Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Welcome everyone to Right to the source. We're on episode eight. I'm Robin Harrison and as ever, I'm here with Mr. Ed Birkin, managing director of H2 Gambling Capital. He's here with his big mic, his banner, which marks him out as the most trusted underlined data and intelligence on the global gaming industry. Ed, devil are you today?
[00:00:36] Speaker B: I am well, Robin, and it's lovely to see those reading lessons have paid off and you're showing off about it on the podcast. So congratulations. It does actually say gambling, not gaming. But hey, you know, when you're in the industry, what's a BNNL got to do with anything?
[00:00:49] Speaker A: Well, this is it. I mean, it's, you know, it's almost interchangeable at this point.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Well, it is and it isn't actually, because I was actually having this conversation with a client who wants to have a report that just everything says gaming, the gaming industry. So you have tables saying this is the size of online gaming. And it's like, well, it's the size of online gaming, you're calling it because you don't say gambling because that may be perceived as a bad word, but it's actually betting, gaming and lotteries. So then when you're actually showing just the gaming section, you have the same title of online gaming, but it's not. That's just gaming and it's just so confusing. So I think it's a us thing, isn't it, where the voice called it gaming and now maybe.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: I mean, I think it's, it's been, it's been about in Europe as well. And to be honest, I do actually have a galaxy brain taking this thing because I think it, it kind of lends itself to the fact that there's almost, it's almost reflecting an element of shame in the industry. They don't want to just say gambling, they want to see gaming. They want to kind of, you know, kind of lighten it. They don't want to talk about what it is, which I think is a. Is a great shame. You know, this is a fantastic industry. I feel it's evol, a lot of emerging industries and kind of like new technologies. It's one that's very meritocratic, you know. And obviously this is all going to be on display next week at Excel London when IGB Live makes its debut in the cab.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: Well, good. I mean, I'm glad we got two minutes in before we've started talking about anything we said we were going to talk about because you weren't going to read my Slogan. I wasn't going to take the piss that you couldn't say the word gaming or gambling. And we definitely had not even discussed a little segue into whether the industry should be embarrassed about calling it gambling. But no, we are going to talk about IGB Live and after the success of our guests on the last podcast, you told me you have someone, the director of events from IGB Live coming on to give us a rundown of the product. So I look forward to admitting him into the podcast.
[00:02:42] Speaker A: Well, unfortunately, and thanks for bringing that up. It was going to invite our senior conference producer, Damian Ashton Wellman, but he's a bit under the weather. He's been traveling a lot for work recently and the way he put it is he sounds like Gollum. So he is not going to join us today, but we're going to get him on.
I think when, when would be good to get him on is maybe kind of towards September, October, around the. When he's starting to put together the ICE agenda, you know, when it's starting to kind of firm up. Because I think it'll be really interesting to get that kind of contrast from around that kind of early stage when speaker recruitment started, when he's got the core themes to maybe like a few weeks out from the show, what it looks like at.
So we will have Damien on. We're sorry he can't be here today, but we can still talk about IGB Live. I mean I think Robin, you can.
[00:03:35] Speaker B: Be my guest today. Let's. How about that? I'll show you what a good interview is like because I've never been to IGB Live.
[00:03:41] Speaker A: Haven't you?
[00:03:42] Speaker B: What small show that no one knows anything about. But apparently it's not a small show. It's the biggest one in London. 15,000 people.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: Yep, 15,000 people. It was a huge show in Amsterdam. Don't listen to this clown. Has never been to the show before.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: My research as an interview. I'm going to show you how to interview someone. So you just sit there and. Okay, okay. So Robin, welcome on the show. We're going to talk about IGB Live here, the biggest gaming show in London. IGaming show now that ICE has moved, 15,000 attendees expected. 11 networking events I believe two different IGB exec events. We have the Latam Media Group sponsored football competition on the Friday which I am participating in. But please, how about we start with what's, you know, what's the main difference between IGB Live and ice? I mean you can't have two and oh, and congratulations on ice, winning the best international trade show of any industry I believe was last week. So congratulations to Clarion team there.
[00:04:35] Speaker A: Yeah, the Clarion team.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: How's it differed to ice?
[00:04:39] Speaker A: Okay, well, well first of all, just on the AEO awards, two awards won obviously a massive, you know, a massive kind of, you know, like badge of honor for the live team. Because you think about, you know, it wasn't so much justice. It was World Gaming Week, it was ice, it was IGB Affiliate, it was in a new city. And one of the things that really kind of came out of it, I mean someone at the event said to me it doesn't feel like this is the first year of the show after a move which I think is just kind of a testament to the amount of work that went into it. I mean obviously I work in the digital side of the business so I'm not directly involved in a lot of the event stuff. But very happy to tell you how it differs. ICE is obviously an omnichannel agenda setting show. So it's really pulling in the C suite. The regulators, lambase the online, all facets of the gaming industry. And then obviously it's sister show sharing. The FIRA in Barcelona is IGB Affiliate which is for the affiliate programs and content developed for that affiliate community.
So IGB Live slightly different in that it's, it's online focused and it's really an event that's more kind of centered around operational excellence. You know, ICE is kind of like setting out the kind of your, you know, the key themes of the year for the industry. Whereas IGB Live is kind of like refining your approach to your kind of, you know, functional expertise. You know, so it's looking kind of, that's really what the kind of difference is. Now obviously it's been, it was in Amsterdam for years last year. I remember the event was, it was, I mean honestly it was crazy. It was like the venue the Rye and Amsterdam was absolutely packed. And it's similar to ICE in that it needs something bigger. You know, it needs something bigger and you know, doing it at Excel offers us that opportunity or offers you know, a clarion that opportunity.
[00:06:44] Speaker B: But what I, when I walk in there, obviously there's not going to be all these gaming machines on display, physical gaming machines, because it's an online one. Is it going to be mainly, I assume it's going to mainly be B2B suppliers or you know, will there be operators with stands who are the exhibitors?
[00:06:59] Speaker A: So. Well, the operators will have stands in so much as that they have Affiliate programs. So obviously it's going to be a mix of B2B suppliers and operators, affiliate programs, you know, kind of affiliate technology, that sort of thing. So that's what you can expect at the event.
[00:07:16] Speaker B: And this is a big. There's gonna be big RG areas in the responsible gambling and yep, the sustainable.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: Gambling zone started out as consumer protection zone, obviously has now evolved.
That's, you know, that's kind of a key feature of, you know, every Clarion show now, like every Clarine gaming show, I should say that sort of commitment to responsibility is very much kind of on display and I think that leads us nicely into the content because I'm obviously going to flip the script slightly on you here because hang on, this.
[00:07:48] Speaker B: Is, this is, this is content. Don't put yourself down. You answering what was content?
Actually I'd like to also link it back as the interviewer, I can do this. Talking about the responsible gambling. I believe there is something you'll be able to tell me what it is better. But some ICE are launching. Carrying through ICE are launching some big responsible gambling academic work, aren't they? That I believe. I believe your colleague ever is going to.
[00:08:15] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:08:16] Speaker B: The ICE Gaming in Spain later this week. This week if you get the podcast out on time, which I will also be. Yeah, yes, yes, Robyn, I will also be speaking out, doing a keynote speech there.
[00:08:24] Speaker A: Oh, here we go. Here we go. So, so, so it's. It's shameless self promotion. No, no, we're here to talk about IGB Live and we've got you talking about your junior panelist slot at Gaming in Spain.
[00:08:38] Speaker B: No, no, mine's a keynote. You know how I said that? You told me I wasn't allowed a keynote at any of the Clarion shows, but I've gone Gaming in Spain. We're talking about the illegal market. But that wasn't what I was wanting to talk about. I was wanting to talk about the big thing you're launching. I don't know if you know much about it.
[00:08:53] Speaker A: Yeah, the, the ICE Research Institute. So this is really. Well, I mean there's a lot of material out there about it online, but really it's, it's creating and coordinating the industry response, certain issues. So, you know, we had a Mark Flores Martin as our first guest last week, you know, talking about AI and, and just to kind of touch on that. And, and I will link it back to the IF Research Institute. So bear with me. What really kind of came out of that and I thought what Mark was really good at kind of getting across is that despite all the proclamations and all, the AI will replace a marketing agency, I will replace journalist. It's not really known the impact of AI. You know, it's still to be worked out. There's still a lot of experimentation and, you know, and just really kind of like research needed. And so something like the ICE Research Institute provides that sort of forum for these issues to be discussed. So I think that, say that's really kind of a key thing that it can do. It can act as this kind of focal point for the industry.
But since you mentioned gaming in Spain, where the ICE Research Institute will obviously.
[00:10:03] Speaker B: Launch a keynote on the illegal market.
[00:10:07] Speaker A: Yeah. And Ed will have a junior panelist slot on the illegal market.
I'm sure other speakers are available. Let's just touch on. Let's just touch on actually.
[00:10:17] Speaker B: Fair Place, William. It is an incredible lineup. Not just myself, they have some great people. There's a big folks on LATAM as well. And they've got the Brazilian regulator there.
Hopefully we'll do this on another session. Talk about Brazil. I've been doing quite a bit of work on looking at some of the legal market by looking at transaction data and getting some data off some of the operators. But there's a good lineup. There's not based just on Spain. It's breakout groups of latam. I think you've got a couple of other colleagues there, Liliana Costa talking about Brazil and other LATAM ones, as well as Diva. And there's an awards show which no doubt you're. You're hoping you're going to get some even more awards in Spain, given the success of ICE in Barcelona. Sorry, I feel I've interrupted you. Robyn, please continue.
[00:10:57] Speaker A: Yeah, so that's all right, Ed. Thank you very much. That was alarmingly courteous of you. So, because you mentioned. And before we drag things back to the UK and IGB Live, I'm just interested. It's a good opportunity just to kind of touch briefly on the current kind of state of play in Spain, because obviously you've had this period of essentially regulatory kind of snapback. You know, advertising has been, well, let's face it, it was banned in all but name. You know, it was, it was, it wasn't officially banned, but the way it was set up, it felt like it was really. It just made it very difficult to advertise. But then obviously with a court ruling last year, which stays some of the elements of that, you know, de facto ban on advertising, how's that market performing?
[00:11:46] Speaker B: I mean, you say there's the de facto ban on advertising, which I don't disagree with in general. But actually if we look at, and I'm just getting data up now, if we look at actually advertising spend, so I mean in 2024, promotional expense, which we class as advertising, I mean that does include bonuses and fairness, affiliates and sponsorships. Let's, let's just look at, let's take off, let's take off bonuses because that's not really right to do so that's about half of it. Yes, it was down. So the total promotional spend is 32% of GGR. 2023 it was 32.6. 2022 it was a lot higher. 40.
And about half of this is bonuses. So you're looking maybe 20% then 18% in 2024.
Yeah, I think exclude bonuses. If you're looking at a mature market in Europe, you're probably looking at 20 to maybe 23, 24% of advertising percentage of GGR. So the fact that they're down around 20 means it is a bit lighter. Like without. If we hadn't had this actual regulated data, you would have assumed that, I don't know, including affiliates would have assumed that advertising would have been a lot less in Spain than it has been. So they are still managing to do some advertising even before this ban was overturned. Which kind of goes against the narrative of what you think.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: Actually that's interesting because on top of that Italy, which actually has, you know, obviously there is kind of efforts to potentially lift it. But Italy had instituted a ban on advertising. But even there in recent years the market has continued to grow.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think with Italy and Spain as well, actually they're two markets that have probably quite strong cash based economies, big land sector. So despite them having both been open for a few, quite, quite a long period of time as an online market, you actually only need a small amount of revenues moving from the land based game machine sector, for example in Italy, to online to actually have strong online growth.
So you have seen that, I think, and I don't again, I don't believe there's a legislative change. I don't know if operators are changing how they behave and this is not saying they are, but one of the issues that Spain had was an incredibly low sports gross win margin for quite a few number of quarters. I mean when we're saying low margin, I mean I'm looking into saying fixed sports, we're talking 1.4%. Q4, 21, 2.1, 2.1, 4.1. So it went For a year, the average margin was 2.1%.
Now the explanation I heard of that, because that's not all just sporting results. The explanation was that Spanish operators are not allowed to effectively turn down or limit bettors. Successful bettors have to be able to put their bets on and there were court cases around this. Whether this changed that slightly, I don't know. But if we look from the last eight quarters and we don't have the Q1 data yet, it's gone up to 5.7%. So still low compared to what you'd expect elsewhere. But it has had a recovery. You may think, oh, 2.1, 5.7, it's not a lot. Well, just from that margin alone, that's pretty much increased the size of the betting market by 2 and a half volt without turnover of stakes taken into account. The other one is like in most markets, the growth there was strong growth, being driven quite a lot by live roulette in live product and that was growing that. But really, despite the live roulette growth, there's still slots, which again are growing. They're the biggest part of the market. IGaming is bigger than sports, slots are bigger than live, but they're actually continuing to take share, which again goes against this narrative of live gaming is the growth in iGaming, whereas actually slots is sometimes same in the UK. We can talk about slots again, still growing quicker than live casinos. So I also think that's a bit of a false narrative about live casino being the greatest driver.
[00:15:29] Speaker A: So that's an excellent on rap on ramp. Sorry to get back to topic after about 15 minutes where we've taken a slightly wild divergence. So on the UK market. So it's been an interesting period. On IGB's other far more successful podcast, the World Series of Politics, we had Wes Himes on to talk about progress on the Gambling act white paper and the government is kind of slowly working through. I think Wes hits something like two thirds of the measure in the white paper have now been kind of implemented or kind of initiated. But with slots, I mean, obviously we now have stake limits in place.
So as you're seeing with, you know, kind of Spain and Italy, what's performance looking like in the uk? Is there any kind of indications as to how these, you know, these kind of restrictions are kind of like affecting the market?
[00:16:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean it would have been good to have had a heads up. But having a quick look at the model and from my know in depth about every product in every 150 markets now look the sample. So we only have actual data until like full market data until the end of calendar Q124. But we do have sample data from the Gambling Commission up until the end of Q1 25 and to be honest that has shown believe at the end of Q1. So there's a bit of a downtick in Q4. At the end of Q1 the sample data had slots at its highest ever level since they started reporting this in March 20th. So yeah, I mean it is a bit like that. But generally slots continuing to perform strongly. Now how that will change I'm not sure. As more of these, these kind of measures start to play through in affordability measures. I think one thing we've seen is if we look and this is not for every large operator and some have performed well in different times, that's had a good results etc. But generally the overall market is pretty performing better than the larger operators, at least publicly listed operators that report UK data which does suggest that some of the smaller tail, especially night gaming manager brands, whatever you want to call it, are taking share. And whether that's because they're more nimble or blah blah, blah blah blah, or whether it's just because they haven't implemented a lot of these measures around the affordability and all of that as quickly as some of the bigger ones who may have do it for more reputational and corporate governance reasons is yeah, I suppose a bit of a guess. But I know there's a theory around that that actually some of the smaller operators who aren't self imposing some of these restrictions until they become actual legislation have been able to take share. And the question then is when they start imposing all of these, does that mean that players who have gone from the bigger operators to the small operators are then just going to stick in there because they're in the same situation with everyone, or they're then going to go to the offshore operators where there aren't these, these measures because a lot of people, if they're used to playing a certain amount, they want to do that and also quite frankly if they're spending a certain amount of money and they're happy with that and someone says oh we want to see your bank statement and it's like well no, now I know there's many frictionless checks and the whole we talked about the Gambling Commission and the mess about what's affordability and what's coming in. So I don't know that. But long story short, the UK online market came down again after Covid we know as the land based opened up and after some of these affordability measures were put in it's, you know, it seems to be released for certain set of operators. It seems to be still performing strongly and you know, is advertising the next one. I think we were going to seamlessly link this into the Premier League, weren't we?
[00:19:13] Speaker A: Yes, we were.
[00:19:14] Speaker B: That makes it sound as though we've prepared for this. That is literally the 30 seconds of preparation beforehand where we said let's talk about football sponsorship.
[00:19:21] Speaker A: I mean 30 seconds is pretty charitable. Say more kind of like 12 to 15.
[00:19:26] Speaker B: But well, it was on WhatsApp, so I know it takes you a bit longer to type them so well, I.
[00:19:31] Speaker A: Mean I'm working through the reading lessons, the writing ones I'm not doing quite so well on, but I'm getting there, you know.
[00:19:37] Speaker B: Are we going back to the other podcast? So do you reckon the World Series of Politics is the ice of podcasts and where the IGB live?
[00:19:46] Speaker A: That's actually a very interesting comparison and probably a.
[00:19:50] Speaker B: We don't have 15,000 listeners, let's be honest.
[00:19:53] Speaker A: Well, the thing is, I'd say we're probably not quite at IGV live level. Yes, but that's what we'll, that's what we'll aspire to. I mean like as, as we've always said, we're lo fi, we're indie, we're a slightly rough around the edges, we're, we're the bad brains to the World Series of Politics spring state.
[00:20:12] Speaker B: And yeah, we wouldn't want to be the ice of podcast world. I think it's just too much, too big, too much pressure and you know, we're too busy to start going to awards seminars. We do not want to be doing that anyway. So back to the Premier League shirt sponsorship that we were briefly whatsapping about in our non preparation for the show. Yeah, I've done a bit of research.
[00:20:31] Speaker A: Have you now?
[00:20:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:33] Speaker A: Well, that almost sounds like you're prepared. All right. You've outsourced, you've delegated the research.
[00:20:39] Speaker B: No, no, I did this one. According to an unnamed website, our Premier League teams that have betting sponsors on the front of shirt and it's interesting because at the end of, by the end of next season or the season upcoming, so the one that finishes in May, June 26, there will be a self imposed ban by the Premier League clubs on shirt sponsors from gambling companies. Now I'm torn between this, whether it's, whether you should have this or not. Is it IRRESPONSIBLE or not because on one side you look at it and the, the rumored to be roughly around 10 million a year. Mostly sponsorships.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. 10 to 15.
[00:21:15] Speaker B: Yes. Everton Estate.com that's only 10 million. West Ham Betway 10 million blah blah. Now given how much money there is in football and I know a lot of these clubs may make a loss, but given how much money there is in football, do you not think they could get a non gambling sponsor for maybe 7, 8 million a year? And do they really need that, that 3 million? I mean did they honestly need it when you know. So looking at. I just happened to get this because it came up. So no, not pick on Crystal Palace. Congratulations on winning the FA cup by the way. Really terrible taste. See city lease finals. I mean it was, it was terrible for everyone involved. But so They've got a 10 million a year ish sponsorship. Okay. Now their revenue in the end of the 2024 season so be more than the last season was 190 million. So if they could get something for a couple of million less, let's say now that's 1% of their revenues now. Yes, you, you could argue they made a pre tax loss of 33 million. It's like is it really, you know, should they really be having this when kids are buying football shirts and all that with gambling sponsors just for a couple of million when let's be honest, you're overpaying a shitload of your players. You're just wasting quite a lot of money in various things. Well, it's completely legal. So if the laws say you're allowed to advertise on a sponsor a football team and they're allowed it, then why should a Premier League club suddenly go or the Premier League go? We're with virtue signaling we won't do it. You know, the championship clubs can, everything else but, but we're not gonna have it. Why should we be having a go that Crystal palace has a sponsor and if on the front.
[00:22:40] Speaker A: Well a few things in that. I mean first of all, obviously for the junior shirts they don't have the gambling sponsorship on them.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: Note to self, get better research analysts.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: Yep.
So yeah, I mean like even it was like I bought my daughter a flumidense shirt in Brazil before she was born.
She outgrew. Yeah, she outgrew in about a week. But that doesn't have a gambling sponsor on it. And previously I think they were Botano. I think they're now super bet. I mean I just brought it for the colors. It's kind of red and green. It looks quite cool. But obviously for juniors they don't have the gambling branding on it. And I think the other thing, it's a front of shirt sponsorship button. So that's a very narrow, you know, kind of like definition. It's, you know, it's less a kind of like an all encompassing, you know, kind of like puffer jacket of a band and more agile of a band. You know it's kind of, it's very. Is very narrow in focus, you know, just as agile is only good if there is, you know, kind of a cold front going directly, you know, face on at you.
[00:23:46] Speaker B: I reckon I've got about 11 or 12 G lays. I love a Gillet. Well, they just protect. Everything needs protecting and then your arms are still free to do what they like.
[00:23:53] Speaker A: What your, your cold arms.
Your arms, you know, your hands barely able to type, you know, like fingers stiffening up in the freezing cold. But then you think all right, my chest and my back are warm, therefore I'm great.
[00:24:06] Speaker B: It's protecting the vital organ. I mean we're not going to look. I mean I'm just surprised that after Tim Sherwood popularized me in the world of football, by the way, I was already wearing G lace for a long time before that. I'm surprised more people didn't continue with it. I think.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: Well, used to work. You used to work in finance. I thought it was uniform.
[00:24:21] Speaker B: Yeah, that's more hedge fund you guys. But yeah, my brother does say that when I turn up places he's like oh yeah, typical, typical finance stuff. Yeah, finance brawl, leather, leather boots, pelsy boots, jeans and gilets. I'm like, yeah, pretty standard attire.
[00:24:34] Speaker A: It's good to have.
[00:24:36] Speaker B: I mean this is even more random than normal shit we talk about. So let's get back to it.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:40] Speaker B: Your view, should premier league clubs be allowed to continue after next season having front of shirt sponsors or. Why just because you're in the premier League, are they not allowed something that is completely legal?
[00:24:51] Speaker A: Well, I can so I mean well an interest. Another thing I didn't mention earlier is the all party parliamentary group for gambling related harm. You know, obviously a group that's broadly against the industry. I think to say it kind of to almost kind of like downplay the approach. Their view is very much that, well if you don't have a gambling sponsor, you will get another sponsor. My, my concern with it is a, you know, it's like to an extent I accept the argument that it reduces the exposure for children. You know, like yeah, fair enough, but how does that. It also, I think kind of in a footballing sense it kind of reinforces the inequality in the whole football pyramid because when, you know these kind of conversations about a potential kind of ban on front sponsorship emerged, there was, I mean this is going back years, but they where the real concern was within the championship because a lot of those clubs run at a loss. You know, some of them have, you know, kind of slightly weird muffle owners. I think there's a club in Sheffield that's currently in dispute with their owners kind of like mid, mid table.
[00:25:59] Speaker B: They are looking to potentially go into administration. Three window transfer ban, not paying players. The owner seems to have decided he wants, he wants will only sell the club for the amount of money he's put in, which is 167 million. Where the club's not worth it. So yeah, as a Wednesday fan with a couple of season tickets next season, it's an interesting time.
[00:26:19] Speaker A: How do you feel about League One football?
[00:26:22] Speaker B: I prefer. Look, championship's the best league in the world as far as I'm concerned. Premier League, you can stick up your ass. All this prima donna. I've just hardly watched any Premier League last season.
It's just not as exciting. Championship, great league, League One, let's be honest, the quality of football's pretty crap.
[00:26:38] Speaker A: It's a bit agricultural, but I mean, I mean like when it comes to football or soccer, for any American listeners that we may have, I'm not sure I tend to watch the Scottish Premier League, which is also, it's wildly divergent in terms of the quality of the football on offer. But one thing I would say that I think is quite interesting is a lot of the Scottish clubs have reset their finances in a way that I don't think is really kind of filtered down to England, which I think is also why a lot of these clubs are attracting investment from like Tony Blume owns Brighton or the guy who owns Bournemouth and the Vegas Golden Knights. Because these clubs have all become self sustaining. I mean, obviously we've had some notable collapses, whether it was Hearts going into administration or a. Yeah, I wasn't going to bring them up, but yes, them.
[00:27:33] Speaker B: Why wouldn't you bring up the biggest and most successful team in Scottish football?
[00:27:36] Speaker A: It's actually not the biggest and most successful team in Scottish football in terms of trophies. It's actually Celtic now.
[00:27:43] Speaker B: Oh, is it? Okay, well let's, let's, let's, let's move away from that. Yeah, I don't really know where, where we're Going with. With any of this?
[00:27:52] Speaker A: No. Well, yes.
[00:27:54] Speaker B: So moving away from. From football. So should the Premier League, should they be allowed to still advertise?
[00:27:58] Speaker A: Yeah, well, right, so. Right, so this gets us back to that point. So the, the issue is obviously with the championship. They do require this to keep running as a going concern when they get promoted to the Premier League.
I support. Well, I suppose it's because of the ridiculous a.
You know, the ridiculous kind of TV money that flows into that league that people would have to then kind of change their shirt sponsor.
[00:28:24] Speaker B: Yeah, they'll put clauses in. That's fine.
[00:28:26] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, the thing. The thing is, you look at some shirt sponsorships, like, you look at something like West Ham and Betway, I mean, that's a long term, very successful partnership. Like, you feel that that is, you know, like. I mean, that's partially down to, I think, how Supergroup operates. I think they treat sponsorship very seriously and they also look to drive roi. You know, it's not just about getting a brand somewhere. There really is kind of like a focus on making that work as a partnership.
[00:28:55] Speaker B: Been there since 2015.
[00:28:56] Speaker A: In 2015? Yeah, yeah. 10 years this year. And obviously you would assume that partnership is going to continue because it's work.
[00:29:04] Speaker B: Well. Oh, you mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:29:06] Speaker A: In a different format. Why. Why wouldn't it continue?
I suppose that's where some of these. Some of these other brands, you know, they're licensed through TGP Europe, which is the white label. Obviously, that means a few of them will disappear now that TGP is withdrawing from the.
The UK market.
But you don't. These aren't partnerships with the clubs. These are a kind of branding opportunity to create visibility, for the most part, let's be honest, in offshore markets and.
[00:29:36] Speaker B: Right. We're running over time. Are we going to say anything of interest to people on this podcast?
[00:29:40] Speaker A: I think we've actually seen quite a.
[00:29:42] Speaker B: Lot of interest to people.
So, talking about football, the Club World Cup. What a load of bollocks. And FIFA just generally a load of bollocks. Like, who gives a crap about the club? When you've got teams playing against, like, Auckland City who don't, then it's not even a professional football team. They've all got other.
[00:29:57] Speaker A: I mean, to be honest, I've not. I've not engaged with it. I mean, I think it's.
[00:30:01] Speaker B: It's a Club World cup and you've got an amateur football team playing against Bayern Munich or whoever it was. They're playing like. It's just.
[00:30:08] Speaker A: Yeah, it's I mean what, what I think is quite interesting, I did, I did watch a bit of one game. I think it was a Chelsea game. There were no fans. No, it was, it was, it was empty. You know, the, the ground was, it was, it was strange, I think. So I think, you know, from, you know, from kind of afar, I think some of the, the Latin American teams playing the, the kind of European teams, I think those games have been quite good because.
Yeah, I mean, I think that's probably the most interesting part. But I haven't watched these games.
[00:30:42] Speaker B: So we're tying this. It's nicely being tied back that to how I'm going to perform at the Latam Media Group sponsored Football Day then.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: Well, before even that, I was going to mention that there is a session at IGB Live that caught my eye. So what was it called? What was it called again? Oh yeah, that was it. Brazil's Regulated Market.
Six months in, how to Stand Out. And now it's interesting here because I look down at the list of speakers. You've got Pedro Lucas, head of affairs affiliates for Super Affiliados. You've got Eduardo Ludmer, head of legal for BETMG in Brazil. And then who's this? Ed Birkin, managing director, H2 Gambling Capital. So tell me about this. Tell me about this.
[00:31:27] Speaker B: I mean, I'm moderating. As Clarion have made quite clear, the only airwaves I'm really allowed to be on is this dubious podcast. So no keynotes for me. So I'm allowed to moderate, which is why I was trying to get some practice by interviewing you today. I'm not sure I've successfully moderated you today, but five out of ten giving a little, a little brief overview of the size of the market. Now I've got some tax data that's come out through a freedom of Information request and then the legal market through some transaction stuff. So I'll be doing that. But it's, it's really about the, the other people who, you know, Pedro and what have come over from Brazil and, and give their view on it. Yeah, I think that's, it's pretty much going to be split into a couple of broad bits is one, how does the legal market stand out from the illegal market? So how do you make sure you get more sure? And then two, within the legal market, how, how are you able to stand out? And then actually, weirdly, given we've done no preparation ties back to what we're talking about today is I think I'm going to ask them to touch on things like shirt sponsorship in Brazil.
They spend a lot of money on marketing and shirt sponsorship and, and stuff in, in the football teams in Brazil. But how are they able to really kind of make those plans when there's so much uncertainty in the market? I mean the gambling tax has just been put up. Potentially a ruling from the Supreme Court that could even rule all of gambling illegal and shut the whole market down, which I think is unexpected. But there's so much uncertainty around things, you know, how are they able to make these investments to kind of stand out? So I think that'll be interesting here. So not because I'm contributing much to it, but I think that will be a. Because of the others. I think it will be a fascinating session. Yeah, there's a lot of RG stuff looking through but I mean really, I think it is all about PM on the end of July and it will be in English for our Portuguese speaking listeners. I think there is a session from the Minister of Sport talking about maybe the land based casino building and things like that in Brazil. But that is in Portuguese so you'll be fine, Robin, with your duolingo skills. But yeah, looking forward to IGB Live. If any of our myriad of listeners wants to, wants to kind of catch up there, please feel free to drop us an email and get in contact. Robin will be there. I'll be there. Robin's not going to the awards because he wants to go home and look after his child slash being banned. So yeah, yeah, this is our most random podcast to date.
[00:33:37] Speaker A: It has been, yeah, it has been a grab bag of various different things. We hope we've provided amid all the divergence and tangents, at least some interesting factoids. Whether that's about Italy, the uk, Bain, you know, the kind of short sponsorship debate. I mean all the, you know, like a few of these issues are going to be on a, you know, under discussion at shows like IGB Live. If you haven't registered, do it now. It's worth it. I'll put a link to register in the bio of this episode. And how much does it cost to.
[00:34:13] Speaker B: Register to go, Robin?
[00:34:14] Speaker A: Well, Ed, it's free to register.
Yeah.
[00:34:18] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:34:19] Speaker A: Value. That's what we offer.
[00:34:21] Speaker B: I mean it must like our podcast. We haven't even started charging for this yet.
[00:34:25] Speaker A: I think we're quite far away from that. One day. One day.
[00:34:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
And also I think we don't want to, we don't want to limit people based on finances to our words of wisdom. I think we always end up being an open, Free to access. Free at the point of consumption.
[00:34:42] Speaker A: Podcasts, free at the point of consumption. You know, we're essentially the NHS of podcasts. And on that note, it's definitely time to stop. We have jumped about various things. We will see you at IGB Live and we'll see you in the next episode. Bye, then.
