Episode 36: From Mexico to Austria, with a $5.7bn Caesars deal in between

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome back to Right to the Source. My name is Robin Harrison and I'm here, as ever, with the Stimpy to my Ren, Mr. Ed Birkin. [00:00:24] Speaker B: I'm lost, friend instantly. [00:00:27] Speaker A: Ren and stimpy. [00:00:29] Speaker B: Okay, so there's two wrens that I know. There's the bird and there's the kitchens. [00:00:36] Speaker A: No, that's with a W. This is just R E N. R E N. I'm pretty sure Ren was actually based on Peter Lore. You know, the actor from. He's a German actor who's in Casablanca. He was in a. That film. M. I think he did a lot of early horror work. It was very funny. It was very. [00:01:00] Speaker B: Horror is not my genre. [00:01:02] Speaker A: This is. No, no, it's. Well. Well, nothing's your genre. [00:01:07] Speaker B: Country rom coms are my genre. [00:01:09] Speaker A: No, teen comedies. Look, American Pie isn't a rom com, Ed. [00:01:15] Speaker B: No, I know that's not wrong. How to Lose a guy in 10 days. Fantastic film. [00:01:19] Speaker A: Okay. [00:01:20] Speaker B: In fact. In fact, the whole Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey kind of films were very good. Yeah. [00:01:27] Speaker A: Okay. I can't say I've seen them, but I will endeavor to watch. [00:01:32] Speaker B: He's an interesting guy, Matthew McConaughey. He's. Well, he's fantastic at rom coms. He was very good at some dark stuff. What was the one where he was. Is it true Detectives? Yeah, like that. I don't think I even finished that. That was too scary for me. Like, didn't become. He lost loads and loads of weight for a film where he just became like. [00:01:57] Speaker A: Emaciated. Yeah, yeah. Because he was playing a guy who think contracted it the Dallas Buyers Club. He won an Oscar for that. [00:02:08] Speaker B: And then he ran. He was always talking about running for governor in taxes stuff. It's quite interesting guy. [00:02:14] Speaker A: It's bald. [00:02:17] Speaker B: You know what emancipated means? You should do. You're a journalist. So I accidentally used the word emancipated instead of em emaciated the other day and got corrected. And then I didn't realize what it. No, of course it should be corrected. I didn't realize what it was. Do you know what it is? [00:02:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. I mean, it's a word. [00:02:39] Speaker B: Tell me. [00:02:40] Speaker A: It's to be released from the bonds of slavery. [00:02:45] Speaker B: Well, I've checked that. But in the more modern thing, it's to be legally released from your parents. Yeah. [00:02:55] Speaker A: There is that kind of a man. There is that kind of emancipation. Like Macaulay Culkin did it. [00:03:00] Speaker B: Yes. [00:03:00] Speaker A: From Home Alone, which. [00:03:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:02] Speaker A: And that's kind of your level. You've seen that, haven't you? [00:03:04] Speaker B: Yeah, let's. [00:03:05] Speaker A: Yes. [00:03:06] Speaker B: Let's not discuss why Macaulay Cook into that. But apparently, like a few child actors and people do, it in part, apparently makes contracts easier. But I think we're going off topic because before we go into the gambling stuff, I want to say congratulations to you on your Celtic team doing the double with the oldest manager probably in the world, Martin o' Neil, doing coming back. But also it kind of leaves a bitter taste given how it was effectively cheating, not your fault, but that penalty against Motherwell in injury time, which clearly wasn't a penalty, which meant that you would have had to beat Hearts by with three goals in last game of the season. And Hearts just deserved the title. But congratulations. [00:03:55] Speaker A: Hearts deserved the title, but Hearts didn't win the title. [00:04:01] Speaker B: They got done over by decisions. [00:04:03] Speaker A: But anyway, they didn't get done over by decisions in the final game of the season. They took the lead and they got done over by a better team. No, like, there were points of last season where we were atrocious, like, absolutely atrocious. But Martin o' Neill twice know it wasn't even that he didn't. Well, I mean, he got a few kind of loan signings in January, but ultimately he worked with the players that he had and he just reinstalled, reinstilled belief and drive in these players. And I mean, it's going to be a very different team next year, like, [00:04:48] Speaker B: like Arsenal, who, which again is disappointing, but, you know, they just went on a run and won, won the games from whatever point they didn't until the end of the season and it was the title. So. [00:05:00] Speaker A: But I mean, honestly, we ground out the results. You know, we really can have ground these out. Like, Hearts did really well. But I think Hearts, I mean, obviously they've now lost Shankland to some club, which I think is probably going to sting more than than losing the title. [00:05:19] Speaker B: Well, look, we don't need a full rundown of Scottish football because our listener base is not interested. But they are interested in probably the biggest news in sports in the past week. So loyal fans will know, clearly, all listeners, we'll call them fans, will know that the Oilers is my NHL team, but I do have a second team, which people don't think you should really have in sport, but no soft spot, having seen them and the Las Vegas Golden Knights through to the Stanley Cup Final, which is the effectively the super bowl of the NHL. So why is this such big news? Because the Athletic, which is the New York Times sports division. Yeah, they Had I think it was 28 of their reporters in the semi final. Best of seven games. First of all, Knights were playing Colorado Avalanche who were the best team in the. In the the regular season and favorites to win it. And 27 of the 28 reporters said that the avalanches would go through. 25 of those said the Avalanches would do it in either a clean sweep of four straight wins or within five games. Not only did the Knights go through, they beat the avalanches 4 nil. Like against every single person's prediction. So go nice. The problem is they're pretty hated because all the other franchises have long suffering fans who have been waiting for years or decades, you know, to get a standing cup. And the. The Vegas Knights now I think the third final in a few years. So it feels that they're both here. But anyway it is. [00:06:59] Speaker A: Yeah. And also I'm very glad that you've got a fallback of the Oilers fall short. [00:07:06] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I mean it's a shame, but it shows that someone's discussing about, you know, saying, well, like the Avalanches, the Avalanche not winning is, you know, just choking and shows the coach and he said imagine if with Bulls hadn't won with Michael Jordan and, and Scotty Pippen and they made the point that it's just completely different because if you could win the Stanley cup with two of the best players in the league, then the Oilers should be winning the Stanley cup every year. [00:07:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:35] Speaker B: Because they had by far the best player in the league. [00:07:39] Speaker A: David. [00:07:41] Speaker B: But if that's just not. Not the case in. Not the case in, in the NHL there is basketball, which is why they're actually. And we don't want to go on to this, but why they look at chasing a basketball where there's something called tanking. [00:07:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:53] Speaker B: No. Yeah. [00:07:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:54] Speaker B: So for those who don't, it's where teams who aren't going to do very well just purposefully lose the games towards the end of the season to get a higher draft pick. Because someone in basketball can make such a difference to the team by. Because of the amount they play as well and on the pitch. Whereas in ice hockey you play very few minutes anyway. Nuances of sport. Should we get on to gambling? [00:08:18] Speaker A: Yeah. We're eight minutes into the recording and we've not yet actually talked about gambling. So it's probably a good idea to add some of that in. So today we're going to talk about three different things. We're going to touch on Caesars, we're going to talk about Austria and we're going to talk about Mexico. Where do we want to start? [00:08:38] Speaker B: Well, no, I was going to. Where do you want to start? [00:08:43] Speaker A: Let's start with Mexico. [00:08:45] Speaker B: Okay. [00:08:46] Speaker A: Right, yeah. So Mexico. So tell us what's on your mind about Mexico, Ed? [00:08:52] Speaker B: Well, Mexico is interesting at the moment. So technically North America, but most people look at it around the Latam region. Yeah, of course, the second biggest market behind Brazil. Now why is it interesting at the moment? It's been growing very quickly, without doubt. So it's had a 40% online growth CAGR between 22 and 2024. Okay. So we have the market at around US$4 billion onshore, 800 million offshore. Should probably check that before I say it. Now we have 80 onshore. No, I like 4.3 billion combined. Okay. Got onshore and offshore, $3.4 billion onshore. [00:09:46] Speaker A: So 80% onshore you said. Okay, that's, that's impressive. [00:09:50] Speaker B: Well, yeah. And some people say no, there's a big, big offshore market. The fact is Caliente is just so big. I mean it's gone down from 70, 80 of the market to 53 at the moment. [00:10:02] Speaker A: Right. [00:10:03] Speaker B: Just, it's just such a big player that you need to take that into account. And then other big players in the region have largely come on shore, you know, likes about 365. Then you have some local players play DATs etc now. So we've had really good, strong growth, very loose regulation. Quite frankly, they're about to kind of do what they want. So again that obviously encourages people to come on shore. There are very few restrictions and it's [00:10:27] Speaker A: sub licensing, isn't it? Through a land based operator for digital. [00:10:32] Speaker B: So two things have happened. So you've got that, that tailwind but then they increase the tax rate to 50 of GGR. [00:10:40] Speaker A: Yep. [00:10:41] Speaker B: Now that's going to have an impact. The interesting thing about Mexico is it's been characterized by very, very elevated levels of spend, media spend, particularly from Caliente. And then everyone else has had to follow. [00:10:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:55] Speaker B: So you know how what we're not exactly getting to works because this, you know, this Caliente where they have profit share with Playtech and maybe incentivize with certain things, but they've had high levels of marketing spend. So that is going to be cut. You can't have, you can't be having 50% marketing spend and 50% tax. So they'll be reducing marketing spend to more normalized levels which will reduce growth. But also you offer higher base. You know, growing at 40% a year isn't possible to Kind of do into perpetuity. Okay. On the flip side, you've got the tailwind of the World cup and they're one of the three co hosts with the US and Mexico and Canada. So we think that's going to equate to about $2.5 billion of extra turnover through their sports books. In terms of ggr, it really depends a tournament, especially when you've got so many such an expanded tournament and with some of the, let's be honest, crap teams, you know, are there going to be upsets? Is it going to be favorites? Winning? How, how's the margin going to be? But it's good for customer acquisition. But the other bit that's then interesting is actually what's happened in terms of the share. So over time we've seen bet365 come up pretty strongly. We've seen plus bet Mexico have all done, you know, kind of got decent ish market share. But Caliente's been the, the runaway, albeit down from 84 in 2020 to 53% in 2024. [00:12:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:27] Speaker B: And 2025. Now what happened in November 25th is the licensing partner of bet365 and Batano got in trouble or accused of some financial irregularities. Okay. And they got their license revoked. [00:12:46] Speaker A: So. [00:12:46] Speaker B: So effectively bet 365 and Patano got blocked, their traffic went to zero. So we've seen a shift over the past six months in share bit because between them they had 365 at 11%, 3% for 2, 3% for Patano, so around 14% of the market. Now how has that shifted? To be honest, Caliente's held pretty steady. Three main beneficiaries we've seen are Plaid Wat, who is the third biggest operator, Novibet, who was only been in the market a couple of years. He seems to have done pretty well. [00:13:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:24] Speaker B: And then Brazino777 who had was again just kind of entered the market a bit. So you got better. [00:13:34] Speaker A: I always think of them as a Brazilian operator. [00:13:36] Speaker B: So do I. So do I. Yeah. And look, they've only got, according to web traffic, 3% share, but actually that still puts them at 1, 2, 3, 4 seventh, you know, in the market. So, you know, around the top 10. So it's still a good market. I think it will be interesting to see, you know, if they start tightening up. There's always, there's been discussion for years about, you know, tightening up regulations, hasn't there around things and whether that acts as a catalyst for more external investment in the country. Or in the gambling sector because people know it's, it's kind of solid. [00:14:12] Speaker A: Yeah, but I mean is the 50 tax reason is going to be a bit of a deterrent to that. [00:14:18] Speaker B: Yeah. And you know, I don't want to cast dispersions on, on the operators but you know, there's also 50% tax rate. I don't know how good the reporting is being tied into systems. So whether all operators pay that or not. You know, I know we shouldn't say that not all operators pay the right amount of tax, but we've seen that in Peru, you know, that now the tax has just take, has gone up significantly in the past couple of months because they've all had to integrate into the regulator systems. So what rate of tax is going to be versus the headline rate of tax and clearly that has a big impact on the market growth. So. [00:14:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's fair to say but at the same time a 50% rate is about eye watering because if people are looking at returns and you mentioned earlier it's, you know, it's been characterized by high media spend so that's obviously going to then tail off. [00:15:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:17] Speaker A: And generally what, what you can see happens, I mean Italy being the extreme example is that benefits the incumbents. [00:15:28] Speaker B: Yeah. And to be honest, you know, a lot of the. Well, yes, it benefits the incumbents and I suppose also the kind of local operators with strong brands. It's why Caliente's done well but you know, better. Mexico Play D. Yeah. [00:15:42] Speaker A: Could I think for Coder that's Kuder online, just to be clear because obviously those businesses are separate. I think Mexico is their biggest market. [00:15:52] Speaker B: Yeah, but you know, they build good business there. Yeah. Mexico and Spain, they do do good business in the two big ones, aren't they really? So look, I, I say I think it's a good market but having more regulation I don't think would be a bad thing because I suppose one of the concerns is whether they say actually these licenses don't count or something happens a bit like you're seeing in Brazil. We have regulation and Lula trying to shut down the whole gambling sector which you know, discussed. We're not going to talk about Brazil. You know, probably what happened is appeasing the evangelicals, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, you just don't, you don't want a wild west works in, in some respects of freedom to do stuff but actually having regulations around it and a bit more certainty. [00:16:35] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah. I mean I, I suppose like just one, one kind of point on Brazil, it's quite interesting because the general line is no one ever lost an election over gambling. [00:16:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:50] Speaker A: But I think what Brazil is kind of showing is that someone might win an election over gambling. [00:16:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean it's. Yeah, yeah. [00:17:02] Speaker A: But let's not get into Brazil again because we always talk about Brazil. It's obviously very interesting, but we like to be diverse in this podcast. So let's talk about Austria. [00:17:15] Speaker B: Yes, yes. So why don't you lead with Austria? [00:17:18] Speaker A: Okay, very happy to. So Austria this week the Ministry of Finance has what I mean, kind of released, slash leaked a bill which has set out plans to end the current monopoly held by casinos. Austria's win today and liberalize the online gambling market for the first time. Which. [00:17:44] Speaker B: Now can you clarify this please? Because my initial research, slash, my buddy from chat GPT was suggesting that there was. There was not as much suggestion that it was liberalizing it more. They were just opening for retender in late for the. The license in late 27. But some of you know, your fellow media gaming media outlets kind of talked about this, expanding it to a number of different operators. [00:18:19] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So the, the draft actually says. Let me just quote it exactly. Several providers will be able to offer online gambling in Austria in future. So it's not just retendering, it is bringing in multiple people to the market. So because obviously there's only one license, as you mentioned, it runs until 2027. There's been a lot of talk. [00:18:47] Speaker B: It's towards the end of 27, isn't it? [00:18:48] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, there's been a lot of talk and that could be extended if the process is ongoing, if there's legal challenges which has delayed it, which is, you know, just look at Germany that can really delay these processes. [00:19:05] Speaker B: It's all win in the any casino ostrich, which all win iron. [00:19:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:10] Speaker B: So would anyone else be against it opening up? [00:19:15] Speaker A: I don't think so. You know, online sports betting is obviously available, but online gaming is not. [00:19:22] Speaker B: But on a regional level. So what would be helpful for me particularly there is no actual list of who's. You cannot get a list of actually who's licensed online sports betting. [00:19:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:33] Speaker B: Because it's all regional level, they don't publish it. So actually if at the same time they move to a federal level sports betting, that would be fantastic. But I think that's just wishful, wishful thinking. [00:19:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean at the moment it's going to be lottery stays, a monopoly, no cap in the number of licenses. But this is a World we live in. There are various things in the tail, [00:20:06] Speaker B: so deposit limit and max mistakes. This looks. [00:20:08] Speaker A: Oh, I'm not. Before you even get to that. Back taxes. Yeah, back taxes. So we have Imogen Goodman obviously covering this with some fantastic work. They will be required to settle outstanding Austrian court rulings and pay any backdated taxes. [00:20:31] Speaker B: He's that better home, potentially. [00:20:34] Speaker A: Better at home, potentially, Mr. Green. Because think about the player losses cases. These are coming from the offspring court. So it's, you know, so people are kind of tied in there. I think the minimum share capital is something like 10 million. So in terms of the limits. So here's, here's an interesting one. So, you know, there's all that talk about under 20, but there was all that. That talk around under 25 being the new underage people almost because there was kind of specific controls from them. Place like the Netherlands, uk, stuff like that. Austria has added a year onto that. So it's players under the age of 26, I think it's €250 a week. Older players, it's something a month. A week. [00:21:26] Speaker B: Okay. [00:21:27] Speaker A: But it's not tiny. And then I think maximum deposit for older players is like 1600. 1700, I think it was like 16, 80. Something like. Yeah, it was a weird number. [00:21:45] Speaker B: Do you know what age you can change your name by deed poll in the UK? [00:21:53] Speaker A: I don't actually. [00:21:55] Speaker B: 16. [00:21:56] Speaker A: Really? [00:21:57] Speaker B: Yeah. I got that from the Chase, which is a TV quiz show. So it's interesting that apparently you can change your name, get married, join the army, get a tattoo, demancipate. Oh, sorry. Emancipate yourself and parents. Etc. 16. But you're not deemed to have enough control of your money that you can bet what you want to or vote or a drink. Not vote at 16. [00:22:23] Speaker A: No. [00:22:24] Speaker B: Pretty sure you can. [00:22:25] Speaker A: No, no, no, that's. [00:22:27] Speaker B: That's why I went for 16 on the. It's a voting age. 18. [00:22:30] Speaker A: I think it's 18. [00:22:32] Speaker B: Yeah, probably is. They want to. Oh, yeah, there's a bill to reduce it to 16. [00:22:37] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Look, I mean, if you're allowed to join the army, get a tattoo, yada, yada, yada. [00:22:45] Speaker B: Can you not get a tattoo before 16? [00:22:47] Speaker A: No. [00:22:48] Speaker B: You can get your ears pierced, though, because you see like lots of little kids with their ears pierced. Age, like three. [00:22:55] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:22:57] Speaker B: But that's, you know, imagine you see that in Glasgow. You see it places in Essex, so you definitely see it in Glasgow. [00:23:03] Speaker A: What sort of aspersions are you casting here? [00:23:06] Speaker B: Let's just say there's certain we're not. That's fine. I'm not going to open that can of worms. [00:23:12] Speaker A: All right. But anyway, and anyway, back to the restrictions before. Before Ed's classes and starts to scream rather than whisper. So maximum states capped at £2. [00:23:24] Speaker B: UK is 18 actually, for tattoo. Wow. [00:23:27] Speaker A: Is it? [00:23:27] Speaker B: Oh, according to Google. [00:23:30] Speaker A: Okay. [00:23:30] Speaker B: Tattooing a miners act in. In 1969. Miners being M I N O R rather than people who work down a coal mine. [00:23:39] Speaker A: But carry on, we still had them then. Thanks, Thatcher. [00:23:44] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [00:23:46] Speaker A: I'm reading a really good book called Killing Thatcher, which is about the Brighton bombing at the moment. [00:23:51] Speaker B: Wow. Okay. [00:23:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:55] Speaker B: Just. Just for balance, I would like to say, Maggie, what you did for this country, we should all be thankful. But we won't get. [00:24:03] Speaker A: We're not the BBC. We don't have to balance. [00:24:05] Speaker B: Yep. But I actually believe that, you know, the privatizations and stuff. It's fine. Let's just see. What? Let's just see. I mean, labor's done fantastic for us so far, but I think, anyway, let's. Let's not get it. [00:24:16] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So maximum winnings, 2000 jackpots banned. Mandatory cooling off period. So after I think it's 90 minutes of play, you'd have to stop playing for 15 minutes. [00:24:37] Speaker B: Some of these things are good, strong regulations, which are important, but some of them, you just think it's. It's just going to lead towards a. I mean, off the top of my head, you know, it. That to me looks like a channeling rate with those maximum stakes, etc. Limited number of lights because you're probably looking at 60 something, maybe 70 something, like depending on actually what gets passed. [00:25:06] Speaker A: Yeah, this is, it's important to state that this is in the draft phase. And I suppose what's going to be interesting as well is how much Austria will have looked to other markets. Like there's a good op ed by law called Arthur Stadler and IGB in the wake of this igamingbusiness.com. And he can make. [00:25:34] Speaker B: Spelling out your website name has put you off your entire point that you wanted to do. I hope it was worth it because everyone on this podcast, all six people that listen, know what your. Your website is called that many. Look, I had an email from someone saying, oh, I love your RTTS podcast. I loved how they shortened it and it's got me up to speed on the sector, blah, blah, blah. And I'm thinking, wow, either there's more listeners than we thought or what seems even less likely is that some of our Subscribers have realized that if they say they like the podcast, they're going to get quicker responses, which means they must know about the podcast in the first case. But anyway, I clearly responded to them straight away. Yes. On the igamingbusiness.com website. [00:26:15] Speaker A: Yeah, on the igamingbusiness.com website. And he points out Austria for having waited has a lot of different kind of use cases to look at from across Europe. [00:26:30] Speaker B: They do, but they've chosen these deposit limits like the Netherlands, which has 53 channelization or under 50. [00:26:40] Speaker A: Some people dip to a dip to under 50 in 1H25. Is that right? [00:26:49] Speaker B: Depends. I. I think it's just above 50, but either way, 50, then you've got Germany, which is even lower, especially for igaming. [00:26:57] Speaker A: Yep. [00:26:58] Speaker B: Which, you know, whether they're looking at that. But you know, it's all about maximum spins and stuff like that. Like it's not looking as a best examples of things to look at, let's be honest. [00:27:12] Speaker A: No, it's not. But it is a draft. This is the starting point. And the, like the time scale isn't quite clear. I mean, one of the things that Imogen picked up on was that it is under what you call it. I think it's. They want to set up a new regulatory authority by or around 20, 30. So it doesn't feel like it's going to be the fastest moving process, does it? [00:27:43] Speaker B: No, but look, time flies by and things go quickly. Like my final thought on Austria, as you so kindly asked, is, you know, it's got some great places to visit, decent beer, decent ski resorts. Big fan of schnitzel. However, if you're there for a week, you just want something like you just want something less heavy, less greasy. You know, it is very fried, isn't it? And heavy food in Austria, it's not quite like France or something like that, you know, and sometimes it just means you just want. Just want something light like a. A Caesar salad. [00:28:23] Speaker A: A Caesar salad. Okay. [00:28:25] Speaker B: Speaking of Caesar. [00:28:27] Speaker A: Speaking of Caesar. F. Hell, [00:28:32] Speaker B: Seamless. [00:28:33] Speaker A: That was the worst. The absolute worst. [00:28:40] Speaker B: Seriously? [00:28:41] Speaker A: Yes. [00:28:42] Speaker B: How would you get from Austria to Caesars? [00:28:45] Speaker A: I mean, I was wondering where you were going with your weird food diatribe. [00:28:49] Speaker B: And everything I said is true. I generally believe all of that love schnitzelbush is too much have you know, for an entire week and sometimes you just want to Caesar salad, even though you know that with the calories of the dressing and everything else totally offsets [00:29:03] Speaker A: the fact that it's a salad. [00:29:05] Speaker B: It's not actually really any healthier for you but it just, it just tastes good. [00:29:09] Speaker A: Yeah I just always. I don't like having the chicken on it. That's not, you know, they're always, they're always begging. Chicken. [00:29:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean you can have it without chicken but I don't see why just paying for lettuce, leaves and crouton. But anyway well before Caesars as he didn't like my little. Little segue. The other interesting thing that's happened this week which is why I think we're now slowly moving away from these monopolies. So you've obviously got Alberta which is launching in Canada. Finland moving away from the monopoly. New Zealand are kind of opening up the online casino albeit keeping the monopoly on sports. Austria obviously looking to transition a bit. You still got Poland holding out on the. On the I casino but Norway seems the outlier now. We talked about all those players that got told that they had won this big multi million pound prize Euro Norwegian crone or whatever and that was a bit of a disaster. Now what's just come out is that for a few days in February thousands of players, I think 5000 players for 23000 bets were able to play on games without actually using any real money. So not only is this kind of gone against obviously any controls that I'm going to have so the idea of this monopoly being you can protect players and you have all the controls that commercial market can't. All of that got messed up. Winnings were paid out. They don't know if the winnings then included the state given the stake wasn't actually any real money. There were massive restrictions on free bets so these conic. So that's kind of gone against all of. I mean these weren't meant to be free bets but again against all the regulations and they still don't know how much it's cost them in losses in what the players were spent. They still haven't words now so they still can't get to the bottom of it. I mean it is a complete. I know it's going to get blanked out by your. I don't know how I've pissed him off so much. The guy who you now used to edit this who blanks out every single word that's. But it's a show. [00:31:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:21] Speaker B: Monopolies are not necessarily the best. Yeah, I get what you have Monopoly, you should have more control. No, but things still. Mistakes still happen and are they the best people to be running the Norwegian gambling space? [00:31:36] Speaker A: I think that's A. Yeah, that's a point worth making. But very quickly because I need to make a call before my next call. Caesars. So Tillman Fertitta has agreed 5.7 billion deal to acquire the business. Obviously he owns a golden nugget casino chain through the Landry's business. Been in the offing for a while. We kind of knew it was happening, but I suppose, you know, I suppose kind of very quickly. Any initial thoughts in this? From my side, it seems like it seems like a good idea. I think Caesars has never really recovered from, you know, the bankruptcy. It's kind of, it's ticked along. Don't quite see what the shape of that ultimate business will be. I suspect some properties from the Landry side and from the Caesar side will be divested. Certain strip ones will be kept in. Really curious about the future of the Caesars digital business because you would think that could be right for a spin off or a sale or it could be kept within. [00:32:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean the Caesars digital business is interesting. I mean, yeah, I think I'd split Caesars broadly into the kind of three categories. You've got some of the, the strip, the kind of higher quality parts of it, destination, then you've got lots of regional casinos and then you have the, then you have the online business, digital. So if you look at their share in the U.S. it's, it's been pretty, you know, up and down a bit, but similar kind of constant. It hasn't really gone down significantly or up significantly. It's around 5% but within that it's around 3, 3 and a half percent for sports and 7% or so for iGaming. Unsurprising that it is, you know, trending better for I gaming than sports. But beyond that, the only, I suppose slight issue with the spin off of it is I don't think they use the digital business as just a kind of cash generation economic division in itself. But it's the data they get from the players that they can then use to cross sell, go into their land based business, of course. And so that's I think important that way. If you spin off with the, the kind of cross sell impact of that get fully captured. I think it's quite a tactical one for them which. Remember when they went into New York. [00:34:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:09] Speaker B: And they spent a, a ton of money on promo. [00:34:13] Speaker A: Oh yeah. Insane amount of money. [00:34:15] Speaker B: And everyone thought, you know, they're just ridiculous. Yeah. But if that allowed them to kind of capture some of the players initially and then the high value players and Then you can use that to, you know, that data, you know, no one else really had data at the time on who the high value players were in New York. You know, they've got properties in Pennsylvania, they've got properties in Atlantic City, you know, all around there. So, you know, that's. That's incredibly useful information. [00:34:46] Speaker A: Yeah. But on that note, we are definitely over time. It's been lovely to do this after an enforced break. [00:34:55] Speaker B: Yeah. A couple of things to talk about next week. World Cup. [00:35:00] Speaker A: We'll talk about the World Cup. [00:35:03] Speaker B: And speaking of thing with Caesars and casinos and New York, the first casino in New York City. [00:35:14] Speaker A: Yes. Resorts World. [00:35:16] Speaker B: And the numbers are, unsurprisingly, very strong. And we can talk more about those next week. [00:35:22] Speaker A: A teaser. I love it. All right, everyone, thank you very much for listening. And we'll see you in the next episode of Right to the Source with Robin Harrison and Ed Birkin. [00:35:32] Speaker B: Hang on, hang on. You never told me who Ren was. [00:35:36] Speaker A: Ren and Stimpy? [00:35:37] Speaker B: Yeah. You never told me who they were. [00:35:39] Speaker A: They were. They're a cartoon. They're a 90s cartoon. All the listeners will know who Ren and Stimpy were. [00:35:44] Speaker B: I doubt it. Okay, good. They will thank you for listening and let us know if you knew who Ren and Stimpy were. [00:35:51] Speaker A: Thanks, everyone.