iGaming Daily

Andrew McCarron (00:00.322)
Hi, welcome. I'm going to love today's podcast. I'm Andrea, Andrea McGeekin, I'm the CEO of Neosurf, payments company in this industry, and I'm really happy to be here today. Introducing you to Craig Conforth. Have I said that right, Craig? You did, you did. I'm impressed with that. Impressed with that. Before we start talking, we've got to talk about our sponsor. And it's OptiMove, as it has been and always still is supporting. So OptiMove are the number one CRM marketing solution for the gaming industry and the gaming market.

and they're sponsors of today's podcast. Wonderful. Good morning. Yeah. How are you? I'm really good. Delighted to be here. We should really tell the people listening how you and I first started to talk because you were on a panel and we'll talk about what you talked about then. And I was listening to you and couldn't quite cope with, are you a Geordie or are you a Scouser? And when we talked, we got to the point where you said, well I slowed me Geordie accent down when I'm on a panel.

So we discovered that if you take a Geordie accent and slow it down, it turns out to sound Scouse, right? It seemed that way. And the other thing I think we both very quickly recognized was that you became Scouser. I started talking my own language. I like Jimmy Nail as he was speaking. it's something obviously... happen today. It could, it could. Worst things could happen. Well, nobody else knows me in this industry with a Scouse accent, but I think we're about to find out. I'm privileged. Yeah, privileged. Now...

You've got lovely stories to tell. And I just want you to start by telling us your story in case people don't know it. Tell us your story. Right. It's something I'm very fortunate to do an awful lot of, obviously working in the industry now. Just over three years, I've worked for Epic Global Solutions, a couple of different areas, but going back a bit as to how I got here. And I've been a user of the industry for most of my life. Love gambling. Yeah.

sort of translated the end of it into an addiction that led us into a really dark place. I've never held any any grievance or a saying. I've never had a dog in the fight to blame anybody for what happened to me other than myself really. It was a huge sports fan come from a large family in the northeast of England. All loved football, proper football.

Andrew McCarron (02:20.46)
not how the Americans call Well you know I don't agree with that but that's all about teams. That's the teams, we'll leave that one for the moment exactly. And it was, I've always very competitive growing up, know, we were, there was five boys in the household, you had to win and there was always a winner and a loser, something I still don't have a problem with today. So I think that would be something that once professionally, I went into sales, I was a car dealer pretty much all of my life, risk involved in that, something that I really enjoyed. But.

The emergence of online gambling really suited my personality. The challenge of that and the accessibility, I think, was the main difference for me. So it manifested in the end to try and shorten the doubts. I'm aware that I can go on forever to a gambling addiction, which I lost my house, my job. Very, very nearly went to jail. Had an attempt, a suicide attempt on my own life and ended up at 47 having to move back to my parents with...

essentially nothing really. I had a really good job that I loved, I was very successful at, and I ended up stealing money from that business to fund what became my only thing in the world. That was important to me, which was gambling. Seven years, just over seven years ago, October the 7th, 2017 was my last bet. And for the last three and a bit years, I feel blessed really to be able to come and see the change in the industry since that time. Still a long way to go.

But in my role at Epic, I managed to work directly with industry, with operators. It's where we met in Malta. And I think the interesting part of it for me in that particular panel that we were at, and we do a lot of them, we see each other a lot, was that there was maybe 200 people in an incredible venue, all looking in the same direction to try and make the industry better. I was the only person in that room who had a gambling addiction. So for the rest of that morning, every time it was mentioned, everyone looked at me, which was a bit strange.

but it gives me opportunities like this. And I believe that not only can it be, is it a moral issue, a professional issue, a sustainable issue, but I'm more disappointed that I can't have a bet. I've been lost to the industry. Look what you're doing now. I agree. I was fascinated by that panel, which is why I came up. I was fascinated by the accent first and then fascinated by the panel. I'm okay with that. That's good.

Andrew McCarron (04:41.934)
Because it's, that's what it needs an in, Everybody needs an in. And that's why Kevin made a beeline for you, so we had the conversation. But actually that panel was quite fundamental. I've been to those symposiums, many of them, and it is a lot of people in the industry trying to work out what to do. How can I do that? What do the players want? How do they want to do it? And in America, it's, they're trying to get to a point where they don't end up how we are in Europe and being told what to do.

We're actively working on that and on the side of that. Some of the things that you and your colleagues do though, is really smart. I can't remember the girl's name, I was in Toronto and she's the doctor.

Yeah, and she just had an accident. So she came up with the crutches. So again, yours was the accident, hers was the crutches I first saw. But she talks about her relationship and her, I think was it her brother or son that lost something? And she talks about take that second breath. There's things that you guys have that really can help feed information to people who might go down that path or part way down that path. Agreed.

I mean, it's certainly the ethos of our business is preventative, not, you know, not reactive. Not out of ego or not because we say we know better than anyone. If anything, the opposite of that really, because we're not telling people. think one of the sort of two part of reply back to your points you made is I'll come on to the North American market in a moment, but we're still not doing it right in the UK. We're still not doing it right for the UK facing market.

And my belief of that is from someone who's been very successful commercially in a number of areas throughout my career. I'm 53. I've worked since I was 15. So I've had three decades of working in different businesses. The gambling addiction part of my life's the smallest part of my life, really. And it's quite often magnified and almost laser focused looked upon as that's all we can talk about. My belief is that the strides that we'll make in this industry is when

Andrew McCarron (06:51.182)
The things that we, Epic, and all of our other, I don't believe we have competitors, I believe they're colleagues, because everyone's got a different space to work Well, not that I am aware of, no. You guys in the work that we do, you know, there's room for everybody. You know, there's more people who might, or perhaps are prevalent to having a problem than there is who've had it. Because everyone has that capability of going into, of doing something for too much. I've got it in my DNA, think. But we need to change.

almost like a click of the dial to a mindset of the industry to not think that we are a threat. I've been a car dealer all my life. I love profit. I love making money. it's no, we shouldn't be afraid to say that. That we want our customers to be a customer forever, not for that World Cup or that. And I still believe that there's a little bit of a gap in that, both from an operator's perspective, whether it's a payment provider, whether it's somewhere that it just seems to not be the symmetry together.

You're my passion now. Well, it's true. I mean, I'm really banging the drum and I'll carry on doing it. I don't care if anybody wants to shoot me down. Payments companies, we have an accountability. A deposit starts from the payment company. 100%. And we should all be part of this. It's not just the operator. And in North America, we've got a chance because the regulators are embracing that. And talk to you. Have a great conversation. Not quite the same over here. We've actually got more difficult things to do here in Europe, I think. Yeah, I think so.

But payment companies got to do it. Well, I used them. And I look back at it, and I use my lived experience from that in so much as that it feels like 70 years ago, not seven years ago, when I look at the progress as we've gone on from almost every angle. I've been really, really fortunate to have worked with hundreds of customer-facing teams from tier one operators all around the world, some of which have become really close friends and have asked for, I can never give advice because all I've got is proof of how badly I did it.

but I can show how perhaps not to do it, you know, what the potential could be. But there was only three people on earth could see what happened to me, and that was myself. But unfortunately, I was in the eye of the storm then, and an addict doesn't see what he's doing, which is, or she, which is causing the problem as harm, because that was the only thing that made me feel human and normal. Right. Was the thing that was destroying us, and that's indicative of pretty much any addiction. It is, yeah.

Andrew McCarron (09:16.748)
The second one would be my bank who could see that I was transferring tens of thousands of pounds through, although I earned a lot of money. There was more money all of a sudden and there was spikes and troughs and in transactions up and down. And the third one was the operator and the joint responsibility between three of us, because it was all digital. It was all online gambling, not my problematic gambling. And none of us did anything about it. And even if you want to look at it from the point of view that it was my fault and I accept that fully.

I've spoken to the my bank, took a lot of begging, pleading, because they thought I was just going to say, want my money back now, please. I just wanted to know whether it could happen today. And it could, because of the account that I had, can. And I class a bank in the payments piece of all of this. It's anybody to do with the money going into the operator. know. I can see patterns. Well, their point was, because I had by this stage, I had such a terrible

credit score I'd ruined it all I had every I had 27 payday loans I had multiple credit cards which had maxed out and only about 18 months ago managed to get paid off I had the worst bank account that you could get so I couldn't borrow any money I couldn't get an overdraft and the stock line I was getting back from the bank when I was speaking to them I was trying to promise them I'm not trying to pull the wool over their eyes here was that no if you had a better bank account and

you had an overdraft, then you would have an account manager who would have noticed this. Oh, fab. How great's that? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And so did they offer you that overdraft at the time? Well, they didn't because I wish they had. Well, I probably had already used it and exhausted it, be honest. And then the operator side of it was that they didn't have the progress we've got now. They didn't have the teams that they've got now. didn't have the, the markers of harm weren't the same. We didn't have the same AI. So yes, it could happen again.

It's something we speak about a lot at Epic. Until the person who unfortunately gets into this position accepts their own responsibility, you're never going to get better. You're never going to understand it. And we do know that's the same with all addictions. So prevention and education is where you guys come from. Every time I watch what you guys are doing, hopefully we're going to be doing some things together. Tell us how...

Andrew McCarron (11:36.374)
the audience a bit of an insight to the kind of things that you guys do? So we've grown dramatically. That's our sort of hamstrung a little bit because we can't go and employ a thousand people that come and do the job. We could get the work for it, but you don't advertise my role in the job. It's difficult to, you know, and it has to also be somebody who does it. It sounds really cheesy, this, but as a passion, as a, you know, it feels more than a job to everyone I work with there. And we're really lucky to do it.

We've spoke to over 50,000 children in secondary education over the last five years. Not young enough, that's difficulty we have because we get told that you're putting ideas in kids' heads. Well, obviously you've never had kids to speak to because that's absolutely not they're all gaming. Absolutely. gaming's got an attic element to it. If I hear the word Roblox in my house ever again.

Alright, So the microtransactions came out then? Yeah, didn't it? When you're angry. But we do that, work hugely in professional sport. We have an enormous contract with the NCAA in North America. Go around the colleges of the future athletes and future superstars with an amazing lived experience team in the US of ex-professional sports people, including a current baseball player. I do a little bit of work with them. I was across from Dallas with them.

And then our teams in the UK, is genuinely like a family, know, they say for gambling stuff that we do, that we've got people from all sorts of business backgrounds who will go and I'm a really visual person. I don't know whether it's why gambling appealed to me as much because numbers I love, risk I love, and my brain's really quick at that sort of thing. And I love the image of when we say, instead of pulling people out of the river, we should be going earlier down there to stop them getting in.

And it's initially my always think of that as money is the first thing that comes to my mind, which is why I get on with people in this industry, I think. I just think we've got 52 members of staff at the last count. That may be wrong at time of this going out, we're always looking to expand, of which just over half of them have been where I have been, have been in the darkest of times with lived experience of gambling addiction. But nobody of their blames anybody other than themselves and are all passionate about trying to make it better.

Andrew McCarron (13:53.132)
And there's a little line that I use quite often in the training that I used to do is it didn't need to get as bad as it did for me. So it doesn't have to for the next one. It'll always be there. Let's not be naive about it because it's about humans and adults who make poor choices. But I think we can make better choices from this side of the fence to try and keep them safer longer. It's a really good purpose to have. It is. And the operators are embracing that training for their own players or? It's, it's, there's too many.

involved with writing the checks and running the companies who look like me, who are, you know, people who've been in the industry in the good old or the bad old days, who still a little bit think we are going to come in with a Gideon Bible telling them how bad gambling is. And it's quite the opposite. It's quite the opposite. I haven't heard the Gideon Bible in years. Well, that's because we're of a similar age. Yeah, they're not in the hotel rooms anymore. No, they're not there anymore, are they? I do look still.

There's nothing in the drawers anymore. So it's just, and at times I have to temper my enthusiasm for it and not sound like I'm sort of tub thumping to say gambling's great because it is. And the prohibition hasn't worked since the dinosaurs were on the earth, you know, and I like to simplify things almost to the point where are we saying, because I made a mess of my life through my own volition, perhaps could have been helped at my mother can't go to the bingo now.

Just doesn't make sense. Right. My grandfather, my father's father was a bookie for a period of his life. He did all sorts. We were scouts and would make money as any way he could. Essentially he was a wholesaler, but he took the time as a bookie. And my dad put a bet on the horses every single day. I grew up in a family that at tea time, it would be, did you win on the horses, dad? That was a natural conversation. Yeah, I get that. I think I bet on about four horse races a year.

and that's kind of part of my family heritage to think, that's what I'm doing. But that was a habit. I don't know whether it got into an addiction because he was still doing it. But the language of that's interesting though is where does a habit become an addiction? And there's also be a social element to that. You see a lot of the old timers who go in and see the same people in the same venues, have the same cup of tea, read the racing post, do whatever they do. COVID was a great example of that. There was an awful lot of people who lost their friendship groups.

Andrew McCarron (16:12.866)
and would be something that they did through gambling. You might only be spending a pound a day. So it's people like me who caused the trouble, who gambled beyond their means and then had to find... The only question I had to ask myself when I woke up every morning was, am I going to gamble today? And I answered that instantaneously. The next question was, where am I going to get the money from?

That wasn't relevant really because I knew if I bet it made us feel better. So that's when it became problematic. This is where you talk about that prevention and we're going to end the podcast in a minute. Yeah. But I really do need to talk with you and your colleagues about using that information and knowing where is the prevention, who are you talking to, talking to the kids in schools. 100 % education, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. But before we close this podcast and thank you for all of that honesty and

Useful, so useful, it doesn't even start to describe how you bring information to us. But I do have one beef. Yeah? You wear a black and white striped football shirt. Do. And tell me that that's what you have to do because of where you grew up. And I grew up in Liverpool and I support Arsenal. And you, can you just tell the story of what you've done to your stepson? Well, it's, I think... it's terrible.

People, I've been very lucky that in recovery you get lot of plaudits and in GA rooms and I still do a lot as much as I can to pay back. I've been fortunate enough to have to be pretty much healthier in my life. I've got a lovely family my parents are still about but I think my greatest achievement in my life is meeting my little lad who's my stepson now when he was seven years old was a Sunderland fan and he now has Newcastle posters on his wall. I sent them to his grandparents on Christmas Day in a Newcastle tracksuit.

and we even have a black and white dog and they live in Sunderland so I'm trying to make the bloodline a little bit better over that side of the water. you've switched him from the red and white to the black and white which is just fantastic. That's like turning a scarce Liverpool fan into It's the only bet I've ever won. Oh there you was a success of that. Perfect way to finish. It is. Craig that's been fantastic talking to you again. thanks Andrea. Thanks for sharing with everybody I think that's really cool that you've done that. No problem. Thank you. Goodbye.