0:02 Hello everyone. Today we're joined by
0:05 Isma Vali, the founder of Yieldtech and
0:09 the current president of GCI Gaming
0:12 Compliance International. We had Ismile
0:14 on before, but since his company has
0:16 been acquired, welcome. Nice to have you
0:17 here again.
0:19 >> It's a pleasure to to be here today and
0:21 happy new year to you.
0:22 >> We're recording this on the 1st of
0:24 January 2026. So, first of all, happy
0:28 new year to you. There's a lot of news
0:31 in gambling these days and there's two
0:33 things I want to discuss. One of them is
0:37 your upcoming report on the state of
0:40 gambling in America and the other one is
0:45 the latest case against Drake the rapper
0:47 for all sorts of allegations including
0:50 promoting of unlicensed crypto gambling.
0:52 Tell me a little bit about the report
0:54 that you guys put together. So we put a
0:55 report together for our client, the
0:57 campaign for fairer gambling which is
0:59 founded and funded by a gentleman called
1:02 Derek Web. Derek made all of his fortune
1:04 in the gaming industry and he campaigns
1:06 to bring a fair and safe marketplace to
1:08 jurisdictions all over the world. Most
1:10 uh clear focus is in the United Kingdom
1:12 and in the United States. So we've been
1:14 working with Derek for just over three
1:16 years now and we've done the most
1:19 comprehensive analysis of monitored
1:21 behavior from the audience and their
1:24 activity across sports betting, casino,
1:26 poker, including things like crypto,
1:27 including things like predictors, all
1:29 these new innovative products that are
1:31 coming through and obviously the split
1:34 between legal and illegal gambling. So
1:36 in America we have an issue between reg
1:38 what's regulated, legal and licensed,
1:40 what's unregulated, illegal and
1:42 unlicensed. right now that's running at
1:46 74% of the marketplace is going towards
1:49 unregulated brands. 26% is going towards
1:51 regulated brands. But in America, we're
1:54 at this tipping point where yield on its
1:56 2024 work and basically called out
1:58 America as it's a marketplace that needs
2:01 to basically do things during 2025 to
2:03 move the marketplace away from this
2:06 illegal control. That hasn't happened.
2:08 our halfyear work which is about to come
2:10 out on the 7th of January. Our halfyear
2:12 work is basically showing the
2:14 marketplace is staying static. 74% going
2:17 to unregulated brands, 26% going to
2:19 regulated brands. But the real headline
2:22 here that's that's worrying is we had
2:26 103 legal licensed online gaming brands
2:29 in America who pay tax, provide jobs,
2:31 provide instate benefits with the supply
2:34 chain and who are also paying taxes. We
2:39 had 103 of those in 2023. 2024, we had 95.
2:40 95.
2:43 By the six-month point of 2025, we've
2:46 gone down to 57. That will end this
2:48 year. That will end the 2025 year around
2:51 the 50 mark. None of that boas is coming
2:54 from M&A mergers and acquisitions. None
2:55 of it's coming from people who are
2:57 buying each other and consolidating a
2:59 broad industry. It's coming from
3:01 attrition because these brands cannot
3:03 make the money they should be making
3:06 which then has a knock-on consequence of
3:08 not paying any taxes that the states
3:11 expect them to be paying. So we're in a
3:13 position now where the ecosystem is
3:14 really in trouble in America. And what
3:16 we're looking at is this thing getting
3:18 worse before it gets any better. And all
3:20 of that is coming down to the control by
3:23 unregulated unlicensed brands over the
3:26 American online gaming experience. That
3:27 number really caught my attention
3:28 because I just think this is absolutely
3:31 crazy. I see gambling ads everywhere.
3:33 You can't put on a football game without
3:35 seeing gambling ads. Everyone is
3:36 gambling. How's it possible that
3:38 gambling operators are still not making
3:40 any money?
3:42 >> You've had seven years of legal licensed
3:45 operations, the ability for states to
3:46 license their destiny relating to online
3:49 gaming. That's been going on since 2018.
3:51 Before that, you basically have since
3:55 1995, three decades now of unregulated
3:57 illegal gambling in America. So those
3:59 three decades have built up a huge
4:01 amount of customer database, customer
4:04 interaction, and fundamentally this. You
4:07 have 30 states licensed today for online
4:09 sports betting. There are seven for
4:12 online casino. The business model that I
4:14 grew up with. So my background prior to
4:16 setting up Yilsec and becoming president
4:18 of GCI. My background was 20 years of
4:20 gaming operations. So I've built some of
4:21 the world's biggest online gaming
4:23 brands, Poker Stars, Paradise, Poker,
4:25 and Sporting B. One lesson that business
4:27 learned was this. If you want to make
4:29 money in this business, you need to be
4:31 the one-stop gambling shop and you need
4:33 to have cross-ell. So your ability to
4:36 acquire database audience from sports
4:38 betting and move them into casino and
4:40 poker where the margin is higher. If you
4:42 don't have cross-ell, it's extremely
4:44 hard to make money because sports
4:47 betting is a razor thin margin. Legal or
4:49 illegal, it's a razor thin margin. What
4:51 the illegals learned was give everybody
4:53 the one-stop gambling shop, give
4:55 everybody what they want in one place,
4:56 and those guys have been there for three
4:58 decades. And they can take the audience
5:00 from each new Super Bowl, each new March
5:02 Madness every year, and push them into
5:04 casino and other products in the off
5:07 period for American sports. Legal brands
5:09 are everywhere and advertising
5:10 everywhere and they're funded by
5:12 investors and they are desperately
5:14 trying to claw their way into that
5:17 database. But as a customer, why would I
5:20 gamble with you when you don't offer me
5:22 benefit in the casino when I lose money
5:24 on sports, benefit in the sports book,
5:26 when I lose money in the casino? So
5:29 cross-ell is king and most legal brands
5:32 do not have cross-ell because of the the
5:34 legislative delays that have been
5:36 present there. I want to pause here for
5:39 a second before we dive deep into the
5:42 market dynamics. There's one number from
5:44 your from your report that just blew my
5:48 mind. 7 billion.
5:50 >> 67 That's how much illegal gambling
5:53 operators took from Americans last year.
5:56 That's 74% according to a report of
6:00 every dollar gambled online. Why is this
6:02 not the biggest crime story in America
6:04 right now? So in our view it has been
6:05 the biggest crime story in America for
6:07 the last five years since we set up
6:09 yields and that monitoring platform when
6:11 we first looked at this again we've
6:13 proven our platform and model over many
6:15 years now. So we have an exercise that
6:16 we do every year on the Super Bowl where
6:19 because we've seen so much data, we tell
6:21 people before it takes place, this is
6:22 how the audience is tracking. This is
6:24 what we reckon the legal uh revenue is.
6:26 This is what we reckon the illegal
6:27 revenue is. And everybody loses their
6:29 mind on social media every year and says
6:31 yield must be wrong. GCI must be wrong.
6:33 This can't be true.
6:36 Year. We've been proven right on the
6:37 legal number because that's the one
6:39 that's obviously declared and audited.
6:40 when the legal number comes out three
6:42 four weeks after the end of the the
6:44 Super Bowl in the late in late February
6:46 when that number comes out in March we
6:49 are always within 0.1% what the number
6:50 was in terms of the number of bets
6:52 placed the amount of money placed on
6:54 those bets so the platform's seen enough
6:56 that it's predictive analytics are
6:57 really great now as well so we can tell
6:59 you we know that the audience is
7:00 tracking like this we've seen the
7:01 prevalence of advertising this is how
7:03 much is going to be left behind now if
7:06 we're right on the legal number first we
7:07 are right on the illegal number because
7:09 it's an apples and apples methodology
7:12 used to get to those answers. Okay, so
7:14 the crime story in America, this is a
7:16 shocking case of money that's been
7:19 stolen from American commerce. All these
7:20 brands that should be making money in
7:22 legal online gaming are not making the
7:24 money they should. It's theft from
7:26 American community. All the money that
7:28 should have been paid in tax hasn't been
7:30 paid. Okay? Because these brands operate
7:32 and don't pay any taxes and they're all
7:33 based offshore. And then it's the
7:35 American consumer that ultimately
7:37 suffers because even though you might be
7:38 getting sweet offers from these illegal
7:40 brands, they are not just treating you
7:42 like a customer. They are also using
7:44 your data for other things. You'll find
7:46 that your use of illegal gambling will
7:48 lead to other things that you're now
7:50 being sold, particularly financial loans
7:52 and and payday loans. You'll be being
7:54 pushed that stuff because people see you
7:56 as a high-risk individual. There's
7:58 there's even an implication in the
8:01 streaming market as the latest Drake
8:04 case implies. But before we talk about
8:06 that, one thing I don't understand is in
8:08 the last few years, we've had an
8:10 impressive amount of legalization in the
8:12 American gambling market. That's why
8:15 things seem to have picked up so much.
8:18 And so many states promise that if
8:21 there's legalized gambling, then the
8:23 illegals are going to go away. Then the
8:25 legal market's going to take over. the
8:27 market's going to become clean and yet
8:29 according to your report the exact
8:32 opposite has happened. Why is that?
8:34 >> So I think there's an assumption here
8:36 which was if you legalize something that
8:38 has already always been prohibited. If
8:41 we legalize surely the marketplace takes
8:44 care of itself. The problem is crime
8:46 doesn't just leave. So unregulated
8:48 brands who've been there for three
8:50 decades now in America are not simply
8:52 going to roll up their tents and go
8:54 away. And that same assumption I've seen
8:55 the world though. So we've advised
8:57 dozens of regulators. I before I set up
8:59 Yilsec in my operations career, we'd
9:01 always get asked for kind of our views
9:03 on how they regulate and legalize the
9:04 marketplace. And there was always this
9:07 assumption which is not anybody's fault
9:09 to be clear. It's not regulators fault.
9:11 It's not the legislator's fault. It's a
9:13 fault of us as societies. I believe we
9:16 thought if we legalize an activity, it
9:17 will basically take care of itself. That
9:20 everyone will move towards like osmosis.
9:22 everybody will move towards I'll bet
9:23 with these brands. I'll bet with the
9:25 ones who are most advertised. That's not
9:27 the case because of how advertising
9:29 works nowadays. Even if I'm doing all of
9:31 the sponsorship deals, deals like having
9:33 ambassadors like Drake for example, even
9:35 if I'm doing all of those deals, does
9:38 that mean I'm the most frequented online
9:41 brand? And the answer is no. When I've
9:43 got three decades of experience in
9:45 digital marketing, when I've got three
9:47 decades of customer database I've built
9:49 up, that's an extremely sticky thing
9:51 that basically keeps customers on that
9:53 dark side of the internet. But the dark
9:55 side of the internet has become all of
9:57 online gaming [laughter] is what's
9:59 happened. So when you're looking at 74%
10:02 of the marketplace, 67 billion, $7.1
10:05 billion during 2024, that number will be
10:07 higher 2025, which is published
10:09 six-month numbers. will be coming back
10:11 to do the full year shortly. The main
10:13 problem here is this. Customers are
10:16 seduced unregulated online gaming in
10:18 America and they have been for decades.
10:21 So the big crime story here, this is
10:23 worth hundreds of billions of dollars
10:25 over three decades. Okay,
10:26 >> tax revenue that should have come from
10:28 this is worth hundreds of billions of
10:31 dollars over three decades. Nothing has
10:33 been done about this and you have to see
10:36 this as a heist in plain sight. Okay. I
10:39 think the other thing that has come up
10:41 and has sprung up and I think maybe has
10:44 changed the dynamics is that crypto
10:48 gambling has become a 14.4
10:52 billion monster. This is according to
10:55 you guys 43% of everything that
10:57 Americans see when they're searching for
11:00 gambling related terms. Is crypto
11:03 gambling just illegal gambling wearing a
11:06 costume? So crypto gambling has become
11:08 this breakout product and it's using the
11:10 word crypto to act as catnip for a
11:12 certain audience who basically don't
11:14 know any better and haven't educated
11:17 themselves in the real fundamental here.
11:19 So there's a bunch of people crowding
11:21 around this area some of them not to be
11:23 trusted who are telling you that this
11:24 thing exists and therefore you should
11:26 gamble with them. But there is a whole
11:28 bunch of noise in the crypto casino
11:30 area, the crypto gambling area which
11:32 everybody needs to be careful about. The
11:34 amount of money it's taking away from
11:36 the legitimate marketplace from the
11:39 community in tax tax payments is also
11:41 something to be concerned about. Now
11:42 >> I want to quote from your research
11:45 paper. Crypto gambling drives higher
11:48 frequency at much higher stakes than we
11:51 have ever witnessed in gambling history.
11:54 Are we seeing the invention of the
11:57 digital gambling equivalent of crack
12:00 cocaine with crypto gambling?
12:02 >> What we're seeing on crypto has it's
12:04 scared us in terms of we've not seen the
12:06 frequency and recency and stake sizes
12:08 that we're seeing from crypto gambling
12:11 by showing consumers their balance
12:13 through the matrix of it's all
12:15 cryptocurrencies now and they were
12:17 generally going up. We've seen brands in
12:19 the crypto gaming space in the last few
12:21 months when Bitcoin's been crashing.
12:24 We've seen brands marketing in ways they
12:26 never have before. Okay? So, previously
12:27 they would just be able to take your
12:29 money, show you your account balance
12:31 expressed in cryptocurrency, and because
12:33 you felt richer every day because
12:35 Bitcoin was going up, you gambled more
12:37 and they were constantly pushing you
12:39 through the notifications to, oh, hey,
12:40 we've got this really volatile stock
12:42 machine and this guy just won. all these
12:43 madeup promotions that they were coming
12:46 up with, lot of madeup kind of AI feeds
12:48 and deep fake feeds of people winning
12:49 money on slot machines, whole bunch of
12:51 stuff that was ending up on
12:53 YouTube from that. What we now started
12:54 seeing in the last few months is
12:56 basically when Bitcoin is going down,
12:58 the Ponzi scheme part of this, the
13:00 illusion that's been sold, the lie
13:02 that's been sold to American consumers
13:04 and global consumers on crypto gaming.
13:06 What we're seeing is brands are
13:08 panicking. So, they're doing things like
13:09 saying, "Oh, we're giving away half a
13:11 million dollars a month during half a
13:12 million dollars over Christmas week.
13:15 We're giving away um 20 $25,000 a day in
13:17 daily promotions." Crypto gaming brands
13:19 never did that stuff. They never gave
13:22 money away ever. Okay? Now, they've all
13:23 started doing it because this is the
13:26 first sustained period of Bitcoin doing
13:27 this. Okay? So, they've all been giving
13:29 money away like there's no tomorrow.
13:31 particularly in the period where usually
13:33 they'd be taking on customers handover
13:36 fist which starts on Halloween goes
13:38 through Black Friday goes through
13:40 Christmas and New Year and ends around
13:41 Easter so the casino growth period
13:44 globally is usually Halloween to Easter
13:46 that's when it grows okay then it dies
13:48 off a bit interest this year is
13:50 interesting 2026 because we have a year
13:53 of gambling without gaps so what we have
13:54 this year for most of the world's
13:57 audiences slightly less so in America
13:59 the World Cup taking place when it does
14:01 where it does means that people will be
14:04 gambling year round. Now for any gaming
14:06 brand you want to take on a whole bunch
14:08 of people from that Black Friday
14:10 Halloween Black Friday through Easter
14:11 period and then you want to keep them
14:13 activated through the soccer calendar
14:14 and now you've got a soccer calendar
14:16 that means there's no gaps anymore. So
14:18 you could make money from these people
14:21 every week of a 52- week year. That's at
14:22 risk with some of these crypto brands
14:24 right now because customers are kind of
14:26 going, "Hold on a minute. I don't like
14:28 what I'm seeing here. You're giving me
14:30 free money, but you're not showing me a
14:32 a balance that's increasing every day,
14:34 which is what you got me used to. So,
14:36 there's a piece of it, which is Bitcoin
14:38 price crashing means that these and it's
14:40 not been crashing in a kind of like one
14:42 day. It's been a sustained drop over the
14:44 last couple of months. That's changing
14:46 the year for crypto gambling. But
14:48 fundamentally, these guys in crypto
14:50 gaming have leared a playbook, which is
14:52 you mislead the customer into believing
14:54 that they are rich. Therefore, you get
14:56 them to spend more and you keep
14:58 reminding them that look, Bitcoin's
15:01 changed by this much today in this hour.
15:03 So, you can gamble more. If you then
15:05 strap to that products like predictors,
15:07 which lots of the illegal guys have been
15:08 doing. So, they've taken the stuff that
15:10 Calcian and Poly Market are doing
15:11 legally in America right now, and
15:13 they've strapped it to their illegal
15:15 operations overseas.
15:17 Crypto gambling with predictors in it is
15:19 a really dangerous product because it's
15:22 so wrapped up in your social media feed
15:23 and your news feed. And when you're
15:25 saying things like bet on the weather
15:27 tomorrow, that kind of stuff is
15:28 dangerous as a product. Okay, if you're
15:31 then establishing next to it the kind of
15:32 like Bitcoin's going up, so why don't
15:35 you gamble more now? It's really
15:37 dangerous. So there's part of it which
15:39 is there is a toxic mix taking place
15:41 with all gaming products going through
15:45 that crypto kind of rubric, that crypto
15:46 prism when they end up on the other
15:49 side. It's not a kind of it's it's like
15:51 taking the color spectrum from that dark
15:52 side of the mood, Pink Floyd. take that
15:54 color spectrum in reverse. It's going
15:56 into a darker place when it comes out
15:58 the other side of crypto gambling. So, I
15:59 think that there's probably a part of
16:00 this. I wouldn't go as far as to say
16:02 it's crack cocaine or gambling, but
16:04 there's something in this we've not seen
16:07 before as an industry which we're very
16:08 worried about right now.
16:09 >> I want to focus in on one of the things
16:12 that you said, which is that a lot of
16:14 this goes through big tech platforms,
16:16 right? You mentioned Google, it goes
16:17 through Google, it goes through
16:19 Facebook, it goes through social media,
16:23 Instagram, Twitter, etc. Are these big
16:25 tech platforms not in some extent
16:27 responsible for all the people that
16:29 they're funneling into these illegal casinos?
16:31 casinos?
16:32 If you look at it in terms of criminal
16:35 liability, they need to be on message.
16:37 They need to be knowingly taking that
16:38 revenue. Okay? Because the most
16:39 important part here is the intention
16:42 behind it. So, did they intend to commit
16:44 criminal offenses? I don't believe you
16:46 can look at any of those tech platforms
16:48 and say that they knowingly intended to
16:50 commit offenses. They are being
16:53 exploited and stolen from in the exact
16:55 same way that legal gambling is, that
16:56 state governments and the federal
16:58 government are. And the consumer is
17:01 being stolen from in America today. So
17:02 all of these platforms who are out
17:04 there, give you one example of this. We
17:06 found nearly three and a half thousand
17:08 illegal gambling apps across the app
17:10 stores, mobile uh phone platforms,
17:12 Android and Apple. Okay. When we brought
17:15 that to the attention of those mobile
17:17 platforms, they both had the same
17:19 answer, which was, "So, you're telling
17:21 us they screwed us?" Because the first
17:23 transaction for a legal gambling brand,
17:25 30% of that go to Apple or Android.
17:27 Okay. So, you deposit in of 100 bucks,
17:29 30 bucks goes to those platforms. That's
17:31 their first honor payment being on the
17:33 platform, having the apps downloaded
17:35 from the app stores. When illegal
17:37 gambling turns up, they don't say that
17:38 they're gambling because obviously to
17:40 get in the gambling section of the app
17:42 stores, you would need to provide a
17:44 license from a state government. You
17:45 would need to provide a national license
17:47 outside of America to show that you're a
17:49 licensed gambling company. Illegal
17:51 gambling gets in there. How? By
17:53 describing itself as sports information,
17:55 by describing itself as games. So, they
17:57 get in there that way. You download an
17:59 app. Maybe it's not even real money when
18:01 you open it, but within 24 hours, it
18:02 will switch to a real money app that has
18:05 gambling. Okay? So when we showed them
18:07 that this is what's going on out there,
18:08 they weren't aware of it because they're
18:10 going through their standard process,
18:11 running the app store, taking on new
18:13 apps, checking those apps, putting them
18:15 up there in certain sections where they
18:17 are being paid to be placed. Nobody
18:19 realized that there was this kind of
18:20 illegal gambling thing going, "Yeah, we
18:22 can just stuff in there." And there's a
18:24 whole supply chain behind illegal
18:26 gambling which basically exists to
18:28 ensure we can sell you cloaked
18:30 advertising on Meta. We see that one all
18:31 the time. One, one of our teams is an
18:33 undercover team. They engage with the
18:35 supply chain to find out who's selling
18:36 what and where. Basically,
18:38 >> absolutely. Professional criminals basically
18:39 basically
18:41 >> professional criminals who have had an
18:43 opportunity in just one niche area.
18:45 >> If we about you know monitoring and
18:48 policing tech platforms and about your
18:50 work around tech platforms, I think
18:53 another set of individuals that are very
18:55 much involved in this are influencers.
18:57 And I want to talk a little bit about a
19:00 case that was published yesterday on
19:03 December 31st. So, a federal racketeer
19:06 class action lawsuit filed yesterday
19:10 accuses stake us Drake adding Ross and
19:13 George Nuan of running an illegal online
19:16 casino scheme disguised as a social
19:18 casino. They the plaintiffs alleged
19:21 deceptive marketing via celebrity
19:23 promotions which misled users into
19:25 financial losses through unregulated
19:28 wagers using virtual currencies
19:30 redeemable with real value violating
19:34 federal and state laws. Moreover, the
19:36 complaint details stakes tipping feature
19:39 which enabled hidden crypto transfers.
19:42 For example, a $100,000 transfer from
19:45 Drake to Ross to fund bot farms,
19:49 inflating stra Spotify streams by
19:51 millions, manipulating algorithms,
19:54 diverting royalties, and harming
19:57 independent artists. This forms a
19:59 racketeering enterprise involving wire
20:01 fraud, money laundering like activities
20:05 and streaming fraud causing a $2 billion
20:09 annual industry losses per FTC data. Are
20:11 influencers basically the face of
20:15 illegal gambling in the US?
20:16 >> Let's just talk about this at a high
20:18 level. The most important point here is
20:21 this. The money, the money, the money.
20:23 That's what all of this comes down to.
20:24 Okay? So all of these things like
20:26 tipping features on these platforms and
20:28 stake is not the only one that has these
20:30 things. Tipping features are allowing
20:33 the movement of money openly on platform
20:34 regardless of any other controls. So
20:36 you're seeing there the corruption of a
20:38 marketing process is what's going on in
20:41 in plain view there. Let's get back to
20:43 influencers. I don't believe influencers
20:46 are to blame as are one of the symptoms.
20:49 What are the causes this issue? Cause is
20:51 illegal gambling. Okay. The cause is
20:53 consumers wanting access to the one-stop
20:55 gambling shop and not being provided it
20:58 under national laws and state laws. So
20:59 what are they doing? They're finding it
21:01 out there anyway and they have been for
21:03 three decades. So the big scandal here
21:05 is the robbery, the great illegal
21:07 gambling robbery from the American
21:08 public, from American commerce over
21:10 three decades. Hundreds of billions of
21:12 dollars that have left the country.
21:13 Okay? Hundreds of billions of dollars,
21:16 much of which has gone towards funding
21:18 organized crime around the world. Okay?
21:19 particularly in the consequences that
21:21 it's brought to America. If we look at
21:24 what influencers are responsible for, if
21:27 I'm promoting skin care, diets, exercise
21:29 regimes, and all of a sudden somebody
21:30 comes to me and says, "Well, you have
21:32 50,000 followers and we can pay you this
21:34 much, the money, the money, the money
21:36 again, we'll pay you this much to
21:38 promote unregulated gambling." Wait,
21:40 wait. On that on that note, according to
21:43 the lawsuit, Stake paid Drake hundreds
21:45 of millions of dollars to gamble on
21:47 stream and to post about crypto gambling
21:49 to Americans. Are celebrities really
21:51 making that much money promoting crypto gambling?
21:52 gambling?
21:54 >> Now, that's an interesting point to
21:55 raise in this case because Stake has
21:57 been various Stake have been variously
21:59 described in their relationships with
22:01 Drake over the years. Stake is a company
22:03 going back seven plus years. Their
22:05 relationship with Drake extends for most
22:07 of that time. They have been on record
22:11 as saying that he is a 10% equity holder
22:13 of the company. Okay? So he owns 10% of
22:14 the business. So whether they've given
22:16 him hundreds of millions of dollars or
22:18 not, he's certainly been wagering very
22:20 publicly on his stake account. He's been
22:22 putting bets on Super Bowl bets on Mark
22:24 Madness, etc., and posting those on his
22:26 social media feed. So you could look at
22:29 Drake as a super uber influencer in in
22:32 in many ways. Whether he owns 10% of the
22:33 equity of the company, which is not
22:35 publicly traded, neither here nor there.
22:36 So, I think there have been a number of
22:38 explanations for what Drake, the
22:41 rapper's involvement is, outside of his
22:43 name rhyming with the brand name Stake.
22:45 I think that was the genesis of that
22:46 deal. Obviously, Drake and Stake, let's
22:47 put those two things together and see
22:49 what we come up come up with. Let's look
22:51 at influencers at the high level. If any
22:53 type of influencer I am, I'm a musician,
22:55 I'm a celebrity, I'm a great-looking guy
22:57 or girl, and I've got lots of followers.
23:00 The lure of gambling generally will be
23:02 legal or illegal, we want those people
23:05 to promote gaming content for us because
23:06 a product an industry that features
23:08 products with risks always needs a more
23:10 palatable face to introduce that
23:11 product. Drake's a great face to
23:13 introduce that product. So when I'm
23:15 bringing it in, part of this is just
23:17 influencers who are being paid to place
23:19 audience in front of that thing. The
23:21 other part of this is obviously do the
23:23 audience understand these people are
23:25 paid. I think audiences get it now that
23:26 there's an influencer, they're getting
23:28 some kind of benefit for it. But it was
23:30 a lot less obvious in gaming than it was
23:32 in other. So when you're looking at
23:33 somebody's skincare routines and they're
23:35 telling you, "If you buy this cream, I
23:37 may get a share of that money." That's
23:39 obvious. With gambling, it was less
23:41 obvious because it's based on your
23:43 losses as a consumer that are going to
23:45 that influencer. Let's look at
23:46 influencers around the world. Outside of
23:48 the example with big famous celebrities,
23:49 look at what happened in Brazil
23:51 recently. Brazil had a whole bunch of
23:52 stuff where they were basically
23:55 criminalizing influencers for illegal
23:56 gambling and they were going and
23:58 arresting them, men and women kind of
24:00 thing. Although it did seem to be a bit
24:02 like a kind of undeclared war on women
24:04 and that it was a real witch hunt for
24:06 attractive looking women who were
24:07 promoting gambling and therefore kind of
24:10 beingounded for it. Some of those
24:12 influencers, particularly the females,
24:13 got taken away from Brazil to
24:14 [clears throat] places like Miami and
24:17 Colombia and Mexico to carry on their
24:20 influencer career from luxury penthouse
24:22 apartments. The Brazilian kind of
24:23 attitude towards criminalizing this
24:25 stuff completely backfired. And now you
24:27 had these celebrities who were now in
24:28 these gilded cages in Miami, for
24:31 example, posting and kind of posting
24:32 videos and saying which companies to
24:34 gamble with. All of which were
24:36 unlicensed illegal brands in Brazil. The
24:37 exact same thing will start happening in
24:38 America if you have a clamp down on
24:40 influences. The big thing to go for here
24:43 is ecosystem control. Bring it away from
24:45 the chaos. Bring it towards control.
24:47 There are a whole bunch of areas what we
24:49 call ecosystem essentials that you need
24:50 to be looking at here. One is obviously
24:52 the websites. Another one is the apps.
24:54 Another one is social media and
24:56 affiliates. That's where your crossover
24:58 happens with influencers. Influencers
25:01 are affiliates now globally. The biggest
25:03 type of affiliate. affiliate being
25:05 somebody that receives a fee or a
25:08 revenue share for promoting certain
25:09 content, which when that content is
25:11 clicked on, when that content converts a
25:14 customer, I get some revenue share back
25:15 for it. So, that's what an influencer
25:16 is. They're just another type of
25:18 affiliate. The same as going to any
25:20 website that's referring gaming content,
25:22 top 10 reviews, all this kind of stuff.
25:24 So, influencers have influencers have
25:27 become the biggest group and the most
25:28 prevalent group in terms of who makes
25:30 the money now in the online gaming
25:31 business for a fur.
25:33 >> Okay. Okay. So, let let me let me see if
25:36 I get this straight. I'm an influencer.
25:38 If you know, an influencer like Drake
25:41 will get paid hundreds of millions of
25:45 dollars to post that they lost a million
25:47 bucks gambling on a platform like
25:50 Stake.com. And then thousands of
25:53 followers who make maybe 50, maybe
25:57 $40,000 a year, they'll then go and make
25:59 large bets that they can't afford on
26:01 these illegal gambling platforms. So,
26:03 let's let's break it down. Celebrity
26:05 one. My name is Celebrity One. I'm
26:06 followed by millions of people around
26:08 the world. I'm approached by a gaming
26:10 company, legal or illegal, and they say,
26:13 "If you post and talk about our products
26:15 and you feature links to our products,
26:17 for every clickth through, we will pay
26:20 you X dollars. For every conversion, we
26:22 will pay you dollars." the deal that
26:24 they would have gaming not being a
26:26 particularly innovative business. It is
26:29 probably an affiliate revenue shared
26:31 deal and net revenue deals they known.
26:32 Okay. So for every customer who's
26:34 referred, every customer who does
26:36 clickthroughs, Drake and his management
26:38 possibly receive a certain amount of
26:40 money from that. Those deals globally
26:42 tend to run at 15 to 25% net revenue
26:45 share. So, for a $100 I lose as a
26:48 customer, having come through promotion
26:50 that Drake was behind for the brand
26:53 stake, I'm giving up 15 to 25 bucks of
26:55 every $100 I lose to that revenue share deal.
26:56 deal.
26:58 >> Yeah, I think I think these are these
27:00 are crazy deals. And I think one of the
27:04 case studies that stuck out from your
27:08 report was a case study of Ohio. So Ohio
27:10 legalizes online gambling and
27:13 immediately becomes a state where
27:15 illegal gambling operators steal the
27:18 most money per capita. What message does
27:19 that send to states considering legalization?
27:21 legalization?
27:22 >> Considering legal states considering
27:24 legalization, the main thing is this.
27:27 You need to kick the crime out and
27:28 legalize the marketplace. But if you
27:30 don't deal with the crime first, and
27:32 again this isn't telling everyone, there
27:34 was no rulebook to this. Okay, yields
27:36 and GCI discovered a lot of this because
27:37 we're monitoring all the time. There is
27:40 no federal or state platform doing that
27:42 monitoring. We're a private business. We
27:43 obviously sell that work to legal
27:45 stakeholders. The awareness, the
27:48 ability, and the actions that you need.
27:50 So, it's clear from states that have a
27:52 many states in America have an interest
27:54 in online gaming. Some states have a
27:56 love affair with online gaming. Okay?
27:58 And they basically have been voting with
28:00 their feet for illegal gambling for
28:02 years. It's great that the states
28:04 legislators and the regulators have now
28:06 got to those products, but on the basis
28:08 of well, we've only got school spending
28:10 right now and regulators are dealing
28:12 with what they can deal with. So, they
28:14 basically have limited budgets. They
28:16 have a limited set of products that
28:18 they're able to regulate. So, it's not
28:20 the regulators fault this stuff is still
28:22 going on out there. Not at all. Okay?
28:23 The regulators are dealing with the
28:26 reality of the marketplace. Legislators
28:27 often come to this and for their
28:29 political reasons they take a view of
28:31 we're okay with sports betting for now.
28:32 We'll see what it's like in a few years
28:34 time once the marketplace matures enough
28:36 for sports betting. But the problem is
28:38 the reality for the consumer is this.
28:40 All of the products are available all of
28:43 the time from illegal gambling. So I've
28:45 always been going there already. If you
28:47 now want to graft on top of that a legal
28:49 industry that has sponsorships with
28:51 sports teams that has television
28:53 presence on advertising, it doesn't
28:56 matter. And how is that stuff shifting
28:58 illegal gambling control away? Because
29:00 all of the conversions, all of the
29:02 money, the money, the money happens
29:04 where it happens where the rubber meets
29:06 the road online. So all of the things
29:08 where you sponsor NFL teams, all of the
29:10 things where there are sports betting
29:12 kiosks in stadiums, none of that
29:14 matters. The vast majority of the
29:16 revenue is online revenue, not retail
29:18 brick and mortar revenue. And the vast
29:20 majority of consumer interaction and
29:22 engagement is happening online. That's
29:24 where audiences are kind of seduced by
29:26 this and and interact and engage with
29:29 it. When you consider then that illegal
29:32 unregulated gambling has had this has
29:34 stolen the march on that by three
29:36 decades plus. Okay, they've always been
29:38 there. They've always been the one-stop
29:39 shop. They've always been the choice and
29:42 the home of consumers. But one feature
29:43 we always bring up every year, there's
29:46 always a brand every Super Bowl there'll
29:47 be a brand saying, "We're giving away a
29:50 $30 free bet to anyone this year. Old
29:51 customer, new customer. We're giving you
29:54 a free $30 bet on Super Bowl. Why always
29:57 that number 30? Why not 50? Why not 100?
30:00 30 because it's somebody's 30th
30:02 anniversary of being in America. That's
30:04 why it's the $30 pair. So they always,
30:06 we always see one of these each year in
30:08 the past few years because somebody just
30:11 hit their three decade point. That's the
30:12 real scandal here is this has been going
30:15 on in plain sight for three decades. And
30:17 yes, this is one of America's biggest
30:22 So, I did a little research after
30:27 reading your um research and I saw that
30:30 ESPN bet, the score bet unprofitable,
30:33 losing $60 million per quarter in 2025.
30:36 Fanatics projecting a $300 million loss
30:39 in 2025. Unprofitable. Barely
30:42 profitable. Caesar's Digital DraftKings
30:44 also barely profitable.
30:48 Why is this not huge news amongst
30:51 gambling operators? Why are they not,
30:54 you know, pounding the table trying to
30:56 get regulators to fix this situation for
30:58 them if they're really struggling so much?
30:59 much?
31:00 >> It's a really interesting point. So,
31:02 look, what you're seeing in America
31:03 right now, you mentioned ESPN, but
31:05 that's another brand that's folded now.
31:07 So, Pen National Gaming licensed that
31:09 from Disney, owners of ESPN. They
31:11 basically folded that up in the last few
31:13 weeks. So basically, you're looking at
31:16 the silent death of single product
31:18 operators across America now. So for all
31:20 these people who only have pretty much a
31:22 sports book that they can operate
31:24 legally because of the the lack of
31:27 opening the lanes on all products
31:28 because you're only able to offer one
31:30 product. That product runs at
31:32 singledigit profit margin if you're lucky.
31:33 lucky.
31:36 So what America is facing right now is
31:38 you're going from 95 operators to 57
31:40 because that offering is not interesting
31:43 to consumers. Okay. It also doesn't have
31:44 cross-ell which means that when I lose
31:46 money on sports book I can make money
31:48 back on casino and vice versa kind of
31:50 thing. And the customers also appreciate
31:51 that but that's what they're getting
31:54 from illegal gambling today. So why
31:56 would I move all of my revenue that I
31:58 provide to gambling companies? Why would
32:00 I move all of it to a sports book only
32:02 operator? And the answer is they're not
32:04 moving it all. They are taking advantage
32:06 of offers on the Super Bowl and March
32:08 Madness and anything else they can get
32:10 special offers for. But what illegal
32:12 gambling is being used as in America is
32:14 effectively like supermarket coupons.
32:16 I'll buy my milk there because it's
32:17 cheap, but I ain't buying everything
32:19 else there. I'm going somewhere else.
32:21 And that's what American consumers have
32:23 been doing in this period of a patchwork
32:26 quilt of availability by states. A
32:28 patchwork quilt of availability by
32:30 products for the legals. That's what's
32:32 been happening. So you are seeing the
32:34 tumble weeds blowing through the streets
32:37 of our kind of wild west town here where
32:39 illegals clearly have the control of the
32:42 marketplace 74% of it and that carries
32:45 from 2024 into 2025 first half the vast
32:47 majority of the revenue but what they
32:50 really have control of the crossell
32:52 across all products appeal that
32:55 customers are looking for they own that.
32:57 So crossell is owned by illegal gambling
32:59 in America right now. We need to change
33:02 that fundamentally at state levels for
33:04 legal gambling companies who are either
33:06 not making money or who are going bust
33:09 and giving their licenses back. The real
33:10 message is this basically everyone is a
33:12 legal stakeholder as we see them. So as
33:14 long as you are not a crook, you are
33:16 basically on the legal side for us as a
33:18 legal stakeholder. State governments,
33:20 law enforcement, regulators, operators,
33:22 affiliates, all of these people have a
33:24 part to play in this. Okay? tech
33:25 platforms as well, payment providers, banks.
33:27 banks.
33:29 Everybody has a part to play in this.
33:30 The most important piece to remember is
33:33 this. If I can't make the money from the
33:35 products I have today, there needs to be
33:38 an absolute fire alarm ringing for we
33:39 need to be licensing all the products
33:42 because they are being used by consumers
33:45 now already. Okay. So, all of this stuff
33:46 saying that we don't have gambling in
33:49 California for example. Yes, you do.
33:51 [laughter] Okay. It's just not taxed and
33:52 regulated and controlled and that's
33:55 being participated with by under 21 year
33:57 olds, over 21 year olds. We don't have
33:59 any idea about the self-exclusion parts
34:01 or vulnerable communities, we've got no
34:03 idea about it on the legal side because
34:05 nothing's been done. So when you start
34:06 saying that there is no gambling in
34:09 California, yes, there is. It's in our
34:11 top 10 list in this report. So you can
34:13 clearly see here that 100% of that money
34:16 from gambling online is going to
34:18 unregulated unlicensed brands. You can
34:21 clearly see what the tax impact could be
34:22 if you bring it in. But you also need to
34:25 be realistic about this. Do not think
34:26 that the day that you flick the switch
34:28 on legalization, everybody automatically
34:30 runs to Caesars's DraftKings and
34:32 FanDuel. They clearly don't. So these
34:34 brands are not making the money they
34:35 should. And we're now going into year
34:38 eight of this legalization experiment in
34:40 America. We don't have any federal
34:41 mandate for this. It's on a
34:44 stateby-state patchwork basis. And maybe
34:47 it's time for us to start saying perhaps
34:49 that state-by-state patchworkbook model
34:50 has not been working as well as it
34:52 should. Perhaps there needs to be some
34:54 federal intervention and help to help
34:55 states achieve control of the
34:58 marketplaces. And this is not all the
35:00 problem of regulators. Regulators by
35:02 definition are there to regulate the
35:05 legal licensed brands. Yes, they have to
35:07 have a view of the marketplace and where
35:09 crime is taking place, where unregulated
35:11 gambling is taking place and how that
35:13 can be seducing and bewitching the
35:15 audience. But fundamentally, their
35:18 mandate by law is you police these guys,
35:20 legal license brands, make them
35:22 compliant, make them observe age limits,
35:25 make them observe uh responsible gaming
35:27 conditions. Their problem is not
35:29 necessarily illegal gambling because
35:31 that's a criminal problem and that means
35:32 that law enforcement needs to get
35:35 involved. But quite often the stitches
35:37 between what the regulator sees in the
35:39 marketplace and what they can inform on
35:42 to the law enforcement professionals,
35:44 there's a gap there. Okay? And that's
35:46 because who's helping them monitor,
35:47 police, enforce, and optimize. Quite
35:50 often that will be us as a platform
35:52 helping clients of ours. But again, we
35:54 are a for-profit business. We need to be
35:55 funded to do all the work that we do
35:57 across what is complex technology,
36:00 expert human teams and finding those
36:01 connections in the marketplace through
36:03 the supply chain that make change
36:06 happen. But there are many many facets
36:08 of this you need to be looking at across
36:10 that the ecosystem and our state
36:11 governments are is the federal
36:13 government even funded to the extent
36:15 that we are able to look for what's out
36:16 there and what's happening to our
36:18 marketplace. When you put this in
36:20 context of this is an extremely
36:22 expensive problem, set of problems to
36:24 solve. Illegal gambling is never just
36:26 one problem. It's many. But when you
36:28 look at the amount of money that's been
36:30 taken from America, the amount of money
36:32 that's been taken from the states, the
36:34 amount of money that's been taken from
36:36 American consumers by unregulated
36:38 illegal gambling, it starts to put it in
36:40 sharp relief. This thing pays for itself
36:42 in terms of monitoring and policing, but
36:45 you just need to get control of it.
36:46 One of the things that blows my mind is
36:48 you've been monitoring this gambling
36:53 theft for years now and yet politicians
36:55 don't really seem to be doing anything.
36:59 Are they lazy? Are they incompetent? Or
37:02 are they somehow conflicted? What's
37:03 going on?
37:05 >> I don't believe you can point a finger
37:07 at legal stakeholders and say it's your
37:09 fault. It's your problem. You should
37:10 have done something else. What I think
37:12 you have to look at here is it's
37:15 extremely difficult to know what to do
37:17 in the face of criminal actions by
37:19 criminal actors. We don't really
37:20 understand how they operate. We don't
37:22 really understand something as simple as
37:25 mirrors and readers. So government goes
37:26 out, state government or national
37:28 government goes out and says, "Our
37:30 biggest problem is illegal.com. So we're
37:32 going to ban and block legalgambling.com."
37:33 legalgambling.com."
37:35 But nobody ever told them about three or
37:38 400 mirrors and redirects behind that
37:39 that will just push the audience to
37:42 other places and the same damn website
37:44 is still there. So you can block one
37:46 website and you can check it on your
37:47 phone. You can check it from parliament.
37:48 You can check it from the state congress
37:50 and you can basically go well that
37:52 problem is solved because we block that
37:54 website. They have no more business
37:56 coming from our state, our country.
37:58 Yeah, but they do because nobody types
38:00 in web addresses anymore. So all I've
38:01 had to do as an legal gambling brand is
38:03 basically go to all of my merchant
38:05 advertising accounts and go all those
38:07 ads on Facebook, all those ads on
38:09 Instagram, I'm now changing them to go
38:12 to this address instead of that address.
38:14 And that's how simple it is. Poland, for
38:15 example, have been having a cat and
38:17 mouse game with a really complicated,
38:19 overly complicated in my view legal
38:21 process where for every illegal gambling
38:24 brand found or complained about, they
38:25 basically go out there and say, "Right,
38:27 we're going to have a judge investigate
38:29 that illegal gambling destination. So,
38:30 let's call it illegal gambling.com. And
38:32 he's going to look at it and over six
38:34 months he'll check it every few days and
38:35 he'll tell us that yes, he was able to
38:37 open an account, place a bet and deposit
38:39 his funds and get his money back as
38:40 well. So, that's illegal gambling
38:42 because they're not licensed in Poland.
38:44 Poland's been doing that with several
38:45 international operators who basically
38:47 just come back and go, "Yesterday we
38:49 were on legal gambling one and today
38:51 we're on legal gambling 2.com and
38:52 tomorrow we're on legal gambling
38:55 three.com and every single time you need
38:56 a judge to come in and spend six months
38:58 sitting on this thing." So, it's a
39:01 nonsense, but illegal gambling brands
39:03 have just been playing this really slow
39:05 motion silly game of cat and mouse to
39:07 just show the Polish government kind of
39:09 like, "No, no, no, no. We don't care."
39:10 So, they've just been doing this for
39:12 years. So, if you have those kind of
39:14 processes, you need to change them
39:16 because how do we react to crime? How do
39:19 we react gaming? We need to be clear
39:21 that there is a better way of doing
39:24 these things. If it's like I always tell
39:26 clients this that basically look we are
39:27 not just going to show you the one
39:30 individual tree illegal gambling we're
39:32 going to show you the whole forest and
39:34 it will be overwhelming for you to deal
39:36 with this but we'll show you tree by
39:38 tree how you cut that down and stem it
39:40 off but the main point here is
39:42 understanding there are thousands
39:43 millions of trees the average
39:46 marketplace all of those issues need to
39:47 be dealt with everything from the
39:49 advertising the website availability the
39:53 payment promotion the links to SMS and
39:56 uh peer-to-peer messaging platforms. All
39:57 of these things need to be dealt with.
39:59 So, we break it down simply for clients
40:00 in terms of there are eight ecosystem
40:02 essentials. Everything from kind of
40:04 website promotion right through to
40:05 illegal streaming, which is one of the
40:07 biggest growing areas in America right
40:08 now, right through to affiliates and
40:11 influencers. So, find each of those
40:13 individual trees, show them that there's
40:15 an overwhelming forest there, cut the
40:17 path through it very simply. This is how
40:19 we get you towards a path of control
40:22 away from chaos.
40:24 So, taking a step back and thinking
40:26 about the big picture, the gambling
40:28 industry promised that if there was
40:30 going to be legalization,
40:33 you would see safety, you would see
40:34 transparency, and you would see
40:37 increased tax revenue. Your report
40:40 proves that all three of these are
40:43 basically wrong. Should states just
40:46 consider banning online gambling in its entirety?
40:48 entirety?
40:52 >> So, let's be clear. Lobbyists for the
40:54 legal gambling industry are the ones who
40:55 said these things. So proponents for
40:58 legal gambling have often said at the
41:00 beginning of this spectrum. Okay. So
41:02 seven years ago and for each state that
41:04 regulates, you have a group of lobbyists
41:05 who turn up who are paid professionals
41:07 who are basically telling you bring in
41:09 legal gambling. We'll get control of the
41:10 industry. We'll get control of the
41:13 marketplace. And no one's really clear
41:16 on those terms. So is it industry? Well,
41:18 there are two industries. One legal and
41:19 licensed, one illegal and unlicensed.
41:21 There's one marketplace in each state,
41:24 in each country out there. The main
41:26 thing here is this. I can understand why
41:28 people are pushing to kind of say we're
41:29 lobbying. We want to get regulated
41:31 gaming through the door kind of thing
41:33 for as many products as possible. So
41:35 people are saying kind of what they
41:37 think they need to to get the products
41:38 over the line to get state governments
41:40 to vote on these things to get the legis
41:42 to get the electorate to vote for this
41:44 stuff as well. So there are a bunch of
41:47 convincing, high-paid lobbyists who are
41:49 doing that work, sometimes effectively,
41:51 sometimes not so effectively. The
41:53 absolute black mirror to that is what's
41:55 going on now. That even where you have
41:56 legislated, even where you have
41:59 legalized online gaming, you can clearly
42:02 see there is the old marketplace and
42:04 industry, the just criminal one that was
42:06 always there that basically is being
42:08 grafted on top of with legal gambling
42:11 now. So you've got one marketplace, two
42:14 industries or sectors going there. So
42:16 banning online gaming altogether, if you
42:17 took the view that we can't control it,
42:19 we're going to ban everything. It's nuts
42:22 to do that in my view a form of
42:24 insanity. You would basically be saying
42:26 all of that hundreds of billions of
42:28 dollars of revenue, all of the billions
42:29 of dollars in tax that could come
42:32 through, all of the consumer safety, all
42:33 of the child exclusion, all of the
42:35 vulnerable community exclusion that
42:37 should be taking place. We we're going
42:38 to just say we're going to ban it. We
42:40 don't want any any share of that money
42:42 anymore. We'd rather just say it doesn't
42:45 exist because we have a law against it.
42:46 What the last three decades are telling
42:49 you, you had a bunch of laws allowing or
42:51 not allowing online gaming. You had a
42:53 bunch of communities who still believe
42:55 now in California and Texas that they
42:58 have no online gaming. But it's there.
43:00 It's there in such a significant nature
43:02 in your marketplace, such a significant
43:05 nature in your society that a percentage
43:08 of average state income is going to this
43:12 product. Okay. So, you're looking at the
43:14 seduction of American consumers in
43:16 products that they demand and desire.
43:17 Okay. Across sports betting.
43:20 >> Yeah. Yeah. But but but according to
43:22 your report, Americans in states with
43:26 legal gambling lose more of their income
43:28 gambling than people in illegal only
43:29 states. Doesn't this mean that
43:31 legalization just manufactured a bunch
43:33 of new gambling addicts?
43:35 >> Legalization has increased the size of
43:36 the marketplace is really what's
43:38 happened there. Basically, you didn't
43:41 replace illegal gambling with legal.
43:42 You've just added on top. So, it's been
43:44 grafted on top, which means that in
43:46 states that have legalized, you simply
43:49 have more gambling. But the problem
43:52 there is a lion's share of that gambling
43:54 is still with illegals. So, the problem
43:56 we're having here is there's no perfect
43:58 channelization that's ever going to take
44:00 place. Okay? You are always taking a
44:02 marketplace that was in the shadows and
44:04 bringing it into the light. The problem
44:05 is you've now got shadows and light in
44:07 the marketplace. You don't just have
44:09 light. Okay? So to get it back to where
44:11 the reasonable level of control should
44:13 be, that would be legal only brands and
44:14 the only accessible brands, the only
44:16 available brands, the only transactable
44:18 brands. The illegal ones are pushed to
44:20 the margin. And even though you will
44:22 constantly need to police this, monitor,
44:24 police, enforce, and optimize it for the
44:27 future, you will not have 30, 40, 50,
44:31 60, 70% control going to illegal actors.
44:33 And that's the big problem we have today
44:35 is that for all of the money left
44:36 behind, all the money that's
44:38 profitability to gaming companies, too
44:41 much is left with illegal underregulated
44:44 operators, not enough is being left with
44:46 legal licensed operators and then having
44:48 the consequence of going on to be
44:51 taxation revenue, going on to be instate
44:53 jobs and supply chain benefit. So you're
44:55 not seeing that. You're seeing an
44:57 overwhelming tide of money leaving
44:59 American shores going towards often
45:02 organized crime and unregulated brands.
45:04 So the big point here is you could
45:06 respond to this by simply saying we're
45:07 going to ban everything, but it's still
45:09 going to be carrying on the same way it
45:11 has been for the last three decades.
45:13 >> Wouldn't wouldn't you argue that then
45:15 the market would get a lot smaller and
45:17 the the harm it causes would be a lot
45:19 smaller then?
45:21 >> So questions about harm and size of the
45:22 marketplace, they're not really my
45:24 purview to talk on. Okay. So I basically
45:26 say to any any client coming to us
45:28 whether it's an operator, regulators,
45:31 state governments, national governments,
45:32 you can have whatever type of
45:34 marketplace you want. So California for
45:37 example, if you are saying that there's
45:39 no online gaming and you have no law for
45:41 online gaming, surely it's incumbent
45:43 upon you to police that. So we'll
45:45 monitor for you so you can police and
45:47 enforce effectively. So government like
45:49 Saudi Arabia, if you don't want any
45:52 online gaming, you need to police and
45:53 enforce to make sure that that's the
45:55 case then. Okay? Because we know from
45:56 our monitoring that we see tens of
45:58 millions of connections from a country
46:00 like Saudi Arabia to illegal online
46:03 gaming every single day. Okay? Why if
46:04 there's no online gaming? So having a
46:06 law is meaningless unless it has some
46:08 kind of enforcement ability, some
46:10 application in the society. What you've
46:13 been seeing across America is the
46:15 assumption that we did not have online
46:16 gaming. with the reality that online
46:19 gaming was everywhere behind everything.
46:20 It's one of the most promoted products
46:22 on the internet after pornography. So
46:24 this stuff is basically available
46:26 everywhere. So you need to understand
46:28 that American consumers demanded and
46:30 desired this product from the start of
46:31 the internet. They still demand and
46:34 desire it today. You need the control
46:35 and you need to have moved it away from
46:37 chaos. But where we are in America today
46:39 is fundamentally in a period of chaos
46:41 with the online gaming business.
46:43 One of the things I've also found very
46:45 interesting is that the person founding
46:48 funding this research, Derek Webb, he is
46:51 a gambling billionaire himself. What is
46:54 his motivation in funding this research?
46:55 >> Exactly the same as our motivation, I
46:57 believe. And I think that's where we met
46:58 the kind of the meeting of the minds
47:00 between Derek and myself. What what
47:02 basically came from. We'd both made
47:04 money in online gaming, but we both took
47:06 a view that I'd seen something in the
47:09 marketplaces where I believed there was
47:10 more crime than we were giving it credit
47:12 for. So, I'd seen some things personally
47:14 and professionally in my career where I
47:16 looked at it and went this I had a
47:18 period as a consultant probably over a
47:20 decade ago now. I had clients coming to
47:22 me saying they weren't making any money
47:24 in the online gaming business and they
47:25 were blaming it all on regulation and
47:27 changing audience tastes and generation
47:29 Z doesn't like gambling. to all
47:31 of those things. Okay. Oz was crying.
47:33 just had more control. And that changed
47:35 massively during the pandemic. Where
47:37 Derek and I met minds on this was
47:38 basically we both made money in online
47:41 gaming. Derek had a view. I just want to
47:43 see a business that's fair and safe for
47:45 the future. Okay. So, we both see it.
47:47 We're both older men now. Both see it as
47:50 legacy. What do we leave behind in this
47:51 business that we've been had our hands
47:53 on the wheel in in our time. So,
47:55 different areas. Derek was obviously
47:57 product. I was marketing. We looked at
48:00 it and said, "You don't want to have
48:01 seen and known something about these
48:03 marketplaces and not have made any
48:04 difference to it. You want to have
48:06 changed it in your time." Both of us
48:08 looked at it and thought we both had our
48:10 hands on the wheels to some extent
48:12 different areas. We wanted to leave
48:15 behind a legacy of fair, safe,
48:17 contributing online gaming marketplaces.
48:18 And we believe that mission's
48:20 fundamentally been born out. Our work in
48:22 America has pointed to this is how you
48:25 achieve a fair, safe and contributing
48:27 online gaming marketplace, which you
48:29 need to be dealing with the reality of
48:31 it. The best reality comes from. Look at
48:33 all of the audience, all their activity
48:35 all the time. Stop making up excuses for
48:38 the business. Stop coming up with dream
48:39 scenarios which are based on magical
48:41 thinking from things like paid surveys
48:43 where you ask a bunch of consumers, "How
48:45 much do you lose to illegal gambling?"
48:46 If I'm getting paid to answer your
48:48 survey, I'm not going to tell you
48:49 anything about legal gambling. I just
48:52 want to get paid for the survey.
48:54 >> Yeah. And imagine the following
48:56 situation. You're given unlimited power,
48:59 unlimited funds to crack down on illegal
49:02 gambling. Where do you start?
49:04 >> I would answer this respectfully as it's
49:06 not my job to regulate and control all
49:08 forms of online gambling. All we are is
49:10 the silent machine behind the
49:12 marketplace. So GCI and Yulsek are the
49:14 mechanics of the marketplace because of
49:17 the monitoring and expert human beings
49:18 that we have behind our technology to
49:20 monitor what's going on out there.
49:22 Regulation is an extremely hard job.
49:24 Legislation is an extremely hard job.
49:27 Neither of which are my or our jobs. We
49:29 are there to support legal stakeholders,
49:30 regulators, operators, state
49:32 governments, national governments to
49:34 control and bring back control of the
49:37 marketplace to their benefit and society
49:38 benefit as well. Because the main thing
49:40 here is it's not just the gambling
49:42 companies that have been stolen from.
49:44 It's not just the state governments and
49:46 the community that's been stolen from
49:47 with all that tax. It's also the
49:49 consumers that have been exploited here.
49:51 So consumers have been misled and lied
49:54 to and stolen from because behind every
49:58 corrupt unlicated gaming brand, there is
49:59 stolen customer money that will come
50:01 down to it at the end of the day.
50:03 Thank you very much, Ismael Vali,
50:05 founder of Yieldtech and president of
50:07 Gaming Compliance International.
50:09 Ismaile, where can people find you?
50:12 >> They can find me uh right now. They can
50:14 find me online at ismvali.com. They can
50:17 find me at gaming compliance.com
50:19 and I'll be speaking at the ICE
50:21 conference in Barcelona in January as
50:23 well about gambling, funnily enough.
50:25 >> Thank you very much. us a well. Thank you.
