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A daily podcast delving into the biggest stories of the day throughout the sports betting and igaming sector.
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Good afternoon and welcome to the iGaming Daily brought to you by OptiMove, the number one CRM marketing solution for the iGaming sector. Today's iGaming Daily on the 5th of November, remember, remember the 5th of November of course a big, pretty big holiday in the UK and it means also we are just off the back of Halloween as well and I'm joined by Danny Lee from Slot Beats. Yeah, this time just when we finish Halloween and the themes as we approach Christmas as well. Yeah, it's always a fun time of the year covering all the different horror slots that come out. Some of them not so scary, some of them sort of go for more like the sort of spine tingling kind of features with lots of horrifying stuff in there, so lots of fun throughout October covering those. But yeah, Bonfire Night tonight, it's almost the transition between that spooky season and then the sort of festive season coming up very soon. So I'm sure it's going to be Christmas slots flooding in very soon. Yeah, it's always really cool to see how we have the same themes, but kind of we see a different spin on them each year. Every year it feels like something very different, a different take, a different perspective on the same themes. It really speaks to the innovation of the industry. On that note, kind of, we're going to talk about two subjects. We're going Yeah, copyright allegations and just some cases that have been plaguing the industry. And then we're going to move on and have a look at the latest developments in the Philippines, obviously a massive year for the Philippines and the Asian market in general. And yeah, what lies ahead there. But we start with Light and Wonder. And yeah, why has Light and Wonder been in the news with regards to alleged copyright infringement? its own sort of copyright issues throughout this year, specifically in recent months as well. But the studio had also launched its own sort of lawsuit against a company called Zero Gravity Games, a California based supplier. Now I think it was sort of July time where Light and Wonder first claimed that the Defendants slot game Three Stuffed Swine. had infringed on copyright of Light and Wonder's own Rich Little Pigs title. Now this is sort of just another example of these cases that we've been seeing quite a lot in the slot industry recently with different IP infringement issues going around, lawsuits being filed and some of them being taken to court. Now while Light and Wonder's obviously been on the defending side a couple of times already this year they were probing this one themselves but In a court filing last week it was confirmed that Light and Wonder had actually withdrawn this case as it seemed that it had been resolved with Zero Gravity Games and it looks like that studio has actually permanently removed the game from its offering now. So there's clearly been some sort of agreement or resolution there. But it was actually found that the same company was also accused of including... other features within other games that had maybe infringed on some of Light and Wonder's intellectual property as well. It wasn't quite specified what sort of things were included here, but it looks like Zero Gravity Games has maybe claimed that they've now modified these titles to not include such elements and won't be sort of impeding on Light and Wonder's intellectual property anymore. Another thing that was involved was Light and Wonder has its own social casino app that I think was called Jackpot Party that was Light and Wonder's social casino app and this Zero Gravity Games had actually launched their own social casino app called Jackpot Friends that was apparently quite similar so I think there's a bit of an issue with that there that might need to be resolved but yeah, Light and Wonder involved in yet another case but they're actually on the sort of prosecuting side. Yeah, that's the one. Yeah, coming at it from the other perspective and I guess maybe to try and be optimistic, I guess, because these cases aren't good for the industry. I guess to be trying to be optimistic that the swift action taken in this case maybe sets the tone that we won't have so many cases like this in the next year or am I being too hopeful there? Yeah, I think that's what we'd all like to see. these issues out between themselves rather than having to go through certain lawsuits, go through lawyers and it can often become a very sort of passive aggressive situation if they end up just speaking to each other via those channels. But yeah, I'm hoping, I think we're all hoping that we're going to see less of these cases and I think the reaction from the industry does actually sort of show that they're hoping to, or at least with interviews that we've had. hoping that this might actually encourage more innovation from studios to think, right, we need to be making games that don't impede on any other games, we need to do something unique, original, and that should make it a more exciting space all in all. Yeah, yeah I agree and you know we reflect on that case there, but obviously the big case this year was, or at least one of the bigger cases, was the Light and Wonder defence against Aristocrat. Any updates there, anything there? What's the latest going on? Yeah, so we've covered this story since it started across a number of our websites with Casino Beats and SBC Americas as well when it first broke, sort of in the summertime, and Aristocrat had been sort of largely successful in its lawsuit against Light and Wonder, it seems, that's related to Light and Wonder's Dragon train slot, which was deemed to have infringed on Aristocrat's own Dragon Link title, and that was one of these situations we've seen a couple of times now. where an employee has worked at Aristocrat and then sort of worked specifically on that slot that has apparently been infringed upon and then moved to Light and Wonder and a game has come out that turns out to be quite similar and has actually led to this lawsuit being filed. We saw Light and Wonder CEO sort of address this situation. I think it was last month where he did confirm that the employee has now sort of... or Lighting Wonder has parted ways with the employee and I think that's largely due to Aristocrat obviously being quite successful in this lawsuit and we also saw that Lighting Wonder has now actually removed Dragon Train from its operations which is a shame for the company because it had been one of their top performing games in Australia when they first launched it and bringing it to North America in the US was quite a big thing for them so losing that is obviously... you'd have said it might be a bit of hit on revenue. So an interesting development now that we're seeing is Light and Wonder have made it very clear that they're going to bring this game back. Obviously a new version, a revamped version that's not going to sort of impede on Aristocrat's title as it supposedly or allegedly has done in the first place. So that has been confirmed as a high priority for the studio. So it'll be exciting to see what that new game actually looks like. It's interesting that you say that because I don't think they will want to be burnt by this again because it will have been costly, right? They rolled out loads of cabinets that they're having to go through the process now of bringing back so that's not going to be a cheap process. But yeah, like you, I'm really intrigued by how Dragon Train 2.0 looks, how they're going to do that and ensure they avoid a case like this again. kind of slots innovation and games innovation in the year ahead. In terms of the industry, what sort of reaction have we seen from the wider industry in terms of the kind of rise in these copyright issues? Yeah, I think we've not seen a lot of comment from these sort of cases because as you can imagine it's quite a touchy subject for a lot of studios. There might be other studios considering similar situations that there might be in themselves, but we did have a good feature go out with. Martin Hanna from Comparasino in the last couple of weeks, which can be found on Casino Beats and Slot Beats. And it was basically quite interesting how he did sort of want to encourage innovation from these situations. So obviously, IP infringement can be, he referred to it as like a big headache, where the consequences can be very significant if it's not taken seriously. And I think what he was saying about needing to take a closer look at how studios are designing games, ensuring that they're not infringing on other studios and other IP and sort of licensing and stuff like that. They're sort of required to dig deeper and push harder to come up with concepts and then sort of invest the time and resources that those with innovative products have into your own game changes and catalyst for success. So just that notion of maybe... you know, working harder to produce new games, come up with new mechanics, come up with like new franchises and series. It should push the industry and like we sort of said earlier, make it a bit more of an interesting space and see some more innovative products on the pipeline. Yeah, definitely. And it hopefully will fuel innovation as we kind of move on into 25 and yeah, look ahead to the new year. Time for a quick break and then we're going to take a closer analysis of... latest developments from the Philippines and some involvement from the Isle of Man government as well. So yes, stay tuned. So now we're going to be looking at two islands that are on sort of very different parts of the world. We've got the Isle of Man obviously next to, within the UK and the Philippines and sort of South East Asia and the connection that has brought them a little bit. closer together this week in the gambling sector. So what is the latest development from the Philippines and the Isle of Man in terms of sort of operators? Yeah, together in news stories if nothing else, together in headlines if nothing else, but a really interesting update here. We obviously know about the significantly tightening of frameworks from the Philippines. We know they've really kind of sought to clean up their gambling sector. President Bon Marcus has, yeah, he was met with a rousing reception when he said he was going to ban POGO licenses, you know, a natural consequence of this was kind of a displacing of a plethora of operators. And yeah, the Isle of Man is reportedly examining the impact of embracing these displaced gambling operators, according to a report from the Isle of Man today anyway. The Crown dependency in the region is looking to take a meticulous and careful approach to embracing these new operators from the market. They kind of cited that one thing they're after is credible operators and that's really interesting. I can kind of skim over the quote from the Digital Island Man spokesperson after conversations with businesses with the island's digital sector. They believe that the blanket ban imposed by the Philippine regulator has created significant displacement of the sector. And it means legitimate and high performing businesses operating in this region are required to seek alternative regulatory markets. And that's something they're looking to kind of take advantage and use to boost their own economy and underlining the seriousness of their ambitions. The government has agreed funding, they've put aside funding for a trip to Manila to really assess the seriousness of the potential for bringing in these operators into the Isle of Man regulatory framework. Right. So obviously one thing that they would like to avoid from this situation is bringing in operators that are going to be, you know, putting players at harm within the Isle of Man. So why do you think it's so important that the Isle of Man takes a careful approach to this strategy? Yeah. Well, I think one thing that we learn from the Philippines and from the recent changes in the Philippines, from, you know, conversations I've kind of had with people there and listening to discussions around the Filipino market is... You can have a sector where, you know, 99% of actors are good. It needs just the 1% to kind of stay in the whole industry. And the Isle of Man will be very careful not to, you know, bring in that 1% and stay in the whole industry. Especially when a, you know, a recent UN report served to kind of, yeah, engulf the Isle of Man's gambling sector and wider economy, accusing the Isle of Man of being used in wider money laundering issues with the report suggesting that, uh, organized crime gangs kind of take advantage of relaxed regulations. But the regulator in the region has battled back against these claims, emphasizing that they have a zero tolerance approach to financial crime. But yeah, they will be very careful and they've kind of outlined that they're going to try and take incredible operators. That's what they're looking for. They believe that credible operators, legitimate high performing operators have been ostracized. from the Philippines market and those are the ones they're looking to bring on board into their own regulatory framework. Right, and looking at the Philippines as a whole, Joe, this is an area that you've looked at a lot in recent months in terms of like POGOs and unlicensed operators and then recently more sort of to do with licensed operators as well, but what's the latest update in the Philippines at the moment? Because it seems like they've had quite a momentous moment or they could be about to, you know, leave a certain gray list, so what's all that about? Yeah, well... No spoilers there, but they are looking like they're going to leave the FATF gray list. You know, lots of the action that was suggested has been put into place. Obviously we know, we kind of cover that when we're kind of dealing with these markets a lot. That's massive for the, not just the gambling sector, but the wider economy. It will be a big moment for them and it will be a big moment to kind of legitimise the efforts of President Marcos. who has really tried to encourage gray market operators to shift away from the gray market and make the regulated market more attractive. So yeah, really interesting and you know, kind of looking ahead further 2025 just looks like a fascinating year. It's really pivotal for the Philippines. The heritage we know about Asia, we know Asia is a wider region, we know the potential it has, and we know the Philippines is something of a base for a lot of operators. looking to launch pad into the rest of Asia. And I don't think with the Titanina framework that will change anytime soon because the knowledge, the history and just the understanding that the region has in terms of gambling and you know, Filipino people having when it comes to the gambling industry is not something that can just be copy pasted into other regions. It comes with time and I think operators, the big operators are still going to want to look. the Filipino market. Yeah, it's a launch pad, it's a place to set up base and yeah, but it is a critical time though for the Philippines gambling sector and 2025 is certainly going to be interesting for the Philippines and for Asia in general. Yeah, well it definitely seems with the amount of news that we've got coming out of there at the moment that it's still going to be quite an area of focus for operators in the next couple of years. Certainly regulation seems to be improving there as well. Looking at the rest of Asia Joe, just before we finish now, is there any sort of other areas that have had some interesting developments recently or to keep an eye on maybe as we get closer to 2025? Yeah, well, conscious we're in Fergie time for this podcast, so it's hard to go into it too much because there are so many areas really that are just so exciting. Obviously we know about Thailand, we know about Japan, both really progressing with their legislation and we really hope to see some progress. in 2025. And also India as well is, you know, another area that could be tapped into just purely through population one that holds such vast potential. But yeah, it is certainly a region to keep an eye on. And the Philippines even amidst tightening regulations, I believe will continue to play a key role in that development of the continent. Fantastic. So a very quick trip around Asia with Joe there. So thank you all for tuning in for today's iGame and Daily episode. We will leave all related links in the description of this podcast. So thanks for joining Joe as well and have a nice day. Cheers.