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How many random emails do think we all get from companies who we've given our email address to to get a 10 % discount code off something? You know what mean?  How many people sign up to cookies on websites without really knowing what they're signing up for?  We  talk a lot about how people are protective of their data, but  I think a lot of people really aren't.   Our debate yesterday on affordability checks seemed to be well-timed as the story takes another step forward. James Noyce, previously a proponent of financial risk assessments, has quit the DCMS's Independent Gambling Act Review Evaluation Advisory Group  over concerns the gambling commission's pilot had inconsistent data, unclear outcomes and unnecessary friction. Following those reports in the sun, we continue our conversation on affordability checks in the UK. And we're also going to look at new developments at two globally listed operators. Welcome back to iGaming Daily, supported by OptiMove, the creator of positionless marketing and the number one player engagement solution for sports betting and iGaming operators. I'm Charlie Horner and today I'm joined by SPC News Editor, Ted Orme-Clay. Ted, how's things?  Yeah, pretty good. Thank you, Charlie. Not bad at all, thank you. em Yeah, the affordability issue is just never leaving us alone, is it? I  think, yeah, this one's one of the many never-ending topics affecting the industry in the UK. So, yeah, good to be talking about it again with you. Yeah, absolutely. And it was great to talk with  Ted McMurray yesterday about affordability checks. So if listeners haven't checked that one out, be sure to go back  and check that one out as well. And I'd also like to shout out episode 753 where we also talked about affordability checks and it's gonna be loosely related to today's episode. So Ted, let's dig into things today. Could you remind listeners who James Noise is and what his background is on affordability checks? So as you said, Charlie, we have discussed Dr. James Noise and his... his opinions and  his writings and so on around the gambling industry and around affordability before,  such as on the episode you just shouted out. em Dr. Noise is quite a, I guess quite prominent researcher and writer in the UK on regulatory issues,  public affairs, public policy, things like that,  and em how they relate to consumers. uh doesn't just write about writing research about gambling. He's, I think,  he's... uh bibliography I guess you could say, em covers a few different areas.  But yeah, he's written for publications like The New Statesman and The Guardian, um including about gambling. think he had uh quite a widely circulated article during the Gambling Act review for The Guardian talking about how the  government needed to keep industry influence over it to a minimum.  His influence around  the gambling conversations I think has mainly been as a  member of the Social Market Foundation, which is the very vocal cross-party think tank, which  has expressed its opinions  a lot about the gambling industry over recent years.  Notably, they were quite big advocates for um quite a stricter affordability check  requirements during the gambling act review. Obviously the gambling act review then led to the April 2023 white paper and which affordability checks as they're called in the paper financial risk checks. no, it's not serious according to pay but that's what the gambling commission is. That's their proposal for them is financial risk assessments. I should say FRAs. Yeah, Social Market Foundation was a big proponent of those as was Dr. Noise and in more recent developments, I guess,  last year, the SMF, as we discussed many times on the podcast last year, was a very vocal proponent of significantly hiking taxes on the industry.  Gordon Brown cited SMF studies and so on when he was calling for a pretty hefty tax increase to pay for the two-year-old benefit cap scrapping.  yes, Dr. Noyes has been involved with the SMF and he's been quite a...  quite a vocal person around gambling regulation in the UK over the past few years. certainly an influential figure over the last few years. Now, the headline that he's made this week is that report in The Sun that I mentioned that Noyce has decided to leave the gambling act review evaluation advisory group and that's a little bit of a mouthful if I'm being honest, the title of that group. And it's... We talk about so many organisations and  government bodies in iGaming.  Maybe it's just worth clarifying what this gambling action review evaluation advisory group is  and what its role is in this whole process.  I mean, as you said,  the name is quite a wordy one as government  bodies and the  organisations and government think tanks and so on tend to be.  But as its name suggests, I I think it really does what it says on the tin. It's an advisory group. set up to help the government implement the many, recommendations of the gambling act review. know, the gambling act review affordability checks weren't the only flagship measures of that. It introduced that code of conduct on sports sponsorships, for example. um It introduced the new stake limits on the  online slots of coming to play. There was the changes to um casino layouts, gaming arcades, that sort of stuff. em allowing casinos to start offering sports betting in their venues, the ban on cross-sell bonusing between betting casino and lottery products, that sort of stuff.  There was a huge amount of em recommendations in the review. think I've probably only just named a handful of them there. I think they're the biggest ones that come to mind for me  right now. But yeah, there's many others. And the government obviously has appointed this group to help... em as I said, the name suggests, to advise them through the implementation of it and best courses to take. Like any major change in policy, any major changes in regulation, legislation, and so on, it's a long-winded process and they've wanted to get opinions from different specialists and so on on the matter. So this is an independent group, isn't it? This is appointed by DCMS, but these are from... independent figures. That's independent from the government, not necessarily independent in terms of  having an impartial opinion on gambling itself.  I think everyone on that board has come to their own conclusion on how the sector should be regulated.  Ted, let's look at your reporting and your team's reporting today as to why NOISE has decided to  quit the group.  We know that it's loosely  based around affordability checks. And as I said, we spoke a lot  at depth yesterday about affordability checks on the podcast. So why has Noise decided  to quit  according to these reports?  So Dr. Noise, like we said, has been a proponent of affordability checks in the past. And as I said earlier, affordability checks,  we refer to them a lot. as this, you know, in industry media and a lot of people in the industry at large continue to refer to them as this, the gambling commission, the measure they're proposing to solve the affordability issue is financial risk assessment. One of the main things we always hear, term we often hear banded about around these is the idea of them being frictionless, they need to make sure that they are as... and not intrusive, know, what's the word I'm looking for? Least intrusive as possible, you know what mean? If that's a term, if that's a string of words that makes sense. Dr. Noyes has been increasingly concerned about this it seems over recent weeks. He wrote a letter, an open letter to DCMS Secretary Lisa Nande not long ago, which our colleague Ted Memmier, editor at SBC, editor at large, wrote an article about when that was published. in which he basically expressed concern that the  affordability solution as it stands is not going to be frictionless and that's going to overly impact customers and ultimately have a detrimental effect on consumers.  Obviously for Dr. Noyce front and centre his concerns would be player protection, customer protection,  the industry societal impact  and I think he  seems to think that the current path towards this affordability solution  is going to have a the impact there and now the son has reported this morning that he's now taken this taken the step of resigning from the board he doesn't want to be part of this process anymore I think there's a quote I've got a quote  from the the the the son said um it astonishes me the controversial financial risk checks are being rolled out by the Gamblin Commission before any meaningful evaluation of this policy can be carried out So yeah, think he seems to feel that the financial risk checks are being imposed too quickly without some due process taking place before and to see what impact they'd have. Yes, it's certainly an interesting point of view and one that I think many will... agree with, I think it's another thing that Ted and I were talking about yesterday, the need for consultation, the need for more debate around this. uh A lot of this enters around the term frictionless as well, Ted, so I'll put the question to you. Do you think that these affordability checks, these financial risk assessments can truly be frictionless  in the case that, okay, you might not have to  submit documents physically, but do you want a credit? rating agency to sort of peruse around your file before you can put uh a bet on at the weekend?  It's hard to say, because obviously a lot of people would obviously say no, they don't want that.  I think  what the commission would argue is that it's only going to affect people who meet the thresholds  and if the  regulated industry is to believe that the vast majority of their customers are casual punters who just put a few quid on at the weekend on, you know, on  on a football accumulator or  on that weekend's fixtures or on whatever the racing is of the day,  then yeah, you'd think it wouldn't actually impact the majority of people. It's just going to impact the smaller number who are betting large amounts. But  obviously,  with that in mind, it's never going to be truly frictionless because there will always be some people who come up against it.  Yeah, it's just finding that balance and making a Yeah, of not making people have to hand over documents and stuff, you know, the initial proposal, I think what is still gonna roll out is the idea that it's going to use open banking. Again, though, there's a bit of a lack of education around this, because I think people hear the term open banking and just think, oh, it's gonna meet all my personal data is shared with bookmakers and third parties and so on. I don't want that to happen. So you need to educate people about what this actually entails. But yeah, you know,  it's a tough balance to strike, definitely.  The thing I'd probably ask though is that, I know we talk a lot about how people are very protective over their data,  I mean,  vast majority of people aren't. mean, how many random emails do you think we all get from companies who we've given our email address to to get a 10 % discount code off something? You know what mean?  How many people sign up to cookies on websites without really knowing what they're signing up for? em You know, we talk a lot about how people are protective of the data, but I think a lot of people really aren't, you know, and that's something to remember in some of these conversations we have about, it just, it comes across a bit different when you get, when people are considering, oh, am I going to have to hand over my bank statement to an operator or something, which obviously is, they won't be, but it's really important to educate people around that. think that's going to be the challenge that that the commission and the industry probably is going to have with some of their more high spending customers as these checks get rolled out.  Ted, I'm truly disappointed that you're not reading all of the terms and conditions and privacy notices  and reading all the cookie policies before you do accept those cookies. That's poor for me. You've let yourself down. oh But I do agree that we  aren't as protective over our data as we possibly could be. But when it comes to  the issue of affordability. think there's a trust problem that could be created given that it is not just basic data, it's personal finance data. think people are a little bit more protective of that. But Ted, we'll take a short break and we'll have a bit of a pivot and talk about what's happening at Supergroup and Flutter. Learn how OptiMove's positionalist marketing is changing how iGaming teams operate. Discover how operators are using OptiMove's positionalist marketing platform to launch personalised CRM campaigns, dynamically change casino lobbies and bet slips, and create engaging gamified experiences. Learn more at OptiMove.com.  Welcome back to iGaming Daily. Now we're in the middle of earnings season and Supergroup is the latest operator to report its Q1 earnings. And while we will perhaps touch on the results, I think one of the key things that I picked up  from  its release to investors was that it's changing its reporting process to segment Africa from the rest of the world. it  does seem like Supergroup, the parent company of Betway and the spin brands is really focusing and prioritizing Africa.  Ted, I think this is quite interesting.  What do you think this says about Betway's strategic priorities and also the growth of African iGaming? For Betway and for Supergroup,  the focus on Africa is really nothing new. They've been very  open about how that's a top priority for them.  Supergroup CEO  Neil Menash has said this to SPC News before. We interviewed him last year ahead of... his appearance at em the SBC Summit in Lisbon where he was on the leaders panel along with a number of other big CEOs. em one of the things I remember mentioning in that interview was  Africa's a top focus for us. This is where we see  lots of opportunities, lots of untapped opportunities, a huge amount of growth potential.  This isn't the first quarter as well where Africa has been the biggest em growth segment.  the biggest revenue generating segment for Supergroup. We've seen that on  quite a few quarterly reports from them now.  And Betway in particular is quite a strong brand there, I think.  They've had a big presence in South Africa for some time.  I believe they're also in Ghana, quite a big brand there,  and have been expanding into a number of other markets across the continent.  So yeah, think  we've seen in recent years a big a big gold rush into the Americas, haven't we? Obviously, we had the repeal of PASPA in 2018 and then the Dell user companies wanting to set up there. That proved to be very competitive, as we've talked about many times before, Fangil and DraftKings dominating that market.  It's been a bit tougher for a few other international firms to set up shop.  You've had a big focus on the Latin American markets, all the companies who flock to Brazil. eh Now we're starting to see the Brazilian government start to clamp down.  with a few regulatory measures,  they've increased taxes a lot quicker than people expected.  I think maybe that's,  Supergroup is an exception to this because they've been focused on Africa for a while. em But  we are starting to see other companies em kind of maybe  we could say follow their lead a bit and start looking a bit more at what opportunities are there in Africa. There's a lot of growing economies there.  Technological advancements in Africa have  moved on quite. quite rapidly I think over the past decade or two. You've got a lot more internet access, mobile phone usage, em rising  spending power among consumers and so on. em A big passion for sports, particularly football uh across a lot of countries. But then in South Africa you've got rugby and cricket and so on. em Bit of a horse racing scene as well.  Africa's becoming the new  focal point I think for a few different companies. Betway and Supergroup are definitely, I've definitely got a good first mover advantage there though I think. Yeah certainly, if listeners will indulge me again I'm going to do another shout out for a previous episode of the podcast, episode 739 we did have Supergroup CEO Neil Manashi on the show explaining to us a little bit about that strategy in Africa and he certainly had a lot to say about growth in some of those markets, South Africa was certainly one of those, and Botswana was another one that was driving significant revenue growth for Supergroup during 2025. I think it really shows that Supergroup is going all in on Africa and it's sending that message out to investors by changing the way it's reporting its segments. Do you think Ted that Supergroup is one of the first major global operators to place of Africa or the different African markets at the heart of its operation. Who are the other major players that we should be considering on the continent? Yeah, I think you're definitely right. think Supergroup is easily the first of a lot of the big major players we've seen to say this is going to be where we're focusing. You know, it probably says a lot of the fact that they've they they they did. Obviously they did launch in the US, but eventually they decided to withdraw. They thought it wasn't worth the the time and resources basically, think they probably made quite a  decision there having observed how the market had played out. They thought, right, there's too many big competitors for us, we'll focus elsewhere. They also, they're one of the notable ones who have not focused on Brazil for a similar reason, which I think they may have told  the SBC Leaders magazine  in a previous interview about their reasoning for that. em And yeah, and Africa is a big  front in centre market for them clearly.  And yeah, I think you're right, they are the first to really put that at the centre of their growth strategy. em Other companies to have gone in there, there's  a lot of local firms to keep in mind obviously throughout Africa. There's a lot of  big local players.  In South Africa, think the  Sun International Group would probably be one of the biggest ones to consider. m They actually now have um Ulrich Bentz and the former CEO of William Hill as their CEO.  Sun Bear is a really big brand there.  We've seen Kaizen Gaming's Bitano start to em expand across Africa as well. Earlier this year they made  Ghana their, I believe,  was that their  20th active market, I think.  I hope I've got that right. If I've not, I'll correct myself in a later podcast. But yeah, I'm pretty confident that that's 20th market. So yeah, are seeing others getting involved, we're seeing the growth potential there, like I say, the growing economies across Africa, growing consumer spending abilities, mobile phone usage, internet penetration, and so on. Obviously, I would add, though, I think a big thing to consider for a lot of the companies that are looking at expanding in Africa are the social responsibility concerns. As much as there's a lot of economies that are growing, Africa is obviously still a continent that sees a lot of societal issues, a lot of deprivation. If you look at South Africa, there's been a lot of political concerns raised there, I think, the fact that, because the industry is growing there and is now a really important economic segment, but South Africa also has still staggeringly high poverty rates. And there is a big question hanging over, I guess maybe the ethics of em of the gambling industry and  countries that  where a lot of consumers still face lot of poverty, lot of deprivation  and that is something that operators should factor in, should  really  factor that into responsible gaming  approaches there,  messaging, player protection, player monitoring and things like that. em not only just from the moral standpoint but also from a company PR perspective. You don't want to get yourself having a negative image as a result of that. There's a very fine balance to be struck, I think. Well, I think you're perfectly right on all of those points. if listeners want to... look a little bit more into the sort of player protection side of the industry in Africa. We'll put a link in the show notes to the  International Player Safety Index that SBC media  released earlier this year all about Africa. I you can take a look at some of the research that we've done there.  Ted, we're running out of time, but I did promise that we would talk a little bit about Flutter and we've been keeping an eye on Flutter's share price over the last 18 months because As we know, I think it's taken around a 60 % hit over the last 12 months. But an interesting update because we know that Flutter's sort of hinted that it might be delisting from the London Stock Exchange. But there's been a little bit of movement on Flutter's shares. Do wanna just tell us a little bit about that and what it might tell us about the future fortunes for the operator? So firstly regarding the delisting, I don't really think that's as a result of any drop-offs in share price and things like that. It's more that they're... I know that's obviously not what you've said to be fair, but I just wanted to... It's worth clarifying. ...to clarify that. The firm's been repositioning to the US for quite some time, hasn't it? In their last quarterly results, think the US accounted for well over 40 % of revenue. Fanjul is easily their biggest brand now. I  think we can confidently say it's the market leader in the US or effectively as a duopoly alongside Giraffe Kings, doesn't it? A hugely valuable company. em Yeah, fine, they might have been rocked a little bit by some of the prediction market stuff we've seen over in the US  over the past year or so, but  yeah, still a pretty comfortable brand there.  And Flutter has been repositioning itself towards  the US with New York being its primary listing.  And yeah, now that now they're initiating this review of a London of their London listing which  if they were to leave would be a pretty big blow to the LSE I think coming after a few other tech firms and so on decided to em to list elsewhere em or or bail on London m But yeah, you know the regarding who's snapped up their shares.  We've seen some interesting moves around for shares lately anyway em Investor Kenneth Dart has become the biggest shareholder in them. We've seen London-based Parvus double their stake and I think have taken out even more shares in them. But more recently we've seen BlackRock, which is the world's largest  asset management firm, take out, think it was Patrick,  our colleague Patrick reported on this earlier, I think it was a 5 % stake. BlackRock is obviously a company that has shares in  almost everything. If you look at  the list of... of companies and so on that  they and their subsidiaries have stakes in it. It's pretty extensive.  But yeah, I did think that was an interesting perhaps sign of the times that the US-based, world's largest asset management firm has taken out shares in,  missed these  conversations around a London delisting and the firms continuing kind of repivot towards the US.  Maybe a sign of confidence in the company's future outlooks. Who knows? We'll continue to monitor that on SBC News and iGaming Daily. But for now, Ted, thanks a lot for joining me today. Really appreciate your time. Thanks to Optimu for supporting the show as always and to our listeners. Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of iGaming Daily and come back tomorrow to keep up to date with all the latest global gambling news. you