, okay, the tax rates. Yeah.
Tax rate in Netherlands, okay. They complain about it. GGR tax rate, they put it up. Okay, you know what GGR is? You know what the tax rate was in? That is, you know, they'll keep the tax rate the same in some of the African markets. They'll go, oh, just stick withholding tax on. Or I'll tell you what, I know we're taxing on ggr. That will just stick an excise tax on as well. Like in Peru, do a customer winnings tax or. Yeah, let's do a tax on deposits. Let's just do that as well.
Without ever understanding the relationship between how deposits, withdrawals, ggr, turnover, everything works. I say you can have the same tax rates, you know, with basic on withholding tax and deposit tax or tax on stakes in two markets. But if one is, you know, Uganda is more casino, you know, and you've got something like Nigeria that's, that's predominantly sports, you know, the effective tax rate is going to be hugely different anyway. Mauritius.
[00:28:13] Speaker A: Yes, yes. Mauritius 2027.
No, not 2027. 2000. I think there was a gambling act passed which did include interactive elements. I'm not sure if they have ever been activated. He ob has National Lottery by Lottotech. Mauritius National Lottery does have a, I think bookmaking licenses. It might just be limited to football though. And I think there are different categories for football in the country and football held outside of Mauritius. Big for a horse racing as far as I know, as far as I remember.
And I'm trying to think what other elements. Does it have any casinos?
[00:28:54] Speaker B: It's in the process of trying to privatise its casinos. Well, four casinos are partly state owned and have. I don't know where, where I got this information from but apparently been running at a significant loss for around 10 years.
There are 20 slot parlors, but yeah, one race course. CRTs are permitted as is fix odds betting on foreign football matches and local horse racing. So you're correct. Look, we get sports betting is very restricted.
We get data from Lotto Tech on the lottery. There is a sports betting operator that reports data that we then use to kind of gross up our estimates of, you know, what's the estimates in the total market. So we've got the land markets, about US$100 million. They've got 1 million adult population.
[00:29:40] Speaker A: Yeah. So 1.26 million total population.
[00:29:44] Speaker B: So about 20 million of that's betting, 30 million gaming and about 50 million is the lottery. And then the online aspect is just tiny. So it's not a big market. There are some casinos talk about the look to privatize but yeah, really it's just the lottery followed by some horse racing and then, you know, foreign football and that's kind of it.
[00:30:03] Speaker A: So there we go.
[00:30:04] Speaker B: Good. Let's move on. Yeah, well, while I've got stuff, let's look at the next random country.
[00:30:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:09] Speaker B: And get that done.
[00:30:10] Speaker A: Okay, so what are we doing next week?
[00:30:13] Speaker B: What do we do next week? Country. No, that's not the random country generator. Where is it? Okay, okay, I'll tell you what I will give you. Instead of asking the questions about it, I will give you some of the answers and you tell me the country.
[00:30:28] Speaker A: Okay, let's go for it.
[00:30:30] Speaker B: I mean this is not going to help you one bit. Population is just under 6 million. The language is English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil.
The national flower is Banda Miss Joaquin and the national dish is Taiyanese chicken rice.
[00:30:45] Speaker A: Singapore.
[00:30:46] Speaker B: Very good.
[00:30:46] Speaker A: Chicken rice. That's what got me.
[00:30:49] Speaker B: Okay, assuming it wasn't the national flower.
[00:30:53] Speaker A: Well, that was obviously a bit of a giveaway. But the Hayanese chicken race was the absolute.
[00:31:00] Speaker B: Okay, right, let's get a company and you know what, I'm going to flip it across. I'm going to go to supplier.
[00:31:06] Speaker A: Yep, let's do it. Right.
[00:31:08] Speaker B: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Between 1 and 5, 3, 1 and 7, 6.
Golden matrix.
[00:31:21] Speaker A: I mean they're kind of their operator and supplier.
[00:31:25] Speaker B: Yeah, well they're down and supplier on my things.
[00:31:27] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:31:28] Speaker B: For that it is Golden Matrix Group, based in Las Vegas, Nevada is an established gaming technology company that develops and owns online gaming IP and builds configurable and scalable white label social gaming platforms for its international customers located primarily in the Asia Pacific region.
[00:31:44] Speaker A: So Golda and Golden Matrix also have the acquired Meridian Bet last year before which then gives them kind of like that's some in person and some online assets. Interesting one to discuss. We actually I'm sure you'll remember you might even make the list for it. This year we had Brian, their CEO in the Igbi studio at Ice.
[00:32:11] Speaker B: Okay, yeah, no, no, I mean I given I wasn't invited into it last year, I just assumed it didn't happen.
[00:32:19] Speaker A: But I did remember that slightly awkward point before when I think the day before you asked me, am I speaking at the conference? At the conference, you asked me that.
[00:32:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I know my place, right. So we've got a company, we've got a country, I think we can wrap it up and I'll go meet, do some other meetings and make the world a better place. One meeting at a time. I am actually going around Benfica football stadium today.
[00:32:42] Speaker A: That's exciting.
[00:32:44] Speaker B: Honest. I find stadium tools a little bit dull, but ibear the International Betting Integrity association who does a lot of work in Center Fight Scourge, match fixing, that unfortunately is a reality in some segments in the market they are celebrating, they've got some workshops and celebrating their 20th anniversary. So they're hosting that with kind of provide some data for them. Great set of guys there, Khaled and his team. So yeah, so I'm looking forward to a couple of drinks and looking at the stadium.
[00:33:11] Speaker A: That would be a fantastic guest.
Yeah, we got Khaled on the podcast. I think that'd be a really good guest.
[00:33:16] Speaker B: Yeah, we'd be able to get that.
[00:33:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:33:18] Speaker B: Okay. Okay, you sort out the Vegas one and then, you know, we'll sort something up.
[00:33:24] Speaker A: Nice. Well, on that note everyone, thank you very much for listening. Big thanks to Ed Birkin for rousing himself from his bed, leaving the, you know, trail of broken bottles and strewn clothes and smashed up hotel rooms to get to wherever he is with that beautiful range of.
[00:33:42] Speaker B: I'm just outside the IGB exec lounge that Rosie organised for before you said anything. Yeah, it's a nice quiet space to do some work and meetings.
[00:33:51] Speaker A: Everyone, thank you very much for listening to us. You know, this isn't just a zoom call, you know, we are recording Ed.
[00:33:58] Speaker B: And to our six listeners, great to see you again.
[00:34:00] Speaker A: So everyone, thank you very much for listening. This has been Episode 19 Write to the Source. Robin Harrison and Ed Birkin. We'll see you in the next one button.
