Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Hello everybody. My name is Robin Harrison and I'm here as ever with the Jose Canseco to my Mark McGuire. Mr. Ed Birkin.
Ed, how are you? And that's confused you hasn't no idea
[00:00:24] Speaker B: what on earth you're on about.
[00:00:25] Speaker A: Jose Segue, Jose Canseco and Mark McGuire.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: It's not music because they're two.
They sound like different nationalities and it'd be weird to have a Mexican and an Irish lad doing a duet.
So I'm, I'm honestly lost.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: They were the Bash Brothers in professional baseball and they their powerful muscle bound playing styles and forearm bashing ritual made them cultural icons of the era.
Though the legacies are largely tied to baseball's steroid era.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: How you got down that wormhole of
[00:01:12] Speaker A: well famous sporting jewels.
I thought we'd start in a kind of like a World cup type thing after the final yesterday.
[00:01:21] Speaker B: Oh, hang on. No, no, let's pretend, you know, we're current. This is going to take at least a week to go out. So I would like to congratulate Spain's, you know, victory eight days ago.
I think that's better.
10 days ago.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: Yeah, that'll do.
[00:01:35] Speaker C: 12 days ago.
[00:01:37] Speaker A: Last month.
[00:01:40] Speaker C: Well, let me just say last month and you've got six weeks to get on with that.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: All right, yeah, yeah, we got a lot of time then Last, last, last year. Let's just be safe.
But anyway, a very pleased to welcome Jack Crabtree to the podcast from Game Check.
Now actually, why am I going to try and do some kind of potted explanation? I'm going to, I'm going to ask you, Jack, to explain what gamechuck is.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: If you did an overview, Robin, someone might actually think you'd done some research into the podcast.
[00:02:11] Speaker A: Oh, we couldn't have. That's a nice segue.
[00:02:16] Speaker B: It's nice.
[00:02:16] Speaker C: They got to get me talking as well.
[00:02:17] Speaker A: Right.
[00:02:17] Speaker C: Like, yeah, start there. So you know Game Check. So I head up our sales team and our partnerships team at Game Check.
Yeah, you know we started the business, I say we. James started the business out the idea that when he was at Netan, basically the regulator was getting all shades are funny about them selling games to in Australia. And he was there going, well we're not. And if you had no idea and it took us a week to find out, you know, the player has got no idea that they're playing on a fake game.
That's kind of where the journey started. And it's, you know, be interesting to kind of unpack that and talk more about fake games. Here today as well.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: That's interesting. So on, on like just to expand on fake games. I mean, like, let's get an idea of the scale of this kind of challenge because obviously essentially people are pirating slot games. That simple. Like, like what's the kind of scale of this as an issue?
[00:03:06] Speaker B: Oh, hang on. But before the scale, can we just clarify. These are real.
So that they're pirating the kind of games, but they're real.
People are still being paid out and stuff. Like the games are still working as mechanics. They're not, they're not just kind of like taking deposits and running away. So as far as they are playing an actual game.
[00:03:23] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So it's, it's interesting because there's actually sort of multiple levels of fraud here and we only kind of focus on one. Although one is kind of indicative of the other. Right.
Which is. Yet it does pay out. And a fake game can be used kind of at any point. You know, it may just be a site spot up and is deciding to permanently use a fake. Might just be a site wants to pull it in on a specific player, group of players, time of day, whatever kind of comes in and it's. But the player would have no idea that that game has been manipulated. I mean, you know, years ago it used to be dodgy music and bad graphics, but now it's kind of.
They are seamless. And in some instances, some of these houses have even hired sort of ex provider devs to help kind of create these games as well.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: Okay, that's interesting. So essentially it's.
So for the player, being able to kind of tell the difference is increasingly difficult.
And is it literally these people have set up studios to pirate the games, or is it more a case of AI coming in and being used to speed up that process?
[00:04:21] Speaker C: Honestly, I think it's a bit of both. Historically it was pre AI, people were just coming in and setting it up. I think nowadays let's ask an LLM to do this and just say, hey, I want you to take this. Here's a game file that we basically ripped or rebuilt, change the RTP to X. And that then allows us to kind of figure out, we can figure out what a fake game is there. But yeah, I think AI is being used to speed it up as opposed to creating the issue.
[00:04:47] Speaker A: Okay. And then getting back to that skill question before Ed so rudely interrupted in terms of how big an issue this is because like, like the example you mentioned, James, I've forgotten his surname. He works for Kin.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: Elliot.
[00:05:04] Speaker A: Elliot, yes.
[00:05:05] Speaker C: He works for.
[00:05:07] Speaker A: Yeah, Leo Vegas. Sorry.
Yeah, that was, well I suppose that was like one incident that flagged him to this as a problem. But then how, how big actually is it?
[00:05:21] Speaker C: I think it varies from not just industry but also how at risk the player is. So you know the two, the big stat that we come out with is somewhere between 5 to 10% of the industry operates some kind of fake game which is actually pretty sizable when you think about kind of just how big the industry is.
But then that varies. So your more regulated markets targeting more, kind of less at risk players are very unlikely to be targeted by a fake game.
Historically those are people you're trying to just win over. The two big places we see it are where regulation is either gray or is weak or just non existent. You know, that is where they tend to be rife. The other thing is where players are being targeted to at risk. So you know, a big one is sites not on BET Blocker. We, we did some research with the team at BET Blocker and that's a tongue twister in a rush and quickly realized actually most of the sites that then being advertised are faked.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:06:16] Speaker C: Which is a pretty harrowing kind of dark way to start the podcast. But yeah, you know, that was a kind of big thing we found and sort of stood there going that's fairly kind of. Yeah. Apparent when you think about it.
[00:06:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, so yeah, it's interesting because I, because I almost kind of looked to, you know, having kind of looked at, you know, what Game Check does, almost kind of saw it as like a revenue protection type thing for the supply side of the industry. But I mean it's, it's really more I suppose, kind of like almost like player protection.
[00:06:49] Speaker C: Yeah, we kind of, we're in a weird spot where we obviously are a big part of player protection but, and, but obviously we're not a charity either. So we have to get the bills paid. And you know, revenue protection from a supplier side is a bit, is a big part of our business.
But also kind of working with operators. You know, there are a lot of operators who'll sit there and go how come ABC Casino can offer a 200% sign up but some crazy bonus and still be profitable. And then you can sit there and go, yeah, because they're operating a fake and we can prove that. And, and for them it's the ability to work with us and say they work with us, helps them say okay, yes, our competitor can give you that crazy sign up bonus. You are probably never going to get paid on it or never see much of it. And here's why.
Yeah, it's. It allows to go down that. I mean, and that actually leads me to the second part of the fraud is just because someone operates a fake doesn't mean they won't get paid. But actually we do see an increasing. We don't work in this space, but convergence around payments, fraud. You know, you deposit the money, you're probably unlikely to get it back.
You know, there's all the other mechanisms that go behind it as well.
You're not, you're not just going to operate a fake and kind of still go, oh, yeah, no, we'll lay to withdraw your cash and do all this, this and this.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: So, Robin, you know, being the, you know, journalist that you used to be before moving into the echelons of middle management, you clearly did some research. How many, how many fake games do you think have been detected globally?
[00:08:12] Speaker A: Well, you're asking me that?
[00:08:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:15] Speaker A: I'm going to delegate that question to Jack.
[00:08:18] Speaker B: Well, if you've done your research, it's 8,500 games. It was actually in a press release they put out this morning, which also quoted HG Gambling Capital's data. So you can tell that, you know, they do a lot of deep research and it's a quality company.
[00:08:31] Speaker C: Actually, 8500 is interesting because we've sat on that for two or three weeks. So where they're going and they're going, what's our actual PR approved number? In the back of my head,
[00:08:41] Speaker A: or
[00:08:42] Speaker C: actually I would sit there and go, yeah, we're going to say this publicly. But actually, no, it's. It's probably slightly higher.
Yeah, interesting. We moved into Brazil and found an absolute, just shitload of fakes in there.
[00:08:57] Speaker A: And then what's the process for kind of verifying and reverifying these games? I'm just trying to get an idea of like the workflows because from the player side it's going to.
Is it really a case if they need to go to the game check site and verify the game's there? Because that feels like an, like an additional step for that user.
[00:09:18] Speaker C: So we actually do. So we kind of. There's three ways of us detecting a fake game and I'm going to kind of talk about how we find sites and how we evaluate them and then kind of the player workflow afterwards. So we have a team of researchers, we work with suppliers who will typically say, hey, we suspect these sites using fakes. Can you go and check it out for us?
Or players will Come to us and say we, we want to know a response on this site.
Historically, kind of our research team was the biggest kind of batter for that or sort of cohort.
But that's now kind of split equally between kind of players and our research team, with players taking on more of the mantle as it was always supposed to be. As our research team is a finite source, as more players kind of use game check, we kind of get more kind of coverage.
So we were able to go out and we identified sites. That way we actually play real games and lose real money. There was, there was an interesting thing, I know when the business was being set up and our accountants going, you can have a hard time explaining company winnings to your, to your tax authority because it was. How do we explain this win? Although that's interesting, I'm not sure we've ever won anything major in all the money we've gambled, even real or fake.
So no, we, so we go out, we test that, we gather the evidence, and then we provide it back to the providers who tell us whether that site is real or fake.
For the player, there's two ways. Firstly, increasingly we're telling them, just look for our seal. The seal isn't there. That doesn't necessarily mean they're operating a fake. But come to our site, check it out, and we'll tell you a kind of a response for the player. You know, the first step is obviously a lot better. The seal is there, it's a QR code. They can kind of scan it, see, like, is that a real seal as well? Or has it been faked?
And then coming to our sites, the other one. And we can also tell whether a site's been fished as well. And we kind of let that information go up on the site. So yeah, there's kind of a two different ways they can go to us. But yeah, the. There's never a player having to record evidence or tell us. We kind of do that for them. Or if they find a site that we've not come across yet, we can go in and do the research fairly quickly on that.
[00:11:11] Speaker B: I mean, obviously it sounds like a great thing because this is clearly a huge issue in the industry, but surely players aren't going to do that. I mean, they don't even check if an operator is legal for most of them. Like we've done surveys and things. So it's quite a lot to expect a player to even care.
[00:11:27] Speaker C: Interestingly, you're right. But actually they do in summer, I think if you're in the uk, for example, you know, I go to Bet Fred and I, you know, I'm not even. I'm gonna sit there and go, you know, they have adverts, they have shops, they'd be pretty stupid for them to be marked with a fake. And, you know, I'm sort of calling them out. Same thing with Bet Fix. They are customers of ours. And interestingly, Bet Fred did say that it does help them with their sort of, their image and what they're trying to sort of promote. But if you're in a slightly less regulated market, they do tend to care, especially because it's the site being legal or not. And interestingly, we sit there and go, we don't care if the site's legal or not. We care about the games being real or fake and kind of going from a different angle.
And I think the players go for 30 seconds, it's worth it, before I deposit, you know, €100 or whatever kind of substantial amount of cash I want to put in there is and realize I'm never going to get it back. And I think they use fake as almost a barometer of it's not necessarily a real or fake game. It's actually the site's been caught using a fake game. What else are they going to deceive me on if.
[00:12:23] Speaker B: If they've. So let's say the supplier finds out, you know, Netanya or whoever does it, you know, Rainbow riches is. Is being cloned and used on this site. What can they actually do about it?
[00:12:36] Speaker C: So that's where we sort of started the business idea around. We thought about Cease and Desist, and James stood there, guy, okay, so I go pay some lawyers a lot of money to go and target a company in Russia who is never going to respond to this letter. I finally can then go to Google or, you know, Cloudflare, they take the site down and then they spin back up three days later. So the whole point was, was actually, no, the aim is not to kind of shut them down. It's to show players and to name and shame.
And so at least it's. It's less about going down the legal action because as he said, is, you know, I'm going to pay some lawyers £20,000 to go and figure out some, get some evidence for me, and I'm going to pay another 20,000, go through a court system. And he said, all because, you know, it's. It's a game that we were never seeing any revenue on. And actually they were never going to buy our real games in any case. And so it was about being able to say here's a site you know, players can come to and see and if there's a fake game they're going to not play on it and it's going to impact their revenue.
[00:13:27] Speaker A: Okay, and how much kind of interaction do you have with regulators kind of lawmakers? Because it feels like that almost feels like the missing piece of this, that kind of connection with, you know, enforcement bodies. Because ultimately if it's kind of piracy and these are kind of, you know, like legal copyrighted products like that feels like the way to potentially stop this.
[00:13:52] Speaker C: We do work with regulators.
Not directly. We have no kind of commercial or even kind of legal interaction with them.
But given James's kind of historical roles, we have quite a close working relationship especially place like the UK GC find what we're doing really interesting. Their view on it is they wouldn't know how to regulate us as a business because we're technically a technology partner. Right. We're not a. We're not issuing anything gambling related but they do use us and they do work with us on hey, is this what's going on with this site? We want to know but I don't think for them it's fake games is in is obviously interesting to them and but actually a lot of especially the UK GC by the time you've gone through the rigma of getting a UK GC license as we found out is you're unlikely to be operating a fake.
The other regulators also work with us as well. But it's as we said is they gray or black markets and kind of operators operating illegally. For us it's more of we're here to understand whether the game is real or fake, not necessarily to identify whether it's regulated or not. You know, as Ed said is most players couldn't really care less actually.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:53] Speaker B: You're not a charity.
Yeah, neither am I.
I don't know what Robin classes himself as but.
[00:15:04] Speaker C: So you're.
[00:15:05] Speaker B: Where's the. If you were kind of putting it there, would you say you're kind of equally split then in terms of like your customer profile between suppliers and operators
[00:15:14] Speaker C: or you're probably becoming a little more operator heavy now. In the early days it was obviously more supplier heavy because they have a very. There's two parts to it. They have a vested interest to be able to say to the regulator hey that's not our game and we can prove it. And and also getting. Taking action for them it was kind of a good way for them to Handle it. Now, though, with our seal sales, we are becoming more operator kind of revenue driven. And that was always the plan was to be kind of work more with the operators than the suppliers. I think kind of a lot of people hold negative connotations about suppliers and the way they run the industry.
And our view was. Was actually working with the operators is getting closer to player protection and sort of counter fraud.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: All right, well, I was leaving space for you because I was. I was going to ask something and then you interrupted and last two questions.
[00:16:04] Speaker B: Well, that's because mine were going to be more interesting. But come on, let's, let's, let's say this goal. You've had time to refine your question,
[00:16:10] Speaker A: think about it and forget what it was.
[00:16:15] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:16:16] Speaker B: Is it weekends, James? Was it something like that?
[00:16:19] Speaker A: What's your favorite color?
[00:16:21] Speaker B: Yeah, that is not an easy question. What is your favorite color, James Jackson?
[00:16:27] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, don't worry that they get that confused quite a bit. What is my favorite color? Am I obligated to say green? You know that game. Check green here. Or, you know, can I give a truthful answer?
[00:16:35] Speaker B: No, give a truthful answer.
[00:16:36] Speaker C: Yeah, people, you know, the bottles, the blue. The bottles blue. My mugs blue, and my laptop's blue. So, you know, I feel that there's a. There's a recurring theme there.
[00:16:44] Speaker B: I think mine would have to be blue. As you say, my shirt's blue, microphone's blue. The HD colors are blue. I support Sheffield Wednesday blue. So.
[00:16:51] Speaker C: Oh, you've got no hope, then there, like, it's got to be blue.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: But I, I am a fan of gray.
[00:16:56] Speaker A: You're a fan of green.
[00:16:59] Speaker C: Are you a millennial ad?
Have you heard this, like, all millennials furnish their, like, apartments and houses with gray.
[00:17:08] Speaker B: My house is furnished with about 15 different colors that most people would say are off white, but they're not. There's putty and there's all sorts of, I don't know, goose something or. Or whatnot. Am I a millennial? Born in 84? Possibly annoying.
[00:17:23] Speaker A: I think you are, actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you do actually fall in that bucket.
And they just.
[00:17:30] Speaker B: Gray and orange go very well together, in our view. That was easy favorite, wasn't it? Easy J.
[00:17:39] Speaker A: No.
[00:17:40] Speaker C: Here, here, and here.
[00:17:41] Speaker B: Damn it. And then Ryan's blue. Oh, man. This is.
What's your favorite color? Robin?
[00:17:50] Speaker A: I mean, I would probably say green. I don't really wear it, but I just. I like the color painted one room in my house. It's not some shade of off white that's painted green.
[00:18:06] Speaker B: I actually quite like pink. Again, I don't wear pink things, but I like pink a bit.
Nice color. Anyway, what was your question, Robin, before you got distracted by the rainbow.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: But anyway, just on the, on the certification, like the kind of the game check seal, you know, the kind of kite mark. I mean, what sort of uptake are you seeing in that?
[00:18:27] Speaker C: Yeah, interestingly, depends on location to location, but actually fairly strong.
But as you can imagine, if you're in place like Turkey or less regulated, we are a much stronger uptake. If you're in like the uk, still pretty strong, but nowhere near as strong on that uptake compared to those kind of gray and blacker markets.
Yeah.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: Okay. And then. And then for the kind of education piece to kind of familiarize people with this symbol, I mean, like, that's obviously, that's obviously a bit of a challenge, you know, in this industry because there is, there is a lot of noise and there is a lot of, you know, like, competing, you know, kind of like whether it's player protection, whether it's kind of, you know, certification authentication. I mean, how are you approaching that? Do you see it as almost kind of like a certified. Like, is there any plans to get like the certification accredited in the way you'd have, like gla, something like that?
[00:19:21] Speaker C: I think we would like to get there, but I'm not sure it's a goal of the business. I think for us it's the win would be not necessarily some formal body saying, hey, you're accredited. It's actually more of a. Every player is going to. We don't see your sealed, so we're just, we don't trust your site. That's the kind of ultimate goal. And I think that's reflected as a business. We hold the attitude of, you know, we want to work with accreditation and the regulation bodies, but actually we're not that fast if they turn around and say, hey, we just don't know how to regulate you. So we're just, we're not, you know, we're still going to do the work and protect the player. And that's been our kind of primary goal from day one.
[00:19:53] Speaker A: Okay. And you mentioned this a few times now. It's like whether it was a gambling commission or with the kind of certification houses, people aren't really sure how to regulate game check. I mean, is that risk? Because essentially you're, you're potentially different things to different people. And, you know, how, how do you
[00:20:11] Speaker B: kind of be regulated? They do. Then when.
[00:20:13] Speaker A: No, it's not.
It's not so much about being regulated and actively seeking out, you know, kind of like some form of regulatory framework, but in terms of like, the use case and how it fits in, you know, kind of like to the industry to get it embedded. I mean, like, is that. It's almost like having that sort of slightly hazy identity. How'd you kind of nail that down?
[00:20:39] Speaker C: Yeah, I get. I get where you're coming from. I. I don't think they do, because I think actually, you know, if you're. The main thing we focus on is working, you know, with operators. So operators have a pretty good understanding about what we do.
You know, if we. It's not the. Yeah, we don't want to be regular. I just, I come from payments initially and when the open banking initiative came out, loads of, like, regulators said, we just. We were before open banking as well. They just went, not that we don't want to work with you, we just have no idea how to regulate you and therefore just keep doing what you're doing and like, go away. And so, you know, in the us it was a very different framework. It was, no, we're happy to regulate you. And here's how. Here's the framework. Whereas in the uk it was very. We don't really, you know, this is before open banking came into effect in PSD2, and it was. We actually don't know how to regulate you. So, you know, as long as you're not doing these activities, we're not that fast. And I think we're in the same position here, which is. It's not that they don't want to or we wouldn't want to. It's just, you know, you guys are doing good work. We don't feel that there's any risk to players in the activities you're doing.
So actually, you know, I mean, I've not even been in those conversations. I just have to assume that's what they're saying.
And it's a. And if they wanted to kind of regulate us, we would, but it's kind of a, you know, we're doing our thing and, you know, come and reach out if you've got any questions.
[00:21:51] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:21:52] Speaker B: And testing labs aren't regulated, are they? I mean, they probably are in the us.
[00:21:57] Speaker C: No. Oh, they probably. Yeah, in the us they probably are because everything's regulated over there. Yeah.
[00:22:01] Speaker A: I think in the usa, after to be reg. Registered as some kind of sort of like, you know.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:06] Speaker A: Service provider. Yeah. There's some kind of like, ancillary Service provider? Yeah, yeah, they have some kind of accreditation. But I mean like the testing houses, they kind of, they, they do exist in a bit of an odd kind of nether zone between, you know, kind of in, in terms of that they create these standards and then they impose these standards, which I think it.
[00:22:29] Speaker C: Well, I think it's because they're a.
You know, they're not, it's a. You don't, you're not actually, you're not interacting with the player, you're not doing any sort of gambling over here. So the view is that, well, like, how would you regulate this? Whereas in the US Yeah, I think they do have ancillary service providers and you know, it's very sort of. Well, actually kind of you are interacting through third parties and therefore.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: And then, and then just kind of one thing that comes to mind, like on like, you know, say these people are using these fake games. I mean, like, is there any sort of meaningful revenue leakage like from the studios? Because obviously at the moment, you know, a lot of the things that we're hearing is that studios are in a difficult position. You know, margins are getting squeezed. There's just a stupid amount of content hitting the market each month.
[00:23:15] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:23:16] Speaker A: So I mean like, is there any kind of like in. Just in terms of kind of what. What are they kind of potentially losing out on?
[00:23:23] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean they are getting squeezed pretty hard, those studios, from this leakage. I, I mean, was it the CEO of Evolution Turnaround and said a couple of months ago, basically, BL claimed one of the single biggest revenue leakages in their company was people copying their games and, and pirating them. And I think the argument they're saying there is, yeah, the player sees an RTP. If I'm making this up, 50. Right. But actually evolution sees 100. Sorry, a 0% RTP because they're not seeing a penny of that sort of revenue coming their way.
You know, I think the world sort of. I think it's tricky because it's kind of on the one hand their games are getting cloned and they're sort of complaining about their bottom line. At the same time, I'm not sure anyone's got any sympathy for them. But yeah, we do see a huge amount of leakage from their.
Through fake games being faked and we could infer some revenue stats there. But I'd be kind of uncomfortable to do that publicly.
[00:24:11] Speaker A: Fair enough.
[00:24:11] Speaker C: Because it would be an inference, Right. I'd be going, well based on Evolutions, like money that they make and you know, 5 to 10%, then we have to assume and it would be a no.
[00:24:21] Speaker A: Okay. And then actually with these games, I mean, are they kind of. I'm just thinking about that kind of leakage. I mean, like, are these, these kind of like fake or pirated titles offered through just like, just directly on the site, or do you see them kind of popping up and like aggregated, like, you know, aggregation platform, just interest in the distribution?
[00:24:44] Speaker C: I think historically, you know, we saw aggregators getting kind of the cam for it. And I think what was happening is the aggregator was coming in and selling their suite of games and then someone was kind of actually, interestingly, someone DMs James and on WhatsApp. And he's there going on this chief legal officer of Leo Vegas or, you know, the director of legal. And I run a company designed to eradicate what you guys do. Like, really?
But yeah, no, they, they kind of pop up on the side. And I think historically, aggregators, some aggregators probably have been a bit naughty, but I think a lot of them have just been kind of carrying the flax. It's been an easy kind of, you know, oh, we'll just blame aggregator A, B or C and then we won't actually kind of admit to the fact that it was someone else. And, you know, it was, oh, this aggregator sold us the games. We're really sorry. Because it's much easier to kind of blame them than actually that, yeah, some Shady guy on WhatsApp approached me and I took their games.
[00:25:36] Speaker B: Can it be used the other way around by regulators to enforce against legitimate suppliers? So, you know, if you are a supplier and the regulators are going, hang on, you're supplying a lot of unlicensed websites in our country.
And they go, oh, no, we're not really. They must just be copies of our games.
You can go on there and, and go. And they go, you know, they speak to James or yourself and they're like, hey, you know, so and so said that these are copies. Are they real games? You can go on there and go, no, Dev, real games
[00:26:10] Speaker C: it would be. So technically, I mean, there was a technical answer to say yes, but we would be working with the provider, right? So we would have to go back to the provider and say, you know, we found this site in. I'm making this up. Let's, you know, Argentina or Spain, right. Based on the World Cup Final. But, you know, we found this site here.
Could you verify. And they'll quickly put two and two together of who approached us and asked us to do that. Right. Because they'll be there going, well, the regulator just approached us saying, we found this game, is it yours? And then we would be going back saying, hey, could you just verify this evidence? And I think anyone, any of those teams would sit there and go, yeah, we know that the regulators tasked you to do that.
And I mean it's. We would also sit there and say, you know, you would need to go back to the provider as well. We can't validate. We need the provider to tell us whether that game's real or fake. And we would just say that you need to go back to them. Unfortunately, there's nothing we could do around that because the whole point is we need to be beyond. It needs to be defensible. And if we were just kind of saying, you know, this URL typically is associated with fake games, you know, we would be putting a lot of liability on the table, which we wouldn't want to do. We want to be sure that it's a fake and therefore only the provider can tell us.
[00:27:14] Speaker A: Okay, and then, and then do you feel that you're almost kind of filling a gap?
Because obviously supplier licensing is kind of, you know, gradually starting to kind of appear and it's like, well, I mean, like when you think about supplier licensing, for the most part it's going to be, you know, where games are kind of, you know, legally available. Are they like, you know, are they in a country that they shouldn't be? But you know, this, this kind of almost feels like it could form part of that. Like, you know, being able to kind of like verify, make sure people are running genuine games.
[00:27:50] Speaker C: I think, yeah, running genuine games. And part of it would be a good one. And we are speaking with some markets that we sort of lovingly call pre regulated. And we're not talking about the gray market there, we're talking countries where they're building regulation to kind of come in and they, they want to make it part of that suite as a. Actually, you know, you're going to do the testing house. But then also if game check flags you with a fake and you don't have their seal, you know, if you don't have their seal and you are caught with a fake game, then we're going to kind of have a conversation about your overall licensing.
We think. And actually I do think, oh, I'm going to say this right, we think that's a pretty strong approach as well.
I would say that when I think about kind of some of these regulated markets though, it's.
The license is more than that and it's. It's also about the player protection. Yeah. We are just a part of it and kind of protecting the player as part of it. It's not just the, you know, what, what services are available when for people to sign posts to when they think they've. They've gone too much. And how do you protect players from over gambling and so on and so forth.
[00:28:44] Speaker B: It's interesting.
Not as interesting as finding out your favorite color is green, which is pretty weird if I'm honest.
I know you're Celtic fans are still.
Is that actually it. Is that the only reason?
[00:28:59] Speaker A: No. No. Well, I mean, I suppose, you know, growing up I saw a lot of green stuff because of that, but.
[00:29:05] Speaker B: Well, you're in Glasgow so you didn't see that much grass or anything, did he.
We have grass Glasgow as being green.
[00:29:13] Speaker A: Well, I mean we have grass. It's kind of. It was. Well back then it was mainly kind of brown and dead, you know, like also a lot of orange. You know, the old kind of like Blaze pictures playing football. There's a lot of that.
[00:29:28] Speaker C: Last I was in Glasgow was. It was quite a good city actually. Obviously the center. I've not been to the outskirts of it.
[00:29:33] Speaker A: Oh no, it's got, it's got really nice now. Like, it's definitely, it's definitely kind of picking up. They've got an Aesop now. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:29:41] Speaker C: I was in the Accenture Office and I was like, this is nicer than, than parts of London.
[00:29:46] Speaker A: Oh yeah.
[00:29:46] Speaker C: And they were, they were all there going, but you're in Glasgow and it's on the other. This is actually quite nice, guys.
[00:29:51] Speaker A: Yeah. No, Glasgow, like genuinely, it's, it's. I don't go back that much. When I do, it is. It does kind of amaze me how different it is.
[00:30:00] Speaker C: Yeah. Although I was. We were in a really nice bar, entertaining, and you got to go to the bill and I was like, there's no way it was this cheap. The London me was going, I'd spent two, three grand sort of hosting this event here and it was under a thousand pounds and this is pre pandemic. But I was going, there's no way it's this cheap.
[00:30:17] Speaker B: Well, I haven't been 15 years, but I, I got a cab from the train station for the hotel and I asked the cab driver about, you know, where to go out for dinner and stuff and he just said he wouldn't recommend me leaving the hotel.
[00:30:30] Speaker A: Yeah, but that's, that's, that's more about your. That's more about your personality than.
Than anything else.
Because I. I can't. Okay.
[00:30:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:42] Speaker A: I mean, no, like people in Glasgow, it's. I don't think people are particularly. I think people are very welcoming, but it of. In a. It's probably in quite a kind of aggressive way. Like you kind of feel that if they decide to talk.
[00:30:54] Speaker C: Aggressive way.
[00:30:55] Speaker A: Yeah, you can. Like, if someone decides to talk to you, they are going to talk to you. It doesn't matter what you're doing or where you are. If they decide to talk to you, they will talk to you.
[00:31:06] Speaker C: That was. That was really threatening. That was that. They'll talk to you.
You will have a conversation.
[00:31:13] Speaker A: Oh, it's where you meet all the best people. You know, actually, no, I better not tell that story in the podcast.
Yeah, I think we've. I think we've kind of exhausted every avenue. So, Jack, thank you very much for your time. It's actually. Thank you very much. I've enjoyed this. And, and also, I mean, I think these things. It's like, I think sometimes like some, some podcasts, you know, when you kind of have like.
I mean, is what I mean, it's like. Yeah. Structure, kind of like questions kind of like discussing a product.
Yeah, it's just like, it's, it's no fun. It's nice just kind of having stuff come in, come into our heads. And then I was saying it.
[00:31:55] Speaker C: It's also interesting because where we sit, we sort of. I get quite frustrated when we sit there in the player protection racket and they're going, no, we're going to talk about black market versus not. And I'm like, oh my God, the black market is not your biggest problem right now. Like, we found regulated sites operating a fake. Like, and actually we have seen many unregulated site actually behave like a regulated site. They're just in a black market territory. Not operator.
[00:32:17] Speaker B: Fake.
[00:32:17] Speaker C: Like, I think we need to kind of have that conversation in another dimension now. Like, what is. What is putting players at risk? You know, it is like I started with BET blockers and as researching sites not on BET blocker, predominantly operating a fake is. Tells me where the biggest problem is.
[00:32:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
All right, well everyone, thank you very much for listening. This has been another episode of Right to the Source and we'll see you in the next one.
[00:32:42] Speaker B: See this I have to deal with he man.
[00:32:45] Speaker C: It's gaming, right?
[00:32:47] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
Well, he man was. I think, I think when I was younger, did I have a little he man toy?
[00:32:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:54] Speaker B: You know who the Remember who the buddy was?
[00:32:56] Speaker A: Skeletor.
[00:32:58] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Who's she raised?
[00:33:01] Speaker A: She was offshoot character.
I think she might have had her own series.
[00:33:07] Speaker B: But what was the lion that he rode on or his friend?
[00:33:11] Speaker A: It was a tiger.
[00:33:12] Speaker B: Tiger, wasn't it?
[00:33:14] Speaker A: Are you sure you didn't have My Little Ponies? Because your knowledge of he man is disturbingly limited. What was it called? The Tiger Cringer and then it turned into Battle Cat.
[00:33:25] Speaker B: Yeah, it wasn't. Was that the one with Schnarf Snarf?
[00:33:32] Speaker A: No, you're thinking of thundercats.
[00:33:33] Speaker B: Ah, that's the one.
[00:33:34] Speaker C: Yeah, that's the one.
[00:33:35] Speaker B: Thundercats. That was. She Ra Thundercats.
[00:33:38] Speaker A: No, it wasn't.
She was. She. She was definitely a He man offshoot.
We should probably start at some point. I was gonna say.
[00:33:52] Speaker B: Hang on.
[00:33:52] Speaker C: I feel like we keep going here.
[00:33:54] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I mean, this is the
[00:33:56] Speaker A: sort of stuff we usually talk about on the podcast.
[00:33:58] Speaker B: I'm thinking of she Ra, the princess of Powers. He Man's twin sister. There you go.
[00:34:02] Speaker A: Really?
[00:34:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:03] Speaker A: Okay, I didn't know that.
[00:34:05] Speaker C: Why did we start talking about this before the podcast stopped?
[00:34:07] Speaker B: You can put. You can have this stuff in.
[00:34:09] Speaker A: Well. Well, this is. It's recording.
[00:34:10] Speaker B: It's recording. No, this is good. So she Ra was twin sister of he man, but thundercats were. Yeah, I was more of a thundercats person, if I'm honest. What about you, Jack? Thundercats, My Little Ponies, or He Man?
[00:34:25] Speaker C: See, I had a bro having a brother who's six years older than me, so he sort of dictated that I was saying to my dad the other day because it was my birthday. And he was like, you know, what was the first video game you played? And I was like, I remember my brother showed me resident Evil at 4. That was fun.
And like, you could see my parents color just draining. Is it? You know, that was. That was an interesting experience for me.
Well, nightmares for a month for that one.
Well, I mean, we seem to start
[00:34:52] Speaker B: the podcast, but Robin hasn't even introduced you or us.
[00:34:55] Speaker A: No, and I'm going to. I'm going to do all that in a minute.
[00:34:59] Speaker B: But I think you're gonna. Are you gonna kind of try and slice it and put it in the right chronological order?
[00:35:06] Speaker A: Well, I'm not. I mean, that's why we have Tom, the editor who's much is about standing at this kind of stuff.
[00:35:12] Speaker B: Who. Who likes to censor everything I say that isn't.
[00:35:17] Speaker A: Well, yeah, yeah, we ask him to bleep all your swear words.
[00:35:20] Speaker B: Yeah, Apparently. Apparently you can't say.
