Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello, everybody. Welcome Back to episode 18 of Right to the Source. My name is Robin Harrison and I'm here, as ever, with the Luigi to my Mario. Mr. Ed Birkin. Ed, how the devil are you this week?
[00:00:27] Speaker B: I'm good and I 100% get your reference.
I was a fan of the Mario Brothers when I was younger.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: Fantastic.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: I had an original NES Nintendo.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: You had an original Nez?
[00:00:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: And a Game Boy. You know, the ones where you'd have to change the batteries halfway through a car journey.
[00:00:44] Speaker A: Whoever said you were technically illiterate? You're clearly. You were an early adopter.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I had a Sega Master System, but then it never really went on. I never got the snares or any of the better ones or the Mega Drive. It was very early. Raw stuff. And a Wii. I'm actually pretty good at Wii bowling.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: Are you?
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: I mean, the Wii's. The Wii's kind of. It's kind of a computer game for people who don't like computer games, isn't it?
[00:01:08] Speaker B: Possibly had a. I've actually got.
I played it a few months ago, Goldeneye on the N64. And I seem to.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: That's quite cool. Yeah, that's actually quite cool.
[00:01:21] Speaker B: I seem to remember it being a lot better. Really. I mean, the graphics are horrific. At the time, though, at the time it was amazing. Yeah.
[00:01:29] Speaker A: And then there was. There was Donkey Kong mode where everyone had massive heads. Everyone looked like. Seriously. No, I remember it. One of my friends when I was younger had a NC War and I remember vividly, he put on what was called Donkey Kong mode. Everyone had massive heads and he obviously he owned it, so he was very good at it, but he was rubbish at it. And then when it had a massive head in the game was. It was just very easy to kill me. So it was just basically him killing me of an afternoon.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: Well, we don't delve down into too much into the. The upsetting stories of your youth.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: No, let's leave that and let's talk about gambling data. So last week we can also talk.
[00:02:07] Speaker B: About the Edmonton Oilers.
[00:02:09] Speaker A: Now there I was just trying to breeze by the fact that you were the fandom. Like next week you're going to be painted orange look. Or something.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: I think it's important to research the team. I always throw through, you know, give a shout out to the Jags. First game of the season. A victory.
Things are looking up. Yeah, I think we've got a chance in, you know, in division. I mean, we've got no chance of winning the Super Bowl. Well, they said that about Leicester City in the Premier League, didn't they? So, you know, you've got to be there. I've got tickets to see them on the 19th of October. Is it 19th?
Great weekend of sport that weekend. They have the 18th. I am going with Clarion's equivalent of Ron Weasley, Steve Sidwell, who's a Charlton fan. I'm going to be in the weigh in watching Wednesday away at Charlton and then watching the Jags against the Rams for the following day.
[00:03:02] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: It could be an extremely.
[00:03:04] Speaker A: That's an incredible weekend for you.
[00:03:06] Speaker B: End of sport and 12 days since Wednesday last lost. So unbeaten in 12 days.
[00:03:13] Speaker A: Unbeaten in 12 days. Wow. I mean usually people talk about being unbeaten in 12 games, but 12 days, when did they last play?
[00:03:21] Speaker B: That'll be the two nil lost to Swansea approximately 12 days ago. You know, the international break. We can regroup and see what happens.
City on Saturday.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: My local team, Bristol.
[00:03:34] Speaker B: Anyway, you know, this isn't a podcast talk about sports, is it?
[00:03:37] Speaker A: Let's be honest, this isn't a podcast to talk about the depressing, depressing, low quality teams that you follow.
[00:03:44] Speaker B: Well, I don't, I don't look at it as depressing. I actually, it's.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: Is it character building?
[00:03:49] Speaker B: Yeah, people just support. I mean, if you want to be depressing, you should be a Miami Dolphins fan. That was shit. Anyway, we won't get into the NFL. No, I, you know, I think, I think there's something quite nice about supporting a team where a victory or even sometimes a point, a draw means something, you know, going where you're just expecting to win week in, week out. And you know, if you don't win the Oilers, you know, if you don't win the Stanley cup, you're going to be disappointed. You know, it's tough because you expect to win every game. So I hope you get the same highs.
[00:04:19] Speaker A: Are you turning against the Oilers now?
[00:04:21] Speaker B: No, I'm not turning against them. I'm just saying that they're, you know, I've got a high hopes for them. Sheffield Wednesday and the Jags. It's, you know, any victory is, is very, very possible.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: Yeah, any, any win is a plus. Okay.
[00:04:31] Speaker B: But anyway, stat of the week, it's not sports related. We're going to get into gambling. Yes, the stats actually been out for, for a while. It was an article written by a young Kyle that kind of bought it to the fore. So the SPA Ministry of Finance or regulator data in Brazil gave the number of active unique players in H1 20, 25, 17.7 million.
[00:05:02] Speaker A: 7 million.
[00:05:02] Speaker B: When they say unique players, you see these are actual unique players, actually accounts because with all the, all the verification you need biometrics, they can actually see if it's the same player paying on hospital accounts. So that equates to 8.3% of the Brazil population. Or we look at an adult population, 10.6%.
So I think that just goes. We'll put that number into context. Netherlands for the onshore market, it's about 5% of adults of an account in the UK, about 20% of adults have an account in Brazil's kind of in the middle where you'd expect, you know, towards the bottom end as it's newly regulated. But I think that kind of goes against this whole idea that gambling is kind of pervasive across the, the whole population. Now there's nothing about problem gambling and obviously any number of problem gambling is too much. There will be some elements of it, whether it's legal or illegal.
But in terms of the, the population who gamble, the adult population, at least with legal sides in Brazil, it's rhetorically. It's like this mass, mass issue throughout. It, I think is now kind of for me should be challenged by numbers because that's clearly not the case.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: That's very good. Do you want a story of the week?
[00:06:17] Speaker B: Only if it's interesting, Robyn.
[00:06:19] Speaker A: It's a very interesting one. So Matt Robotowski from our US team obviously have talked about the work that he's done in the Matt Bowyer case before, but if you look on the site from last week, there is a. Just a few tidbits of one of Matt's conversations with Boyer. So it's worth a read because ultimately what you're kind of getting from this is there's been this big national scandal, there's been this, you know, kind of very high profile athlete and Matt is talking to the person, you know, is kind of almost kind of like the start of the ripple effects. And it's actually, it's a really interesting interview because it', it's the way that he's portraying himself, Matt Boyer.
It's really interesting and obviously, and obviously there's going to be a lot more to come from that. It's definitely worth a read. Really interesting and really excited to see how that develops.
So that is my story of the week.
[00:07:20] Speaker B: Now, is Matt your favorite journalist?
[00:07:23] Speaker A: I don't have favourites.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: He seems to use a lot of his stories.
[00:07:27] Speaker A: No, I've talked about Matt, I've talked about Jess, I've talked About Kyle. Nicole is also an excellent WR writer. I would also, you know, say, like, in particular, one piece of Nicole's that just always sticks out is the interview with the Vikhouts, you know, and their transition away from being a monopoly in how they compete. I think that's a really interesting piece. And we've also got new writer who's come on board, Pat Evans, who's already doing some great coverage. And of course, the legend is Frank Legato, you know, and that US team is obviously expertly marshalled by Adam Candy. So we've got a really strong team.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: Given the amount of names you've named, I really hope you haven't missed one off, because they're going to feel really upset.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: No, they're the writers.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: I mean, they've got to remember all of your children, isn't it? And then if you forget poor little.
[00:08:14] Speaker A: Jimmy, weirdly, the name Jimmy is new connotations for me because I watched 28 years later at the Weekend, which won't give any spoilers.
Yeah, it goes a bit mad at the end. But anyway, enough about what we did over the weekend and I didn't talk.
[00:08:33] Speaker B: About what I did over the weekend.
[00:08:35] Speaker A: I know you talked about what you were going to do in a future weekend.
[00:08:38] Speaker B: Yeah, this weekend I was working on the Turkish lottery market. I did some other stuff and I was just actually trying to mute my mic. There's some noise outside.
[00:08:47] Speaker A: I. I wasn't gonna ask why. It sounded like there was an articulated lorry going by and it appears.
[00:08:52] Speaker B: I think. I think it's recording for the internal mic. So I've now got this mic in front of my face. I don't actually think it's being used.
[00:08:58] Speaker A: It'S just Stunt mic.
[00:09:01] Speaker B: Just a pop. Yeah, it's just great. Hang on. It's literally doing nothing.
[00:09:05] Speaker A: Yeah. So, anyway, let's talk about data. So we promised last week we would talk about Group Partouche and we would talk about the Georgian, as in the country market. So let's start off talking about Group Partouche, because timing wise, it's actually quite a good time. You know, obviously their results came out a few days ago. You're the data guys will let you talk through that and a bit more. But I think it's quite interesting in where growth has been coming from, you know, for that business, because obviously the casino in Cannes and this new casino in Benin. And that kind of brings me to quite an interesting question. One of the things we've been discussing internally is the transition of, you know, kind of Spanish countries into that Latin American market. You know, you think of Coder online, you think of cirsa, you know, these companies are making plays using the kind of like shared language and some shared kind of cultural elements to make a splash in that region. Do you think we could see French operators doing the same in francophone Africa?
[00:10:05] Speaker B: Maybe.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: Thanks for your contribution. Anyway, do you want to talk about the partouche result quarter?
[00:10:13] Speaker B: Can we see French operators do it in francophone Canada?
[00:10:16] Speaker A: Oh no, he's having a stab at it. Let's see.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: I mean I suppose the bit that the first obstacle is in general and not in every market, but if I were to try and split Africa into a couple of buckets, you have the more northern francophone Africa which tends to really still be kept as a lottery led monopoly compared to the anglophile kind of more southern side of things where the Anglophone. Anglophone.
Yeah, good. That annoys me.
Yes. So. So now I need to get myself back. I hate being cropped on grammar and language. It's just embarrassing. But well done you. So, yeah, they tend to be more open market. So the problem is, you know, if you've got the lottery and PMU kind of running the gambling industry in these markets, then there isn't a, that there isn't a market for them to get into. If they do, do they have an advantage there? Potentially. I don't, I don't know enough about it but I wouldn't have assumed there was the same kind of cultural overlap as perhaps there is with kind of Spain and some the Spanish speaking Latam. I don't know, I suppose you've got Portugal and some of the Portuguese speaking ones as well potentially in Angola group Latus. 44 casinos across.
[00:11:27] Speaker A: Frank, you're doing well with the language today.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Well we should have recorded this yesterday when you know, I've done my vocal training but you, you said you weren't prepared. 44 casinos across France, Switzerland, Belgium, Tunisia and since early 2025 the Republic of Benin.
So France has 38 casinos out of 202 in total. And the GGR from these 38 casinos was 634 million euros which is the second highest behind Barriere, just 788 million euros but just from 25 casinos and owns one of the seven gaming clubs in Paris. What do you reckon the split of slots and table games is for Groupe Pottage?
[00:12:08] Speaker A: It's an interesting one, kind of across the whole business or across France.
France, so I would actually argue would skew slightly heavier, I should say in favor of table games.
[00:12:23] Speaker B: Okay, so you're saying more than 50% table games, 18% table games, 82% slots. So that puts an average slots of 13.7 million per property. And as we briefly touched upon last week, I think there is a quite punitive tax rate. So there's a progressive GGR tax on slots per property. So the average of just under 14. Clearly some are going to be above that by quite a bit and some be below that between 11 and 14 million euros. GGR, the tax rate is 72% and above 14 million it's 83.5%.
So I mean, yeah, what you're getting from these marginal revenue from there is pretty heavily taxed.
[00:13:04] Speaker A: Yeah, but Pratou is also making some moves online. I mean obviously it's, I think it's live in Switzerland.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: So it, it is online as opposed to as we' touched upon last week. You know, the question is, you know, how, how well set would they be in the, in the French online casino market if it were to, to open up? So you know, we just got some new French numbers out. We've changed how we become calculating our illegal market.
Make sure we take the total market rather than we had this gray market before a lot of crypto casinos, blah, blah. Long story short, we have about 2 billion euros under 2 billion. It's going down a bit this year. 1.7 1.8 billion euros in, in France offshore, most like Cino because obviously have all my sport regulated. So there's a big potential market. But you know, our Partouche, given their land based presence and how well known they are, are they still really well set up to compete with the operators in the market who already have players signed up through sports and poker who already have the online brand name?
[00:14:08] Speaker A: Well, you could argue though that they are making moves to try and put themselves in a position where they can do something here because they've got Switzerland and I'd be interested in that, you know where they kind of set and they kind of like market share A in Switzerland and there was also that agreement with Bets and in Belgium Bets and obviously acquired Betfirst in Belgium that got them into the sports betting market. But they also partnered up with Partous for an I casino launch. And that sort of partnership is an interesting one because essentially Partouche is with these kind of markets with a large French speaking population, whether that's Switzerland, whether that's Belgium is starting to build up, you know, kind of capabilities and a presence. I mean, do you see that as potentially testing the waters for the eventual launch of a casino in France. Because obviously, you know, one of the things we've discussed before is there is a real desire among the casinos in France to take a big chunk if not all of that market.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: Yeah, that and also just diversifying the revenue stream, you know, for the digital stuff, you know, how do you see it? So okay, you've got Cartouche and Barriere who will be big players. You'd assume even though the two biggest operators in France online, then you've got Unibet, you know, Bwin PMU will be kind of pushing hard in the gaming side.
[00:15:35] Speaker A: If dg, I mean they've, you know, obviously acquiring a you know, of Unibet convention.
[00:15:43] Speaker B: What market share do you think would be realistic for partition fronts?
[00:15:48] Speaker A: Well, I suppose part of that comes down to whether they can, whether that in person database converts online because as you say these online first operators have built up, you know, customer databases through, through sports betting, through online poker. But I suppose really the question is whether that existing database from the property, you know, that property level database can migrate online.
[00:16:17] Speaker B: Yeah. And whether you can have, can you do cross, cross channel loyalty cards and bonusing etc. I don't know about that. In answer to your question for. Because you didn't give me a heads up beforehand. In terms of their share online in Switzerland, 24 million euros in 2024% market share with the Asino CH brand partnered with May Wind Casino.
[00:16:44] Speaker A: So in terms of positioning, where does that put them in the rankings?
[00:16:48] Speaker B: That would put them out of nine. Is it no, 11.
You have 1, 2, 3, 4. That would put them fifth out of 11.
[00:17:00] Speaker A: It's not bad.
[00:17:01] Speaker B: No, there's 7% market share. You know, let's say. Okay, let's say they can do that in France. I mean it's pretty sweeping assumption. But 7% times let's say the market's going to grow and it opens up. So let's say you're looking, let's just call rough Numbers online casino of 2,000,104. Don't know why I used an Excel for that. 140, 40 million revenue. You know at the moment they're doing what do we say in France 634. So you know, it's, it's, it's meaningful. But you know, if they were to feel that that is going to harm their land based business, is it something that necessarily want. I suppose you can look at the Netherlands. It's difficult to really, I don't really believe organic. I've seen all these LinkedIn Argus spats dicks on, you know, whether online cannibalizers land based casino in the U.S.
i don't think there's much. I get the theory behind it. I don't think there's much hard evidence. But you know, in the Netherlands, would you say that Holland casino benefited from having online land based down a bit. But actually how much would landbase be down regardless? Because you know, you've had the increase in tax and other regulatory change, so you just don't have the comparable. You can see what it did before, but you don't know what would have happened if the online opened up. So.
[00:18:17] Speaker A: Yeah, of course, I think. And the online market is very separated out in the Netherlands.
[00:18:22] Speaker B: Yeah. But I mean it's.
I think it's got to be a positive for them. The problem is it just opens up more potential competition, doesn't it? So yeah, I think they all. I'd agree they are well set.
If French online casino opened up, however, you know, it goes back to. I think it's a very good point you made, which surprised me somewhat. You know, are they able to use their player base and things like that? Because to be honest, they're competing against people who through the sport and the poker who already have a huge player base of loyal customers who they can now if they can just cross sell the online casino product to, you know, actually partouche barrier, they're starting at a huge disadvantage because having a retail customer base that you can kind of try and sell your product to is very different to having someone who's already signed up who you know is an online gambling player who plays poker with you.
[00:19:13] Speaker A: Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. Okay. Have we exhausted partou? Do we now talk about Georgia?
[00:19:18] Speaker B: Probably exhausted our few listeners sometimes.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: I'm not sure. I'm not sure.
[00:19:21] Speaker B: People. More people watch us than listen to us.
[00:19:24] Speaker A: I'm not sure. I'm not sure if I like that. I don't like the idea of being watched or listened to. Not used to it.
[00:19:29] Speaker B: At least talk about, don't worry, they're here for me, not you.
[00:19:33] Speaker A: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. They're here for Luigi, not Mario. That's correct.
[00:19:36] Speaker B: You haven't seen them do plumbing in any game. In fact, I was actually thinking about the Mario brothers the other day. Okay, yeah. So like some, some women wear dungarees. Yeah, that is a fashion thing you.
[00:19:48] Speaker A: See in Lucy and Yak. It's kind of dungarees and boiler suits. That seems to be a thing.
[00:19:54] Speaker B: Lucy and Yak.
[00:19:55] Speaker A: That's the name of the company wise. There seems to be this trend of people wearing dungarees and boiler suits, and they're almost always made by a company called Lucy and Yak.
[00:20:05] Speaker B: But you don't really see guys wearing dungarees.
[00:20:08] Speaker A: Not so much these days.
[00:20:10] Speaker B: And then I was thinking about, like, who would actually wear dungarees and what they can be used for? Because I thought mechanics, but I was like, actually most mechanics just wear coveralls because you want to cover. Farmers wear coveralls.
And then the only thing I was thinking was, like, who actually wears dungarees?
[00:20:27] Speaker A: Well, you could have waiter waders, you know, for fishing.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I've got. Yeah, I've got weight. They're not done yet. I wear waiters when I'm need to. Wait, when they.
[00:20:37] Speaker A: When the mood takes you.
[00:20:38] Speaker B: Oh, well, you know, if I do stuff for the pond at home and I need to put them on or if I'm going fishing. Yeah, like dungarees. And I saw, oh, the Mario Brothers and okay, he was a plumber. Now I can't. I've never seen a plumber in real life and recently wear wet dungarees. But it's like, what role, what job is there where you would genuinely wear dungarees to work nowadays?
[00:20:57] Speaker A: That's a very interesting point.
[00:20:59] Speaker B: I mean, this is the kind of shit that I think about when my mind's just trying to go off data.
Like, why would I. I own a pair of dungarees. What use could I have for it?
[00:21:11] Speaker A: I mean, they've had their moments in fashion.
[00:21:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:15] Speaker A: I mean, honestly, what I always think about is the film of the Grapes of Wrath. That's what I always associate dungarees with real idea. But, you know, it's based in the Steinbeck book. There was one of the characters in that was always wearing dungarees. And that's what dungarees makes me think of Dust bowl in the Great Depression and they were farmers, so farmers used to wear dungarees. Yeah.
[00:21:39] Speaker B: Of mice and men and stuff like that. So, yeah, us farmers, I get. But in the uk, I can't think of any profession. Wade. Where really.
[00:21:48] Speaker A: Well, yeah, anyway, this. Yeah, I.
I was trying to think of some connection to the Georgian gambling market, but I can't. So Georgia, a national dish, A khachapuri, a capital Tbilisi, Obviously not attempting the population size because that's just always a bit embarrass.
So tell us about the size of that market. What sort of rev, like GGR is it generating and where does that kind of place it in the kind of pantheon of European gambling markets.
[00:22:22] Speaker B: So I mean it's got population of 4 million. So adult population of 83. So it's not very big. The land based 800 million Georgian Lari. It's almost entirely gaming. So it's a very, very small land. Betting lottery. But that's $300 million. Yes.
[00:22:39] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:22:39] Speaker B: Onshore online, 1.8 billion gel.
700670 million.
So what's that so billion dollars total 67, 70% on online and then offshore another 370 million gel. Sorry, a billion gels to $370 million. So 65% onshore now it seems a small market but actually it's over three and a half percent of GDP which is very large and in fact it is the largest percent of GDP jars and GDP of any country. We cover and compare global average of just 0.6%.
[00:23:17] Speaker A: Well I suppose part of that is down to somewhere like Batumi. You know there's a great article. I think it was from 2022A.
No, Matt didn't work for us at that point. So it was, it was done by our Asian editor at large, Mohammed Cohen. And I think, I think if you look up Black Sea Vegas on the and I gaming business, you should be able to find it. But that is essentially a real kind of tourist hub pulling in guests from Turkey, from Israel, which is, you know, real kind of like a bit of a kind of playground. So that is quite an interesting, you know, kind of like tourism hub. So that, that would kind of suggest why it would be. Why it would probably help kind of increase the, you know, be such a large percentage of the gg.
[00:24:06] Speaker B: Yeah but again lands, you know, still a smallish bit. So that does obviously help. I mean $300 million over 1.4 something. But yeah, it's just, I mean it's six times the size percent GDP of what you are seeing in average for the markets. You know it is, is popular over there data wise. So how do we get that? So we get data on market turnover, there's no splits. And so it's actually very tough to know the size of the market just from what's reported.
However, what you can do if you're willing to go the extra step is you can download the financial accounts of all the listed online operators in Georgia, which obviously we do because we do that level of analysis. And so you get revenues by operator, by product from, from the financial accounts. So this shows CrystalBet was a market leader in 2023. The problem with doing this is they have to put it through the equipment like company's house in the uk so they file. There's a delay between filing accounts and getting it so the data isn't as up to date as regulated data. The 2023 CrystalBet which is owned by Entane was market leader with 25% followed by Ajara Bet which is owned by a Flutter Flutter. Well done with 20% market share and Crocobet which has around 20% market share as well. So only two companies have submitted their 2024 count so we'll be updating that in the coming weeks.
[00:25:31] Speaker A: Okay. So it's interesting. So Intain is essentially the market leader but CrystalBet was also, I suppose after that review, that strategic review a few years ago, the one part of the business they were actively looking to divest. I'm not sure if those plans have changed.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean, so what they make. So I mean to be honest, I can't be bothered to try and open their accounts. But just looking ballpark, they're 25% based on what we think 2024, it's about US$165 million revenue.
But they can also look elsewhere. So Jara Bets, you know there's. Where did they bloody do it? They moved into.
Was it Azerbaijan?
[00:26:16] Speaker A: It was Armenia.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: Armenia was it. So that. So you know, they're looking into, you know, using these brands into, into other markets. But yeah, Ajara Bet and CrystalBeck were really 1 2. Zentane Flutter fought it out but Crocobat's been the one that's been growing. You know why, why despite that, you know why there's still a decent offshore the legal gambling age 25. Yeah. For locals in 2021 and government workers and those receiving government assistance, which I assume means welfare also forbidden from gambling.
[00:26:45] Speaker A: Yep. But for tourists I think the, the gambling age is 18 so that's obviously in person.
[00:26:53] Speaker B: Yeah. But it's interesting on, on the, on the gambling advertising. So since 1 March 2022, all forms of gambling advertising, TV, online, billboards, et cetera have been prohibited. You can tell I'm reading that bit from my notes because I can actually say the words the only exception.
[00:27:11] Speaker A: Sponsorship.
[00:27:12] Speaker B: Sports sponsorship.
[00:27:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:15] Speaker B: I'd be interesting if you know any other markets perhaps follow that given importance of in a lot of these countries of gambling revenues to support sponsorship and as a way of promoting the onshore operators but without loss of TV advertising. On the flip side, you could argue that having such linking between sports and gambling, is that really what you want to show and should that be the only way you see them?
[00:27:40] Speaker A: Yeah, well it's an interest.
I mean it's. We're using interesting a lot again. I mean it is. It's essentially flipping a lot of what we see on its head. I mean generally it will be some form of limited tv, you know, kind of above the line advertising but sports sponsorship is what's being targeted. But so. So it's hard to know. It seems like a very kind of. It's a unique way of doing it. I'm really not sure if there's any other markets do something similar but it's quite interesting on raising the minimum age for gambling from 21 to 25 that seems at a glance a bit extreme but then you think about how under 20s are being treated in other markets like whether that's the uk, the Netherlands. I mean that's just really.
I suppose that almost kind of think about when that happens, you know, 21, 22. That's almost kicking off that trend of under 25s essentially being the new minors and what's.
[00:28:40] Speaker B: I mean particularly in the UK they're reducing the voting age to 16 in the UK.
[00:28:46] Speaker A: Are they just talk of it because.
[00:28:49] Speaker B: Labour wants to do it because young people in Liberal are more likely to vote for Labour so keep them in power.
[00:28:53] Speaker A: I don't think any political party is covering itself in glory these days but let's not get into all that.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: Oh a message. Um, but. And there wasn't the. This talk about potentially increasing the age 21 or have I made that up in the UK?
[00:29:08] Speaker A: No, I mean that's something that a few groups are calling for in the us.
Obviously it changes depending on where you are But I mean 21 us, the age, it's the, it's the legal drinking age.
Yeah.
[00:29:21] Speaker B: In the uk but I mean my view is if you're saying someone can be trusted enough to vote surely they can be trusted enough to gamble, you know if they're not. Well so it's like oh no, we need to have specific to protect people who are under 25 for certain level in the UK but nine years beforehand that their brain's good enough for them to make it this be able to make a decision on who runs the country.
[00:29:44] Speaker A: Well, well actually, actually funnily enough I can see the rationale in giving people age 16 and over the.
The right to vote I think would have been.
I wouldn't have trusted myself at 16 to.
[00:30:00] Speaker B: Neither do I. I think it's ridiculous. A 16 year old has no idea about anything.
[00:30:05] Speaker A: No, I would. I would say that by giving them the right to vote you are bringing into line with a lot of other countries and you're also engaging people with their future. So I would actually argue that that makes sense. Whereas I think they just don't.
[00:30:19] Speaker B: They have no clue about anything a 16 year old, unless it's about TikTok, they don't have a clue. And the fact their vote is going to count on stuff that they know nothing about. I mean you can argue most people who vote know very little about most topics. I know very little about most topics in the U.K. but no, I mean, but you're doing marketing on TikTok. I mean, I think it's a joke.
[00:30:38] Speaker A: It's what a lot of the political parties are doing and it does seem to be effective, I think, I mean maybe, maybe it'll take a while but essentially these people will be more engaged in their, in their future as I say. Whereas I think with gambling, with drinking, there's a, there's potential for misuse, you know and also when it comes to disposable income, people at that, at that kind of younger age have less of it. So there is potential for them to run up debt or fall into, you.
[00:31:09] Speaker B: Know, I don't disagree with, with the last bit but I'm sorry, you can now just make me angry about the idea of 16 year olds having a view about anything important.
[00:31:18] Speaker A: OLD MAN YELLS AT CLOUD I mean.
[00:31:20] Speaker B: Possibly it's weird like the people go, all people shouldn't have folks. You know, it's not going to affect, you know, it's more important for younger people because decisions are going to affect them for a lot longer period of life.
[00:31:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I would agree with that. To me, I think kind of younger people.
[00:31:32] Speaker B: Okay, so what about the fact that in general, you know, in most societies, so the time elders have been ones who have used to kind of lead them because they're wiser and have seen stuff and know things. So I would rather have someone who's 60, 78, but someone who's got experience in life and seen things, who is making decisions because they know about it even if it's only going to affect them for 10 years rather than affects all 50 years. I, I'll do anything. I wouldn't even trust them to pick up my dry cleaning.
If you're running a country, I mean.
[00:32:04] Speaker A: It'S, they're not running a country, they're having a view on it and I don't think that's a bad thing.
I think with different groups there's going to be a level of entrenchment in their views and what, what has previously worked might not work. And I think that could be potentially damaging. Think it's. And I think it's worth having a broad church, you know, it's worth having a wide range of views because essentially, you know, essentially an election is reaching a consensus on an issue. These are the people to do it. This is how an issue should be done. I mean, that's how democracy works. So I think kind of bring more people into that to build a better consensus ultimately. What's the problem?
[00:32:43] Speaker B: Why. Okay, why 16 then?
[00:32:45] Speaker A: Because that is the age. I'm pretty sure that is the age of consent and the age at which they can serve in the military. It might be older for the military, I'm not sure. But anyway, now before we turn into.
[00:32:59] Speaker B: Anyway, let's.
[00:33:00] Speaker A: Before we turn into a really bad version of the rest is politics, I think it's time to wrap things up. So what are we going to talk about next week? Let's start with the.
[00:33:10] Speaker B: I mean, next week I'll probably have some more facts as to completely isolated incidents that aren't informed about why 16 year olds know nothing.
[00:33:19] Speaker A: Okay, I look forward to that.
[00:33:20] Speaker B: I'm sure when we're doing it, because I'll be at SBC in Lisbon so we can do something. Well, I was going to say slightly less professional, but who knows, right? Companies. Okay, so 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. I mean if, if you actually went onto our website, you could probably doctor this and work out what you need to say to get to a certain company, but I know that your preparation would go nowhere near that. So keeping it organic. 1 and 12. 12 Number between 1 and 5.
[00:33:51] Speaker A: 5.
[00:33:52] Speaker B: Are we doing operators or suppliers?
[00:33:54] Speaker A: Operators.
[00:33:55] Speaker B: It's. Is gambling adjacent Zynga. So more social, social gaming. Do you want to go for real money gaming?
[00:34:02] Speaker A: No, let's talk about Zynga. That's quite interesting. Earlier on in my career for a magazine called Social Casino Intelligence, I covered Zynga. And that free to play casino and poker games I think is quite interesting because you can see, you can almost draw parallels with the level of essentially another, another kind of generation of gambling equivalent products emerging in the U.S. so I think it might be quite interesting to look at these two things in tandem.
[00:34:34] Speaker B: Yeah, we only have data 2022 got bought by Take Two Interactive, which we do actually have. So I suppose we're going to have to talk about them as well.
[00:34:42] Speaker A: Okay.
They do Grand Theft Auto, which was originally done by a Scottish company.
[00:34:47] Speaker B: Which is played by 16 year olds who believe that everyone should be able to go around just assaulting people and stealing cars and vote about it.
[00:34:54] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:34:57] Speaker B: Next random country. Let's see. Bhutan.
[00:35:00] Speaker A: Don't know much about gambling in Bhutan.
[00:35:02] Speaker B: Congo.
[00:35:03] Speaker A: Reasonably small market. We could talk about that.
[00:35:05] Speaker B: We've got Mauritius.
[00:35:06] Speaker A: Mauritius.
I mean, it's mainly. Well, it's a lottery monopoly, isn't it? It's lotto tech.
[00:35:12] Speaker B: Why don't we talk? Because we probably won't have loads to.
[00:35:15] Speaker A: Say about both of them. Let's talk about Mauritius in Congo.
[00:35:19] Speaker B: Mauritius and Congo. Yeah. And then we'll do very quick about Zynga and Tato. Yeah. So, Jessica, capital of Congo.
[00:35:28] Speaker A: Brazzaville.
[00:35:28] Speaker B: Yeah, Capital of Mauritius.
Port Louis.
[00:35:31] Speaker A: Port Lewis.
[00:35:32] Speaker B: Pretty sure it's pronounced that not Port Louis.
Currency, is it?
[00:35:37] Speaker A: Mauritian dollars?
[00:35:38] Speaker B: Mauritian rupee.
[00:35:39] Speaker A: Rupee.
[00:35:39] Speaker B: That a national dish?
[00:35:41] Speaker A: Imagine it's something to do with fish.
[00:35:42] Speaker B: Dal puree. Stuffed flatbread stuffed with chana dolls. But yeah, lentils and fun. Yeah, I went there on the holiday in 2023, I believe.
[00:35:53] Speaker A: That's not the most fun fact I've heard.
[00:35:55] Speaker B: No, I was going to say it's the last place I went on a proper holiday, but that's just not true.
[00:35:59] Speaker A: Speaking of which, I understand you'll be on holiday seeing the sights in Lisbon next week.
[00:36:04] Speaker B: I won't be on holiday. I will be working. If anyone wants a meeting, please reach out.
[00:36:09] Speaker A: Where will you be working?
[00:36:11] Speaker B: Probably won't have put this out by then. So you need to qualify next week. That means you need to have this out tomorrow.
[00:36:16] Speaker A: Friday as the day that I always put these out.
[00:36:18] Speaker B: Okay. What will I be doing so in Lisbon? You know, seeing people, spreading the gospel of data.
[00:36:24] Speaker A: And I have some pastel del nata. That's the custard tarts.
[00:36:28] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a bit. Yeah, I'll have one of them. I'll try a bit. I'll share one with someone.
And I'm actually going to look around the Benfica stadium. Oh yeah, I have got a presentation I'm doing there to some Brazilian payment providers association and then IBER, International Betting Integrity Association. It's got a 20th anniversary, so I think I show the some drinks and around the stadium. So that'll be good. Yeah, that's it really. I'm not gonna lie.
I've got a few slots spare, so if people want to reach out, always happy for listener to fill them.
[00:37:02] Speaker A: Okay. Okay, well, enjoy that. We will find some time in your busy schedule in Lisbon to record next week. When we'll be talking about Mauritius, Congo and Zynga. Interesting mix. So everyone, that is episode 18 of Right to the Source. We hope you have, if not enjoyed it, at least been able to follow it. And we will see you in the next one. Thanks for listening.
