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A daily podcast delving into the biggest stories of the day throughout the sports betting and igaming sector.
speaker-0 (00:00.152)
Right. Yeah. He was bombastic. I mean he was I wanted to run through a wall for him at the by the time we were done with that. I don't think we necessarily agree on with everything, but he was a a great representative of the issue here today. And that's why we're here, that's why we're at SBC and that's why we have this partnership is to have communication like that, have the important talks like that that we had this morning.
speaker-1 (00:23.726)
Hello and welcome to iGaming Daily live from SBC Summit Americas in Fort Lauderdale. I'm Martin Elliott, Media Director for SBC and I'm delighted to be joined by Sean Fluharty, have I got that right? it. Excellent. Of the Better Gambling Forum. Now Sean, if anyone Googles you, they will find you're a man who wears many different hats. Could you perhaps begin by just sort of introducing yourself?
speaker-0 (00:53.966)
well, thanks for having me. And this is quite the setup we have here, learning everything as we go. yes, I wear many hats and head of government affairs at play and go, online supplier in the iGaming space. And also through the years, I've been a lawmaker in the state of West Virginia where I helped pass sports betting iGaming years ago and went on to serve as president of the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States and today here as chair of the Better Gaming Forum and happy to announce the partnership that we have now with SBC.
Going forward and fresh off the panel where we had former Congressman Kennedy.
speaker-1 (01:27.491)
Yeah, that was quite some panel. I walked away from that thinking, I'd really like to vote for him.
speaker-0 (01:33.23)
He was bombastic. I mean he was I wanted to run through a wall for him at the by the time we were done with that. I don't think we necessarily agree on with everything, but he was a a great representative of the issue here today and that's why we're here, that's why we're at SBC and that's why we have this partnership is to have communication like that, have the important talks like that that we had this morning.
speaker-1 (01:52.174)
Sure. So just before we get into this, I should of course mention that as always, iGaming Daily is brought to you in partnership with our friends at OptiMove, the creator of positionless marketing and number one player engagement solution for the iGaming and sports betting industry. Now you'd have thought 800 episodes in, I'd have memorized that little ad read by now, but unfortunately, as you'll see, I was reading off the notes. So, yeah.
Sean, if you could start by just telling us about the mission of the Better Gambling Forum, because there's been lots of activity in the industry, lots of talk in the industry over the past four or five years about how to improve player protection. Individual operators are making some of them making great strides. Others are really struggling to get it right. what is the Better Gambling Forum really about and what's it doing to improve the situation?
speaker-0 (02:50.796)
And so the goal at the end of the day when we thought about this and sat down and there's been many attempts to kind of bring people together, but what I learned through the years as a lawmaker is if you want to have a good byproduct and the best policy, you have to have everybody at the table. And so first and foremost, we're bringing everybody to the table, whether it's the policy side and the scientific side, the the experts in the field and the policymakers that are responsible for drafting the legislation and then the regulators responsible for enforcing it.
We're trying to bring all those groups together, and not just a jurisdiction by jurisdiction approach, but a international approach, one that we can say, what can we take here locally and expand worldwide and have the best practices? And the goal being player protection and prevention and the policy that comes with that. And that that's where we're at. And we had great discussions at G7 and Alberta, and we took that to the United Nations. And I don't know if I've ever been so nervous speaking in my life as I was at the United Nations.
But it was a productive meeting and we, you know, we brought it forward here today and now we're gonna grow with SBC and and take this to the next level with the goal being a a policy initiative that, you know, brings in prevention and player protection and brings the experts with it. And at the end of day, we have an education gap that needs addressed, whether it's with regulators or lawmakers. And as we talked about this morning on the panel, going forward, what does this look like? Because I can tell you policy making moves very slowly.
Very incremental. But yet the technology that we see all around us quite literally right now, it moves at a speed that we can't fathom as policymakers. So how are we merging these issues together? And that's that's a goal for us.
speaker-1 (04:28.588)
Yeah, that's right. And as you mentioned, we'll be hearing a lot about the BGF with SBC moving forward, but I want to go back a little bit to the session you did at the UN, which is obviously much higher profile than anything the industry has done before on this issue. You announced a consultation around the same time there. What sort of response have you had from the industry? Are people buying into this and keen to get involved?
speaker-0 (04:57.518)
I believe they are, and we've had quite the interest after the UN initiative that we did because a part of the European Brain Economic Council is the idea that data, which is essentially the world's currency right now, and it comes a lot with that and how we move forward and treat that in a way that are we looking out for sustainability overall going forward. And I I can tell you whether it's the industry approach or it's a policy making approach or on the protection side of things, sustainability is a key factor.
And I think as we had conversations this morning and and at the UN and other places is that the concern is are we moving too quickly? And what happens is you get a backlash, whether it's at the state level, within your own jurisdiction, or whether it's a national sentiment, which I think is starting to creep into play here, whether it's sports betting, eye gaming, whatever it may be, gambling's under one big umbrella. And whether and I would argue all the backlash we see tends from the black market where things really happen and they're not properly protected.
But the messaging gets construed in a way that it falls down on everybody, including the regulated market. And so what can we do to make sure we're moving forward? And in in my my personal view is one that's the regulated market has the proper protections. How do we get there? But how do we move so in a way that brings in the experts to be part of it at the very beginning and not after the fact? And so I think a trouble that we have now with policy making, whether it's in the States or elsewhere, is that, you know, we we we tend to
move things quickly, but we don't take in the technology with it. We don't take the experts in at the table at the very beginning. And they come in on the back end and they say, well, if I was writing the legislation today, I would have done it differently and here's how. So what the Better Gambling Forum is doing is saying we're going to take these individuals who have never sat at this table before and we're going to put them here in the very beginning. And then the byproduct of that is going to be better for everybody overall across the board when it comes to implementing policy.
speaker-1 (06:53.358)
Yeah, think one of the really, well, a couple of the interesting things from the panel we've just been watching on stage here, Paul Pellissari from Hard Rock, making the point. it, but do we know what a sustainable audience looks like is a really interesting question because particularly if you're a listed company, shareholders are really keen for you to make a profit today.
speaker-0 (07:04.344)
Great guy.
speaker-0 (07:17.774)
Sure. I th it I thought he said something that I actually took a note on. And he said, as an industry, we have to go beyond compliance. Yes. And so I thought that stood out because to me that resonated because he said we have to be beyond what's on the paper, right? Because the regulators may have put this in play three or four or five years ago, but yet we've advanced so far with our technology that we can do better as an industry. And I can tell you as a lawmaker, when industries say
We're gonna police ourselves nine times out of ten, they're not going to. But what Paul's position was is that we can do better. We can go beyond the compliance as an industry, and that creates the sustainability going forward. If you're here for just a short money grab, guess what? The backlash will happen, and that's not gonna be good for anybody. But if you're here for the long term and sustainability, you go beyond the compliance. And I'll I'll use play and go as an example. Obviously, I'm head of government affairs for play and go. We don't do direct bonus buys.
Are we told that we can't do that by policymakers or regulators? No, in fact, we're told we can, but we made the decision as a company to say we're about a sustainable model long term and we're gonna police ourselves and we're not gonna use what we consider to be predatory practices. So I think it's what Paul is talking about is that the industry itself in many areas has to be go beyond the compliance that's written and say we're gonna take it upon ourselves for this initiative.
for sustainability going forward. But what we have to do and what we're focusing on is getting that compliance to catch up with the ability of the industry now. And I think, you know, as I said earlier at the onset, it's such a slow moving process, whatever that's regulatory wise or policy making wise, we gotta merge these roads in a better way. Yeah.
speaker-1 (08:56.534)
I think so. I'm a big believer that when we talk about player protection and we try to have initiative there, shouldn't always think just about addiction, which is the main, you know, ultimately that's what we want to, you probably never eradicated completely, but you want to minimize that, minimize the harm caused. But you should always think about it in terms of natural consumer protection, natural customer care that you have in your business.
If you want people to carry on using your business, using your service, actually you've got to treat them well. And you've got to have the right practices in there,
speaker-0 (09:36.142)
Right. Yeah, it you want them coming back. Right. The last thing anybody in the industry wants is a short term customer, right? And that happens when addiction happens. So how can you move a product forward in a way that is an entertainment value to it, and that entertainment value keeps them coming back and not as an an addiction or an addictive product. And I think we're learning a lot in the last few years. And I and ironically, when we talk about things like prediction markets and sweepstakes, and that was the sweepstakes was the number one issue.
Last year at SBC, this year it tends to be prediction markets, but both of those you could put into a category as unregulated, right? But yet they're sucking up all the oxygen in the room. And that's a concern from a policy side. That's a concern from the industry side. Is that if they are taking up all the oxygen in a room, there's no real focus on the consumer and the sustainability of a product that protects the consumer. Instead, it's a short-term success with a long-term failure at the end of the day. And so how do we intervene?
As an industry and as policymakers, which you're seeing with the prediction market side, because at the end of the day it's gonna end up in the Supreme Court. And I'm not gonna I'm not gonna put on my attorney hat and go through the analysis of that, but I'll tell you that it's an issue that everybody's focused on because not only does it put a stain on the industry itself because everybody gets lumped into that same that same threshold, the same umbrella, but it it for our forecasting ability of what's next, it's it's really tough because as was said on the stage today, Utah.
Should be able to say, we don't want that. Right? A state's rights issue. And as an industry, we should be able to look at things to say, you know what, we can forecast out what this looks like. But when you have these, you know, infiltrating the regulated market, which I claim that it does, it really puts it it puts puts us on the defense. And when you're on the defense, you're not focusing on the consumer as much as you should be. You're not focusing on the product as much as you should be. Learn how to move positionless markets change.
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speaker-1 (11:35.886)
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speaker-1 (11:47.054)
Yeah, I think that's right. one of the issues, and as somebody who's worked in the media for a long time, some of it's our fault here, right? We just talk in very general terms. So the public who reading this, who are watching CNN, which I was watching a bit of last night, and they talked a bit about prediction markets, everyone in the media reports this as gambling. Right. It's the wrong thing, right?
speaker-0 (12:11.126)
They so and and that that irks me because that's what happens is everybody reports it that way and it's the spillover effect spills into the regulated industry. And then we're on we're we're playing defense again on that. And so but what do you what's the response? And that's where we get the collective minds together and say the response is a wider regulated market that's acceptable both socially and it's acceptable with our lawmakers and the consumers.
For a sustain sustainability of for a long time. But when you have these interjections, and as you I'm not gonna ding the the journalism side of this because I'm a J School grad myself. So I'm not gonna come out here and scream fake news. I'm not gonna do that. But I will say the reality of it is that the reporting on this, you're going to lump it all together, whether it's regulated, unregulated, black market, governed market, and the but the real world implications are the the the public side, what's their response?
Because a lot of the public, as we talked about in the panel this morning, doesn't even realize if they're playing on a regulated market or a black market. And so there's no incentive for the black market to really step up their game and protect consumers.
speaker-1 (13:19.734)
No, mean, essentially if you build a black market operator, exiting that business, you can't IPO it, you can't really sell it. You know, the only way to make money is to hammer it for immediate profit. So they are by their very nature going to be more dangerous for players than a FanDuel or a DraftKings.
speaker-0 (13:41.184)
Exactly it. And that was the conversation this morning was essentially short term money grab versus long term sustainability. To your point exactly, who's gonna be more predatory? Well, the short term money grab. They're not planning on sustaining a sweepstakes model, for example, in the US for a long period of time. The plan is get in, get what we can, and then eventually we're gonna have to get out. Whereas your fan duels and DraftKings are looking at this for a long period of time and then are are at a competitive disadvantage.
Because they can't be as as predatory as some of the black market operators are. Yeah.
speaker-1 (14:14.836)
That's right. So just sort of, I guess we're thinking a little bit about next steps. Some of the things that came through on the panel, I Nathan Carroll from Insight Health was really fascinating. Some of the things he said about really the tools we have, we're always playing catch up in terms of the things we do there. And also Erica.
Erica Bath from UCLA. She told me a load of stuff that I didn't know essentially, which is a little bit about psychology and brain health and how the brain develops and all these things.
speaker-0 (14:56.408)
And that's exactly who you want at the table. Yes. You want those individuals at the table at the very beginning and not on the back end. Because when you go through the policymaking process, you bring the and I did my best to do this as a lawmaker at the state level. I want the experts speaking on this issue at the very beginning and not on the back end where we're playing catch up. And that was exactly the message today was in too many circumstances and too many jurisdictions, we're playing catch up instead of governing from the front and then
you know, investing early on so that we don't have the issues with addiction at a higher level than if we addressed it early on with the experts saying this is how you do it. And so that's what the Better Gambling Forum essentially is doing. We're bringing everybody in at the beginning level and we're gonna be able say policy wise and regulatory wise, this is what works. These are the best practices. And these can be done across jurisdictions and not just limited to state by state what we have going on right now. So we're trying to kind of globalize the best practices by bringing in the best people.
for the analysis and not just relying on the current model that we have right now.
speaker-1 (15:54.688)
I think that's going to be really important in the next two or three years. How as an industry we can influence lawmakers to make informed decisions on this. If we're saying there is no problem, then that's the wrong starting point. It's how do we educate lawmakers so they're not listening to the very well-funded, really effective...
speaker-0 (16:18.42)
number the education gap with lawmakers is the number one issue. And ironically, given the explosiveness of sweepstakes, of prediction markets, of the black market in general, it's getting a more receptive ear now with lawmakers who know what these products are because it's being thrown at them. If you rewind back to when PASPA was overturned and we're talking 2018 and when a state like mine in 2019 decided to pass eye gaming
was it was a blip on the radar and there was a major education gap. And most lawmakers didn't want to hear it, didn't want to talk about it or learn about it. But now, given that it is being reported on on the mainstream press on a nightly basis, lawmakers are looking at it and realizing they need to understand it and they need to learn more. And the public is now addressing it 'cause they're concerned about it. And policymakers respond to the public. So as public interest grows, so does lawmakers' interest. And I think
we're at this pivotal moment on what does that education gap look like and who is going to help educate. And that's going to be SBC and BGF as we move forward in this partnership helping to do just that.
speaker-1 (17:27.406)
Yeah, that's great. mean, we've done very recently, as we wrap up now, we've been conducting a piece of research called the International Player Safety Index. We've published the first four reports. We're working on the fifth one at the moment. And what I would say is that my number one takeaway from it, having spoken to operators across Latin America, across Africa, across Europe, everyone wants to do something.
everyone acknowledges there's a problem and there a, there must be a route to fix it. What they're not sure about is how to walk the line between current regulation and doing something effective. So they would love a lead from policymakers, from lawmakers. As long as it's something that is sustainable for the industry and looks after players. So we're really, we're looking forward to working with you over the next, next few months.
on this stuff and hearing a lot more from you over that period of time. I will add into the show notes, so download for where they can, people can read the consultation, because that's a really well put together document with the pillars on there and so on.
speaker-0 (18:38.518)
A lot of information available at better gambling forum dot com. You can see our committee and the work we're doing and and how people, if they want to get involved going forward, how they can reach out to us and how we can expand this and and meet the moment, which I think everybody, regardless of what side you're on, understands this is a pivotal moment going forward. And we can either meet it and have a sustainable model or watch the backlash take place. And we're gonna stop that from happening by working together and bringing the experts in the room and and getting a good work product out for policymakers and regulators.
across jurisdictions to understand what a sustainable model will look like.
speaker-1 (19:11.916)
That's great. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to join us today for iGaming Daily. Thank you to our ever brilliant producer, Eneagh MacDonald. And we will be back again tomorrow with another edition of iGaming Daily in partnership with OptiMove.
speaker-0 (19:31.774)
Yeah.