145: DIARY OF AN IGAMING EXEC: SCOTT LONGLEY

This episode is brought to you by Betting Jobs, a leading international recruitment provider to the eye gaming sector. For more information visit www.bettingjobs.com As a journalist you should be trying to ask the questions and hence it shouldn't matter whether you get on with someone to actually get a dollar out of the business I think you've put your money in Calcium and see where that goes. It's a very emotive issue, gambling is one of the sins. Scott, welcome to Diary of an Eye Gaming Executive. Now you talk on a daily basis to eye gaming execs, the good, the bad and the ugly. Do you consider yourself to be one? No, not at all. Not at all. You're the first journalist we've had on. Are you a career journalist? Will you always be a career journalist? I've nearly always been a career journalist and career sub-editor started. So always been writing about industries and business. Never tempted to be in those industries, always like to be a observer. Never tempted to talk because I don't think I'm a businessman. That's not happy to prove the honest. But you have your own business which we'll go on to talk about shortly. Yeah. Fair enough. In terms of those eye gaming execs that you speak to, are you impressed by the quality of them in our industry? It makes back. That's a loaded question. It's a mixed bag. You get on with some people, you get on with others. That's always the case. As a journalist, you should be trying to ask the questions. And hence, it shouldn't matter whether you get on with someone. You obviously do get a better rapport with some people than others. But that's no reflection on them or indeed you. That's just the way it is when it comes to being able to interview people. Yes. But are you impressed by the quality of the execs in this industry? Some of them. Yeah. It makes back. It's a mixed bag. And the point is, my opinion doesn't count because their performance will shine through regardless. And I do think that there's a, I think it's quite a brutal industry for weeding out those successful and those that know what they're doing and those don't. And that's nothing to do with me, obviously. And I think it does. I don't know whether other industries might well be the same, but it does have that thing of people. People fail quite fast or succeed fast. And that's the truth. And is it an industry that doesn't sort of tolerate bullshitters or I mean, is it absolutely tolerates bullshitters? Every industry you've tolerates bullshitters. I think. How'd you get found out then? Because it's just you can, you can only do that for so long. So you can get involved. You can start your career and you can talk your way to the top, I guess, but eventually. It has metrics, you know, it's obvious metrics of success, which come down to a you succeeding because is your business working or not. And if it is working, you'll get the credit for that partly and you'll get the credit for you to what your team has done with the beneath you. And if it's not working, then you ultimately will play the pros quite quickly, I think. And it'll be quite obvious when a, is when a gambling business doesn't work. Because it will be pointless. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, makes sense. Well, let me put you on the spot then. I'm going to ask you to name names. If you had all the money in the world and you were investing in a gambling company, operator supply, whatever it wanted to be, who would be on your board? Who are the people that you are impressed by that you speak to or have spoken to recently? But the first night I always very early on met. Years ago and at Pali Parham was always impressed by the brewing cool. And currently this CEO, I G. I think he, and he's, he's the guy that you can, if you can say that the modern flutter, he was the architect of the modern flutter. I think. So I think him and then. Some people around margins, I guess I don't know whether, I don't, yeah, I don't know whether. I don't know whether I'd name names in that sense. You could, yeah, well, who are the people you like to listen to on earnings calls and who are the people that strike you as impressive? Well. Yeah, so I listened to a lot of them. And the ones that it's, it's larger than the American ones who know what they're doing when it comes to earnings calls. And it's so whether it be bill, home buckle, MGM, results or Tom Reg at Caesar's Jason Robbins at draft Kings, etc. They know what they're doing when it comes to earnings calls. And you can hear a certain professionalism in how they manage the questions from the analysts, how they manage the messaging. They know what they're doing when they go into the call. They know the message they want to get out. And they're very impressive at that. And, but I don't, I don't necessarily speak to Jason Rounds or indeed, the other two I mentioned that I listen to them. But yeah, they're good, they're good. They know what they're doing. It's very professional. Sometimes with the UK listed companies. That's not the case. No, interesting. Which we'll go on to talk about the difference to the American market in European market shortly. Obviously, in terms of those earnings calls, you listen into those because you produce earnings plus more, as well as compliance plus more as part of clear concise media your company. And why did you go down that road with sub stack journalism and what was the sort of inspiration behind that? Sub stack was something I've heard of, but I think every journalist had heard of sub stack a few years ago is start to come onto the radar. In terms of a way of people distributing their content, notably a way of distributing their content for free. So it doesn't cost you anything for the platform, only cost you if you start to charge subscriptions. And it's a really relatively minor cost. So it's it's pretty much easy. It's easy to get from running with sub stack. And that was on my mind for a while. And then around the time of the pandemic, things kind of change with media a bit. And they continue to change ever since, but around the time of that, the the opportunity to start and use that kind of came about such that made sense. And then the idea of doing constraint purely on the earnings kind of made sense at the same time. And it felt well, let's just try it. And that was a start. Was there a gap in the market for that finance based journalism in our industry? I would say there was because otherwise earnings more wouldn't have succeeded if that makes sense. I don't think. So the the aspects of the newsletter that I think works when it comes to earnings is that there's a lot of information that comes out of earnings calls. And the earnings themselves, which is not everybody needs to know. And if you need to know exactly what's going on under the hood at MDM results, you'll have to go to the earnings themselves and find out the information yourself. But there's an awful lot of information that you delete. You know, if you're working in your competitors or you're just working within the gambling sector, you kind of just want to know bits and pieces, but you don't need to know everything. So the idea of coming up with the the sub stack or the news that your idea was to was that you provide a shorn form out of this is catch up, you know, catch up stuff on what's going on in the sector. What earnings who say and what. And that was the yeah, that was how it all kind of came together. Then later, the idea of stealing from Axios, the bullet point format just made sense that it's the they call it smart brevity there. Same as political. The same guy behind both of those. And the idea is to is that you contain as much as possible, you know, really relatively short space amount of space. When it comes to sub stack, it all kind of fits together when it comes to sub stack, most people read a subset newsletter in their inbox on their phone. And so you've only got a certain amount of time that you're going to capture their attention and they're going to stroll through. And so within that, you have to be quite punchy because the a long 1500 word article doesn't work on a phone. A 500 word item bullet pointed item does. Or partly attention economy as they call it, I believe, I think it is. Yeah. So is it of its time, do you think? And yeah, it captures the zeitgast as well. Yeah, it is. And it's it's it's about where you how you consume news, because I don't I think the long term problem for all B2B journalism and indeed all most journalism is that people don't actually visit websites to read news anymore. I don't think I don't in my day to day life, I might do for work purposes, but the day to day life, I don't consume news by going to a website and reading of story clicking on story going through and reading it. I do consume news via newsletters that gets in my inbox and it makes sense. Your inbox is your in terms of your work day. Your inbox tends to be how you interact with the world with various for various reasons, various aspects of your job, one of that we keep up with news and you get a newsletter through it means you don't have to leave your inbox. You can read it on the screen and then you go straight back to your inbox and you're away as opposed to the idea of reading a newsletter, clicking through it, taking you to a website and then you happen to find different news stories on that website to get catch you up for the day. That doesn't make sense. It's too many clicks. The news comes to you as opposed to you having to go to the news effect. Yeah, absolutely. Which seems the modern way as well. Where does that leave the traditional media in our industry or otherwise and the advertising model around it? of CSN advertising model on Substack as well and you have sponsors and people who support the newsletters. But are we moving away from that? Is the room still for that? Well, we have moved away from it. I think the media has changed and is changing. Before we had this doing this part, but the pre-call, I do think that media is long term. There's no room for media as we know it. How long you've got and how long that pans out. I don't know, but I don't get the impression that media has got the answer to any of the questions that have been posed by the audience these days. But there's always going to be a need, as you say, for people to consume information that helps them in their work. And that's what a summary of an earnings call or developments in the industry are all about. I guess in our industry, most obviously, but the way people do that is via events. I get that on social media, you can see how people are belling against the idea that there are too many events and there are obviously a lot of events. But the root to market in terms of advertising from most companies that are working on a B2B level is via the events and they'll be seen at events and seen to be attending events and have the expose and all the rest of it. And then everything else is an acidity to the event. I think very much some of the biggest companies in our space in terms of the media companies are events companies and the media is attached to that, not the other way around. You described earnings plus more? Is it earnings plus more? I was quite an old. earnings and more. Plus always throws me so I'll correct myself. Is it? You described a smart brevity which I like and I'll obviously going to steal for using on other occasions. But how do you describe the style of your writing? Because I think it's quite different to other writing within the media. Yeah, because the smart brevity works for Axios when they're dealing with big events. The big news organisation, Semifilitz Co. has been very serious events. I'm not dealing with very serious events. I'm seeing them with a gambling industry. And I know the audience isn't really interested in deep dive, kind of big journalism exclusives and investigative reporting and all that kind of stuff. I don't think they're particularly interested in that. I think they want to have a gloss. What does the industry, what's happening in the industry? When you're doing that or when you're producing content as designed to be brief, you want to kind of make it more interesting than what otherwise be. Something that just says, here's your data catch up is not really going to entice people. So you have to come up with something more interesting to entice them on that basis to get them to read things. So therefore the subheads become really important because that becomes the editorial layer on top of just basic information. Yeah. And there's a certain irreverency to the way you write about serious matters. You know, because I don't, you talk about serious stuff because we're talking about the finances, the industry, about something or compliance stuff on the other side. But you don't take yourself too seriously when you're doing it. Is that to everyone's taste or don't you care? Nothing I can do about it. It's the equivalent of saying I don't care. But that's just the way I do it, the way I write, the way I treat my job. I'm very serious about my job. But I'm also aware that it can get very boring. And it's an industry which you just, you know, it contends towards the boring. It's put it that way. It doesn't have to be. So you can try and make, you can make reading about the industry more lively than that. So I try that. It is irreverent. I guess I certainly have been accused of that. And I apologize to people whenever we go over the line. I don't think we do. I don't think I go over the line all that often. But it happens. I blame the subheader. Is there a strain within your readership then that quite enjoy it when you're poking for other people but not them kind of thing. I suppose that's life generally. But have you had complaints? Is what I'm getting at? Yeah, but not complaints that you're not, not complaints about the way it's how many treated we never, we're never unfair. We don't have to store relies around what people say. Put that way. We put the quotes in there. And it's just those intros. It might be the intros. But that and that does and that is editorializing. But you, you can't complain if you say you've used the lyric from like today, it's just in Timberlake's song. And if you want to complain that you've been that you've got a lyric next to your quote, it's going to be you're not going to look that smart. You're thinking if you, if you complain about that. I think it's more obvious when the headlines to the main headlines to the newsletter are that's the main spin. That's where we do spin. And that's where you kind of there's always a fine line. You're trying to get people to notice. The point about it is the main headline is what you see in the inbox and that's what's going to make you click through to the rest of the newsletter. And that has to be snorke short and snappy, I think and has to engage immediately. And you've got and you have to bear in mind what you're seeing in your Gmail inbox is just the two words of a headline and then the half a sentence for the subhead, which will let you know what the subject matter of the thing is going to be. Those two words of the thing that's going to attract your attention. So if you can get people to see it and go, okay, that's fine. I'll go with I'll read that Monday's one was low in sharks. And that is going to get attention. Even if it's a bit tenuous to the story about Balisintral, but it will get people reading it. And I don't think Balisintral are going to come to me and say you've used a headline, which is wrong because it's not wrong. It's just my interpretation. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing more clickbait than something that mentioned a shark. So where do you get the inspiration for the quotes and the intros because I read it on a daily basis earnings and more and obviously compliance and more as well. I love them, everyone. So I like the humour and I'm sure a lot of people do as well. But I fear for you that you're going to run out of ideas and run out of song lyrics to put in. I mean, I don't know if you've seen the amount of songs that are being added to Spotify every day. Yeah. It's that. How do you find them? It's always going to be once you're in that idea that maybe you can raid a song's lyrics to help you describe a story. Once you're in that kind of, that's the thought, the original thought and that's goes back a long time to do that. Then it's just a matter of going through your memory of songs that you've heard and go, well, actually that fits with that idea or that idea. When you do a search on that basis, you can find a song on, you can find a song lyrics and it's from that. It's a really, it's an obvious thing that if you listen to music, you can put songs to any news if you want to. I guess so. That's kind of, that's in short. I mean, there's other aspects of it and there is a matter of if you're writing a story, you're sitting with it for a good few hours looking at analysts, notes or quotes that people have said, you're trying to work out what the lead is. When you've got that lead, it'll often be about trying to find the headline around that lead. When you think of the headline or think something of a headline, that might suggest a song title. That might suggest a current saying or a film title or something. From that, you then narrow down the, then you start to do a kind of a reverse on the story to make sure you've got the lead and it folds down. Got it. That's the magic behind it, one is, yeah, it's the blood sweat and tears of daily journalism. You missed Toil, but yes, good, both sweat tears and toil. We've talked about a few of the companies already, but obviously a lot of the focus for both newsletters is the US. Yeah. Now, you and I have been in the industry long enough to have remembered a time when the US was less of a leader in the field, shall we say, particularly when it comes to online gambling. But when Passbill was revoked, I remember a lot of people thinking, I was probably one of them, but it was going to be a huge gold rush for not just European operators, but suppliers as well. It was only a matter of time before, about 365, took over the US and what have you. It's not worked out like that. It's in fact been the opposite. And would you agree that the states is now the center of change in the center of innovation, whereas Europe used to be that as things reversed? It's no doubt. It's obviously the central gravity in the industry moved across the Atlantic in 2018, as you say, and didn't come back. And then a lot of talent from Europe went across and still is to an extent there or still going across to a certain extent. So there was a lot of what we see, I guess a lot. of what Americancy of their betting industry does have, you know, has a European flavour to it. It's as simple as that, you know, the apps that people are using in the States are pretty much based on the European model of what sports betting app would look like, or indeed a Nike casino app. But gently, at first, maybe it's starting to speed up, there has been change even in terms of what people are seeing and suddenly we're talking about parlays when we had combination bets before or accumulators, so you know, those are just completely changed. Well, yeah, those obviously used to go into betting shops and we'd put seven horses down and call it an accumulator. That's now a parlay about them. But that language changed and then we started to talk about single game parlays and stuff and you're starting to get the language is different. That change, that change 2018 has an increased, and then when it comes to innovation, obviously prediction markets comes out, I know, where that could only have come out of the US, could only have come out of the situation in the US without about not having federal sports betting and having a state-by-state. It comes out of that mismatch and it takes over the world from there and that wouldn't have happened in Europe, not in the slightest. Why is the US different then? For countless reasons, I mean, how long have you got almost? In terms of betting culture, innovation culture, the regulation of gambling, the non-regulation of gambling in other areas, it's just utterly different and it has a different world, genuinely a different world and has always been that and now it's becoming obvious and something like prediction markets is just it just throws everyone. Yeah, innovation is the word, though, isn't it? Because it's not invention, because prediction markets are effectively betting its changes, which we've had in Europe for a long time. See, that's my point of argument, I think. I think the Europeans go, "Oh, this came out on flotters called P.H.A.X. and early, early doors when it came to prediction markets." He was saying to American analysts, US analysts and to US investors, it's just exchange betting. We've seen this before and we don't think it's worth, we don't think it's going to be as good as the OSB product we've got. And he was absolutely wrong about that and he was the dismissal of prediction markets turned out to be, and let's say this is always timing and what happened in events, but it turned out to be utterly wrong about saying, "Well, we've got this product, we've got exchange betting and this is what it is and it doesn't mean much to us and it doesn't mean much to the global term, etc, etc." And he was, they were absolutely wrong, I think. I think they would probably admit that, or the way that they dismissed prediction markets. And to a certain extent, J.J.R.F. King's, Robin, Jason, Robin's kind of said the same thing and then, but swiftly changed when they realized what Kalshi was doing and they had to switch. And now you've got a situation where Kalshi is likely worth it notionally as a private company, but it's likely worth more than each of them. A six-thraughtry just how the industry has been blindsided by change, isn't it, really? Yeah. And it's that thing of why they thought, I think that there was an aspect of post-2018. I think they thought, "Well, this is the new sector and this is what it's going to be like and we're just going to grow from here and the tam will grow and states will open up by wrote, bang, bang, bang." That didn't happen and then in that kind of weird vacuum in states like Texas and California, that's where prediction markets came out of that. And so it did blindside people, but it shouldn't it all this is hindsight and I'm the best at 2020 hindsight. But in hindsight, it was obvious that the anomaly of having the biggest states without OSB or Icasino was always going to be sitting there and like here's markets that you can go into with betting products that are open if you've come up with the right product idea. So a few years ago, people were complaining about the rate of change and the rate of regulation. And as you say, a few states have actually now got Icasino, a few more have got a sports book, but then there was that slow down and there was the push back and what have you. So obviously, it's now a federal model, CalShees, but isn't CalShe and aren't companies like CalShe, ahead of the regulator and ahead of states who are looking to tax and what have you. And isn't that ultimately going to end in a problem around regulation and compliance and or potentially, but I'm not the right person to speak to regarding federal versus state. No, but the simplest is that. So I've got no idea whether CalShees arguments will hold water in the long term, but I know that in the short term, they've succeeded in establishing a foothold, more than the foothold. They've got a monopoly in a certain market, which is growing at a pace that the online sports betters are looking at it going, well, hang on, where's where's this come from? And it's outpacing them and they've got a monopoly in that market. And that is extraordinary, but whether that gets pulled back by a change in the regulations, whether or not the Supreme Court, at some point, decides against sports betting sports events contracts, or completely the opposite, whether it decides in favour of that. I've got no idea. But the fact is that if your whole strategy is based around waiting for the Supreme Court to say something that I think your strategy is probably wrong. But I don't know. The alternative is the hunter becomes the hunted and someone comes after CalShees lunch with more innovation or further innovation. That could happen and possibly, yeah, that's absolutely a possibility. But at the moment, they're on a tear and I don't see anyone being able to stop them from where they are. And also, I don't think this is a bit more tendentious. I'm not in the market, I wouldn't know, but I don't think Enri is going to compete with them successfully. Interesting. Talks about a very successful company there, but a plenty of successful companies in eye gaming. If you had all the cash in the world, who would you be investing in? Oh. Oh, who's the next big thing or who do you think's got an opportunity? Are you an investor? I'm not an investor in the industry, so no, I wouldn't, I wouldn't naturally put my money in the industry. All right, I'll just give you a blank check. But if you give me a blank check, at the moment, I think you would probably want to be getting a piece of Kalshi as simple as that and buy hook, buy crook and go that route, I think. There are companies which are doing good things in space, much, much smaller than that. But yeah, I think it's you at the moment to actually get a dollar out of the business. I think you put your money in Kalshi and see where that goes. Yeah. Well, I think that's fairly obvious answer, but things are good answer to you because you know, they're doing well. Speaking of sort of regulation and and then the compliance other things, I guess, where are you on the whole cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency and crypto casinos and what have you? Do you see that as a future for the industry, the future for the industry? Is it? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. And one of the things around predictions and around Kalshi is what they've done is largely they've taken the oxygen away from crypto trading in the US in a sense. And I don't think it's a coincidence that crypto trading is going through something of a lull at the same time that the British market is booming. So I don't think the assumption that crypto trading was going to that's going to take over the world. I don't think that's necessarily the case when it comes to crypto as a or yeah, I don't know crypto as a as a form of payment, not really doesn't really feel quite their stable coins potentially. I don't really understand stable coins. Has it got a mainstream future? Do you think? Well, stable coins are mainstream. Yeah. So so yes. And and the. But we'll be the case mass adoption is what we'll be the case is that the gambling regulators will have to catch up with mass adoption of stable coins in the rest of of people's lives. I think in Europe and certainly in the UK you get used to the idea that you you know payments is frictionless already and you kind of go what what's the deal with friction as payments that's not the case everywhere else. So friction of pay frictionless payments are obviously the way forward stable coins are going to be one of those means stable coins obviously. I say obviously but stable coins allow for easy transfer of crypto as a rule and therefore I think gambling regulators are going to have to grapple with how do we introduce or allow for stable coin payments. payment systems because all the big payment companies are already going down that part. I pay safe and the rest of them. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's change pace. Talk about the industry a little bit. Let's talk about you. According to LinkedIn, you've been a journalist since 2020. That's a lie. Is it? All right. Well, I was going to ask you how did you get into journalism in the first place? What did you do before? I just been a journalist for six years. I'll be happy. All right. OK. No, I got into journalism when I was at the turn of the NLNM. Yeah. And I got involved being a sub-adjuster and in investment magazine. Maybe it's a 2020, I'm sure it did. No, it's a 22,000. Yes, from me. But then again, I don't pay much attention to my LinkedIn. No, I've done it. No, I've done it. That's true. Yeah. So, yeah. So, I've been a journalist since the turn of the NLNM. I'm always in gambling or-- What did you start? I'm always in gambling. Originally investment and personal investment in particular. And I worked for magazines which are no longer in existence. And then finally got into the gambling sector. I fell into the gambling sector and never crawled out. And are you a gambler where you attracted to the gambling industry? Was it a job that came up? Attracted to the industry, I think. That's fair to say. Not really a big time gambler. I was a little bit of betting on the horse racing. And fancied myself as knowing something about horse racing. And then went to jail and then realized I knew absolutely nothing. Do you remember the first? I remember the last one. Oh, yeah. And for anyway, yeah. Vagely in civil horse racing. And now I don't think I gamble at all. But there's an obvious point. If you're working in the gambling industry, you know that gambling companies work because they win all the time. And therefore, why do you think you're going to be any different to that? Yeah, fair point. Do you like the industry? Yeah. I like a lot of people in the industry. I've got to know a lot of people in the industry. And I like the industry. And it's fun. And it gets more, it gets because of the nature of gambling. And because of the nature of how gambling hits the headlines, it gets more exposure than other comparatively sized sectors. So it can be fun. And you get to write about stuff. You get, you know, and you get to write about stuff, which you wouldn't get to write about if you're right about paper and packaging. Yeah, true. But in terms of hitting the headlines, it only ever seems these days, or maybe it's just me being paranoid, but it only ever seems to hit the negative headlines. Yeah. You don't seem to get, or there's the exception recently with the guy who on earth to time capsule and bet on a horse called Christmas Day that he, you know, was in this time capsule, et cetera, and it won at, perhaps the end of the day. But they, those sort of stories seem to be few and far between these days. It just feels like everyone's got it in for us. Yeah. Yeah. And that's one of the stories I've been following throughout my career is the, particularly the UK industries and its problems with various lobbying groups, notably around funds groups that have been funded by or allied to Derek Webb. And the various people around that, gambling with lives, the lobbying around fob teas back in the day. Now the lobbying around online, the lobbying around advertised gambling advertising. I've been following that for a long time with the help of some very good contacts who know precisely what's going on. And yeah, I, there's a reason why it's surrounded by bad headlines to be honest. And that's because there are bad actors in the gambling space. I think people best way to put it. But it's also because it's a very emotive issue. Gambling is one of the sins, say, say, and the sin stocks. And it's like tobacco and booze. And I don't think the industry has covered itself in glory when it comes to staying its case. But that said, it's up against some particularly for Cypherus. And underhand opposition, I think would be the fair. Do you ever hide your light under a bushel when you talk to people that you don't know when you introduce yourself to you to say you're a journalist and don't say which industry you're in? Yeah, you kind of judge your audience sometimes, don't you? So my fallback is the arm of business journalists. Yeah. And then if they press, I'll say, well, I cover the gambling industry and you judge from their facial expression. Whether you carry on with that conversational move on. Yeah. And you career earlier, obviously you were editor at EGR magazine. When I came into the industry in terms of the PR marketing, EGR was the gold standard. Do you think it's still the gold standard or is it a bit like many United and other people have called them up? I think that's a bit harsh on EGR. I don't think they're not the former and giant. There's some great tennis. Totally. It's really good. So yeah, I think they're, I think they're. They are the main United in the sense that they've got the longest pedigree. But they, they consist, they've consistently produced. When you said earlier about the changing media and landscape, I was, I noticed that the way that they're, they're changing as a, as a business. They've, I think they've got rid of actually producing a actual magazine. They have got podcasts as well. And now they're moving into podcasts. And so they're changing is a, as a, as a, as a industry, they, they seem to be changing more than most at the moment. I think, and that feels like they've, they've got, I think it's Julian, is, is heading out. And I think that they're, they're doing stuff. It's really interesting and, and that's really good. Yeah. So, there's a list in this industry, which journalists do you read, which publications do you read? And who do you go to for your news? Since I read all of them for obvious reasons. But the ones, the ones that are, and I don't, I read. To leave these stuff. I read Zack stuff at next. This is. and that's IGB. - Harrison. - Yeah, Harrison. - So there's a good few journalists out there that were for reading, and then you've got the whole slew of American journalists. So in-game I've got some very good people writing some stuff and then there's obviously, there's Dustin Galker's newsletters, Steve Rolick's newsletter would read those. And there's other various people who are on sub-stack actually who have appeared, who pops up, who produce bits and pieces, all Lewis has started producing a sub-stack, which is very interesting, 'cause it comes from a different perspective. That definitely comes from a perspective as somebody who haven't been in the industry. And there's others, yeah, so there's more journalists out there than there were pause years ago, I think. Certainly when I was at EGR, and then subsequently, gambling compliance, there's that much more being written about the sector. - And different forms of consuming that. - And there are different forms. And there might not be magazines that they were, but there's more being written online. - Yeah. - And obviously there's more events going on. So there's more stuff coming from those events, more content coming from those events. - Before this pod, you and I had a conversation on, I lazily suggested that the journalism in this industry might not be quite as good as it used to be. You were quite versiferous in your denial. I had no evidence, what is yours? - Well, the very fact of the proliferation of online sources, there's a lot more content out there. And next to producing a lot of stories, EGR produced a lot of stories. I do be able to produce a lot of stories. There's a lot of stuff being written by Dustin Galker and Steve Rellick in Game Produces, huge amount of stories. There's even a thing called prediction news, which is now producing stories. And they're good stories. There's lots of news out there. There's a lot of exclusives people are coming up with exclusive stories all every day, pretty much. That wasn't the case years ago, I think, when I was at Game of the Alliance and stuff like that, the pace of change means that there's a lot being written about the sector. So, and as for pay to play kind of content in industry media, does that cheapen journalism? Does it cheapen the publications? Are on my being slightly naive about how B2B media works? I doubt you're being naive about how B2B media works because you're right in the heart of B2B media works. I don't come across it myself, obviously. It's, you get a very rare inquiry saying, can we get some content in the news veteran? It's like, of course I say how much? No, I, but you don't, and the thing is with the, there used to be the case that there would be paid for sections in magazines, of course, in the editions of the magazines. And that's just not there anymore. So, and you do see, you do see sponsored content on that IGB title. sponsored content, I think probably the same with everybody else. They produce sponsored content. My point with always with sponsored content is a minute you see that as as a headline for a piece, nobody's going to read it. It's only the marketing people are going to read it. And they just need to say to their boss, well, we've got this double, you know, back in the day, it'd be, we got this double page spread in EGR and it'd be a pay full piece. Now it's up. Well, we've got this, this item on, you know, it's sitting on the front page of IGB and it says sponsored content and they said to their boss, well, we've got the front page with our product and nobody reads it. I don't, I don't get the, I don't get why marketing people still think that's paid for content has got any purchase in the sector. But surely all publications, B2B publications need a form of that to put the lights on and pay people's salaries. And I get that. And I'm a bit pure, a ton of club. I'm a bit, but also the point being that I'm about, I'm trying to find content that people are going to read and the metrics that my substat will show me is how many people are clicking on or reading content and reading, clicking onto the newsletter. And within that, obviously, there's the sponsor appearances and that's advertising obviously and it's, it's top and bottom of each of the all the newsletters. And that is the way that I survive economically. But if you, if the content is then also written by the advertiser, you won't get the click through because people know that's not, not the interesting stuff. So you have to find that finalist is about to an extent, it's about threading the needle on making sure that the content works as a piece of editorial and then subsequently making sure it works as it can pay for itself. And it has to be that balance of you stick the content about the industry next to the people that are trying to make money within the industry. And I think with the online websites, the problem that they have is that they're trying to do the same thing, but nobody's visiting a website. And therefore, it used to be this issue about ad blindness. You could read an article and not realize that there wasn't advert next to it. Now they're not even reading the article online. So you have to reach the audience where the audience is. And my argument is the reaching the audience farther. They're in box. That's how you reach them. And how you reach some is via being associated with a brand which people are reading. So paid for content doesn't work in that environment. I don't think because why would you read a newsletter that is just a advert? It's that thing of the discuss. I get enough that I get an awful lot of emails from companies where I've signed up, not just in gambling sector, but generally when you get when you get averse, when you get content in your inbox, which is just a pectopsy span, you don't even you obviously just click it straight out of your box and you don't read it. So my cell to sponsors is I try my best via what we discussed about the content to get people to click onto an email and to read it. And they will see your name. They might not click through to your name and it might just be a supire association, but that's what I offer. And if you buy into that, then great. If you don't buy into that, there are other ways. Yeah, makes sense. Fair enough. Does journalism in general, but specifically about in our media, obviously, does it have a bright future with AI? Probably not. Are you a placebo? Yeah, absolutely. Yes, all journalists are, I think they know it as well. Aren't you doing a form of AI because you're distilling down information from other sources into one? You're effectively your own AI aren't you? So yeah, but you're you're adding a human spin that will not be replaced surely. Yeah. Well, I'm trying to be more optimistic. Yeah, I'm adding a, I'm adding a degree of knowledge that is not, not instantly replaceable by AI, but the problem with AI in terms of saying if you said, but this is as far as it gets in terms of AI's capabilities. Great. We can all live with that. We can all still carry on with our jobs and there isn't, there is an upside, but AI is not stopping. And so my fears around AI, where is where AI goes in one, two, three years time, five years time and beyond that, I've got no idea. I'm not expert on AI, but I've seen the advances in, we've all seen the advances in the last two years in terms of what AI is capable of. And I think to a certain extent, a lot of us have kind of jaw drop moment of like, wow, it can, it's doing that now. And then what is going to do in the future? You know, it, and it, I don't see how journalism will compete because of the amount of money that's being thrown into AI to make AI the way that we interact with the world. You don't think there's a push and pull in history where we go towards something then we pull back from something. And people will, people will accentuate and will be proud of human intelligence rather than artificial intelligence. Yeah, I think there's, you know, there's hope. And not, I'm not. I mean, AI could be a huge, hugely useful tool when it comes to, compared to how you used to use the internet. If you, if you go back to the days of search and that was only five years ago, but you go back to the way that we use search. And the way that you use AI in comparison is a world apart. And the nature of what it gives you as a response, versus what you've got from a list of websites is just a different planet. And that's great. Actually, you know, how you can use AI is great. But it's not stopping there. And what it's going to do beyond that, you know, if it, if it can do an awful lot and, but it can't replace human, it hasn't replaced human intelligence yet. Yeah. So what are you going to do in five years time? Then well, there's always jobs as bin men. Plumber, everyone talks about plumbers. I'm not, I'm not smart enough to be a plumber. No, I'm more an electrician. I'd kill myself as an electrician. But from what I've seen with the bin men, I can do that job. Yeah. Date those dates sent us on going to wind themselves. That's all I'm saying. So I'll do that if you're a bin man. Okay. Perfect. And going back to the, um, the content and the sort of PR side of the industry. And what have you? You must see some terrible mistakes from PR people like me. Possibly coming in terms of, yes, what you are going to come in, because that's what I'm asking you about. Um, in terms of, you know, people approaching journalists in this industry with stuff that they want to get placed or information they want to get into the media. What are the common mistakes and what could people do better from a PR point of view? Do you think? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Um, that, that I think that I don't think PR is, is it, you're in a difficult business. You're in a worse business than we are, because you've got the interface of having to speak to people. Directly about their business and then trying to go out and sell it and, um, in some way of shape or form. Uh, every journalist will say, well, I just, you know, I've had it with PR people getting in touch with me. But there is a symbiotic, it is obviously a symbiotic relationship. Um, and some bits of information that sent out by PRs are better than others for that. Um, I mean, square in the air. It, it's not monopoly. I'm sure you fight against that. Absolutely. But you send out a lot of, there's a lot of PR stuff that you put out where it, and I remember having spoken to Lena a while back. I was saying, I don't think I'm getting your press releases. I've, I've checked and she said, no, you don't, don't appear to be on the list. Do you want me to add you to the full list and be, be aware? And, and you do get a lot of stuff every day, which will be, the new game X, new game that I don't know who that is and necessarily aimed at because I'm not going to use that. And I'm not sure that any of the, the major outlets in space use that kind of stuff. And I'm sure there's a, you know, the company wants to, you know, wants to say we've got a new fishing game. We've got a new crash game. I understand that they want to get that out, but that I don't see how producing a press release around that is going to necessarily get that any attention. The other work that all the agencies do, which is about talking to journalists and trying to discuss a company and what's happening, that's more interesting. And if you have an conversation with anybody from, from your business or any of the other businesses and the conversation is about what a company is actually doing, what's happening here, what's their view on that that can be better. And it's always better if you can speak to a company directly, obviously. So and all agencies work on as that way of providing the direction that's where you can arrange for a call. I want you to speak into a company directly. That's often the best way of speaking to an executive. That's obviously the best way to get information out. Make sense. Tell it on board. Thank you. And you're normally the interviewer. How does it feel to be interviewed? I hate it. Yeah. Why is that? Just because you've suddenly you've got the spotlight on you. I've done the not not for podcasts, but I've certainly done stuff for events where you're the the where you're the person to come out the questions. And as long as you don't run out of questions, which can be problematic depending on how long the answer has been, but as long as you don't run out of questions, your job is easy because you just say, duh, yeah, this is the question, what do you think? And then you immediately throw the spotlight on to the person, but it was answering questions is really hard. Will you always prefer to be an observer and a commentator on rather than a contributor to? I think so. Yeah. Was that just you naturally as a person? I think so. Yeah, yeah, yeah, fair enough. And at this time of the podcast, we always finish with three questions, which are not industry related. But they are hopefully something that gives people a bit of an understanding to your character and what have you. I couldn't help but notice on your WhatsApp, the picture on your WhatsApp is sweep and sotty and sweep fame with an electric guitar. So I'm guessing music is and we've already talked about references in your newsletters, but I'm guessing music is big for you. If I was to put you on a spot and to ask you to name a sort of favorite musician or band or DJ, whoever it might be, who would who would you want to listen to? Oh God. Oh, that's that is completely on spot. Yeah, I just listened to I'm sure like everyone I listened to a lot of musical Spotify and I put together a playlist and just listen to whatever I was listening to Earth Wind and Fire this morning. I mean, that's you know, they wouldn't be a go to or they just have it to be or not wouldn't necessarily be my go to but you can listen to I am endlessly actually and I have listened to it endlessly whilst I vaguely jog. I don't run. I vaguely jog and do park runs occasionally and you can listen to to I am by Earth Wind and Fire when you're running park run and it'll make you feel good about life, which is truly what the whole point is definitely. Yeah, I've asked that question to 101 different people and never had the same answer yet. I'm surprised. I was sad Earth Wind. Because the problem with because the problem with if you into music, you're into 15 different albums that month and you don't want to highlight and also there is also that thing obviously when you say to music, you've got to be trying like I don't want to be too obvious. Yeah, you also don't want to be too obscure. Yeah, you know, that makes you a muse though. That makes someone who thinks about their musical choices rather than actually listening to music but yeah, fair enough. Six music, presumably six music. Well, yes, no, but and but realize it's false and I think there's a thing that most of it's audience is based in Brighton and most of it works in graphic design. That would make sense. All right, another one to put you on the spot and whether you're listening to this music at the same time or not is up to you but what would you last meal on Earth be? What would you like to eat? It would probably be and it probably will be a curry at Thai apps in my hall. All right. Okay, right. Curry interesting. And so in particular kind of curry or is it Thai apps? Thai apps. Very specifically Thai apps. They got they got their their dry meat, which is fantastic. Oh, okay. And they're lamb chops, which absolutely pretty very good, very good. All right, and last but not least, if you had a piece of advice for the next generation of eye gaming executives, what would it be? Treat the journalist kindly. Just shoot for the moon. Just try and do try and be American for a start and try and think like they do. That's surely the roots of being this success in gambling. So quite possibly. Scott, I appreciate you've been on the other side of the camera this time or the other side of the pen if you like. But thanks for joining us on Dive of an ICANNMex. You're welcome. Great.