iGaming Daily

Anaya McDonald (00:01.218)
Hello and welcome to the latest episode of iGaming Daily sponsored by OptiMove, the number one CRM marketing solution for the iGaming industry. Now today I'm joined by Joe Streeter, editor at iGaming Expert and one thing we're often covering when it comes to iGaming is obviously regulation and then of course the impact of the black market. So today we're going to be looking into some recent research into Indian iGaming and just how much impact the black market is having.

over there. How are you doing Joe? Yeah I'm okay thank you Danny. Thanks for having me. It's been an interesting morning in the newsroom, lots going on and we're going to talk about the black market today so always a big subject. Yeah definitely it's always quite an interesting subject as well particularly when you're looking to certain statistics behind how much of this activity is going on, how big it compares to the actual legalised market that these different countries have that we look at now.

To begin with the news that broke, can you tell us a little bit more about this research that has gone into the black market in India and who's been conducting it? Yeah, so the research came out just last week. Really interesting stuff. The report was from the All India Gaming Federation. And I think what it really highlighted was just how significant engagement in the black market in India is. Took a deep dive also into where the engagement is coming from.

We're going to go into that further but according to the report in total unlicensed betting platforms had a total of 1.6 billion visits over a three month period and this was largely a paramatch stake, one expert and battery bet, last one I've not heard of but largely from those sources. Right so obviously some quite big brands and well known.

brands being used for this activity. Now it's obviously a huge number as well at 1.6 billion even when you compare it to obviously India's massive population. Now have there been any sort of significant spikes that have been mentioned in this research that are worth noting? Yeah so one of the spikes here you won't be surprised and I mean when we just kind of discussed this topic this was one of the things you kind of mentioned that you predict this would be the case but during the IPLCs and when the IPLCs was at

Anaya McDonald (02:26.441)
specific fever pitch in terms of engagement and excitement, there was a real boost in traffic to the online iGaming market and also to the unlicensed market. And I think this is really important. I think what it shows is not just in India, but across across markets. The approach needs to be flexible. It needs to be aware that traffic is going to vary from different times of the year. So

you know, when big events happen and a really interesting element of this research really highlighted that during IPL season the traffic to the black market grew. Yeah, that's obviously such a huge competition for activity out there and lots of sports betting activity too and it's really is even not looking at the black market specifically but across so many operators we see that they're trying to tap into the IPL as much as possible just for that share.

amount of potential that it brings in terms of like traffic spikes and obviously that is relating and transferring over to the black market as well. Yeah, interestingly Zani, we've seen a growing number of, just to really highlight just how much the Indian audience engages with cricket and how positive an impact it can have on betting engagement. We've seen a growing number of Indian operators and suppliers and

the gaming industry in India partnering with cricket players and legendary cricket players to really resonate with that audience. So yeah, it is something that is so significant in that region for sure. Yeah, I think that is quite like a key sign really, isn't it? To see how these companies try and like tap into that engagement. If you see like these different sports sponsorships that have been formed or even like brand sponsorships, anything like that can really show how much these companies are trying to hone in on specific events and competitions, franchises.

Now, looking at this research, how sort of important has social media been for this impact on the black market and real exposure to players? Yeah, I think this is a really interesting point because I think it's something that is seen globally, not just, I think this is global problem in various markets, not just in the Indian market, but it's highlighted by this research.

Anaya McDonald (04:53.229)
Social media drove, I guess direct links from social media drove 42.8 million visits to the four illegal operators according to the research. And this was through ads on social media. Yeah, so that's really interesting. And I think one of the pinpoints that they specifically looked at was the exponential growth in Facebook adverts.

Obviously something that we've seen rise across various sectors, but Facebook adverts that driving players to the unlicensed gambling market is, yeah, it's an interesting factor. And I wonder if there will be more emphasis put on kind of social media firms to regulate this and to tackle this. I'm not sure. There was also more than a billion visits to illegal platforms originating from users directly entering URLs into the

into the search bar. So that indicates that past marketing efforts from these these websites or even referrals have had have had success and have left a long lasting impact so much so that players are going back and typing in the typing in the address directly into the search bar. Really interesting. And I guess the only other factor there is just the impact of streamers and affiliates. We know

that streamers and affiliates have a major impact in terms of diverting traffic. And this is no different in the Indian market. There was also, it's worth noting, referral traffic generated around 247 million visits from referral traffic. And this was primarily from adult sites, gambling affiliates, or promotions on sports and video streaming platforms. it's coming from a wide range of places.

But I think the social media traffic is one that is really one that needs to be looked at. It's growing and it's an interesting one how you even go about tackling that, especially when it comes to Facebook ads. We also saw some research not that long back that highlighted India has seen a surge in unlicensed gambling ads appearing on Instagram. yeah, it's a...

Anaya McDonald (07:17.535)
It's a problem across the board in terms of social media adverts. Yeah, mean this social media advertising is such a key issue really, we're trying to almost protect how much players are being exposed to these offerings that are obviously on the black market, maybe don't have quite the extent of responsible gambling protocols as these license operators will have. And you're just seeing them in abundance more and more. It's not just...

relative to the Indian market, it's all markets and it's interesting you pick up on Facebook advertising there. obviously I don't really use Facebook that much, I couldn't say that I've noticed anything like that but one thing I've definitely noticed is these stake advertisements that you see all over Twitter and the way that they sort of interact with popular accounts on there to try and attach their name to any sort of post that they, or like picture that they will post on their Twitter feed and

It's a very tough issue to tackle obviously the people that are running these platforms have some responsibility there to step in and make sure that these gambling advertisements are maybe either prohibited in some way or obviously reduce the impact and reduce the amount of exposure that these players have to these websites. Yeah and some of the unlicensed adverts that you see on social media platforms, the unlicensed gambling adverts that you see

They're either viciously deceptive or they are, is that a bit much? They're either incredibly deceptive or they're targeting just the most vulnerable people, highlighting that they aren't Gamban, that they will bypass Gamban and things like that. yeah, bypass, let me just make that point again, sorry.

Anaya McDonald (09:09.749)
Yeah, and some of the unlicensed operator adverts that you see on social media platforms, they're really deceptive and they're very harmful, potentially harmful. They advertise that they bypass safety blockers and safety protocols. that's really targeting the most vulnerable, which is incredibly worrying and not good for, say, for gambling in any market at all.

Anaya McDonald (09:41.613)
Do we need a break? Well, do you want me to say it like that? Yeah, yeah, these are all interesting points. We're just going to go and take a quick ad break now, and then we'll dive into sort of how the authorities are going to try and tackle these issues if they can in any way. Quick question. The reason.

I'm going mention that actually, very randomly.

Anaya McDonald (10:10.757)
mention it in kind of a different way but yeah I've got a little mention for it that's very random that you brought that up. interesting memory. Angry and then they did something yesterday where they all got to choose... that was like this new football league isn't it like power league or whatever they call it something like that. It's not really relevant to this discussion but there might be something there if you want to talk we could get somebody but yeah a separate pod yeah. Cool I don't know why that we never even discussed it beforehand.

Mmm. So, mmm. Might be a separate part. I'm betting in that shit.

Okay, so we're back talking black market activity in India. Now, obviously there needs to be some way to tackle this activity, especially if players are going to be exposed to platforms where they're not going to be as protected. What has sort been done to try and tackle this and are the steps that have been taken enough to actually reduce this amount of activity? Yeah, right now one of the key methods being utilized is website blocking. However, it's simply not having

the desired effect or the desired impact, you should say. According to the report anyway, sites are being mirrored and reutilized in order to continue engagement in the black market. And the report also points out that blocking alone has fallen short in other regions. There's no reason it would

be sufficient in India, such a big market. The regions point out like the UK, Denmark, Belgium and the United States all blocking isn't Blocking isn't enough to thwart the black market. One of the things that can be done has been highlighted is blocking payment journeys instead and taking aim at the kind of payment providers. We know there are a lot of payment providers, payment services offered on the black market.

Anaya McDonald (12:19.239)
And yeah, if they could take aim at them, that would maybe be a better way of strangling the source and halting black market engagement. There was also proposals of a white list and a black list to really educate players on what is legal and what isn't legal and what some of the risks involved. yeah, the report does, I urge anyone to go read it. It does highlight some potential.

but that's the word I'm looking for, does highlight some potential solutions to stopping the black market and some tools that can really help combat the black market. Right, and do you think really those sort of proposals that have been given there, those suggestions, do think they will really have an impact on that or do think it's maybe too tough of an issue to really tackle with these sort of tools? Well, I think education is key, right? I do think the white list and the black list is a good idea.

I do really think education is key. What time are we on, sorry?

Anaya McDonald (13:28.333)
Okay, yeah, I do really think education is key. I think in many ways, the regulated market and kind of safer gambling efforts need to learn from the success of the black market in a way. I think we saw just how successful streamers can be. We've seen that, we've seen the impact streamers have had. We know their role in kind of modern culture.

It's a little bit UK centric, but it's really a global thing. But this weekend we saw the Sidemen versus the YouTube All-Stars, which was just a whole myriad of streamers from different sectors come together and sell out Wembley Stadium, watched by millions of people. These people resonate with audiences. If you could bring them in to promote not using the black market and to promote safer gambling messages rather than just let them be utilized. If you could bring them in.

to promote safer gambling and to promote safer gambling messages. I think that could have an impact. think they've got to look at strong marketing techniques in terms of boosting education around the threat of the black market. It's an interesting idea that it's almost like fighting fire with fire when you see a lot of these social media platforms, social media influencers being used to advertise these black market activities. You could in the same sense use them to

educate or inform of the dangers of these offerings. Now speaking a bit more on that sort of advertising and that exposure to these black market platforms, how are the sort of authorities or the people that produce this report, how do they sort of expect to reduce the impact of this advertising?

So the more part of, yeah so we did see, we are noticing like a stronger clamp down in advertising, offshore gambling advertising in India. We saw

Anaya McDonald (15:37.08)
We are seeing a stronger effort to clamp down on this type of advertising. I will say that in this report kind of does follow some efforts from a multitude of bodies, including the Advertising Standards Council of India, who signed a memorandum of understanding towards a couple of months ago, towards the end of last year, I think. They linked up with the Federation of Indian Fantasy Sports, the All India Gaming Federation, who wrote this report.

and the E-Gaming Federation in India to establish a framework to address these challenges through a special monitor and cell that focuses on screening and reporting offshore betting and gambling advertisements to the concerned ministry. So a real conscious effort there to strangle the source in which adverts come through to Indian consumers. And they're really aiming to illegal to

they're really aiming to kind of surface and show illegal ads and also strengthen compliance of, yeah, they're really aiming to surface illegal ads and root them out from being viewed by consumers. Right, and I think that's about all to speak about on India at the moment. Obviously, it's a very important nation to talk about, largely just because of the huge population that is there, something that

It doesn't often come up on when recovering things and I game an expert but when it does it's definitely an interesting region to take a look in. while... A growing technical framework as well like a growing data usage, more mobile usage, more technological penetration and with that you need to adapt the framework to kind of adjust to the potential threats that come with that I guess.

Yeah, definitely sort of an influx of this technology and the sort of impact that a growing use of social media will be having out there as well as we've touched on is clearly having some influence on the amount of black market activity. But before we sort of round out this podcast, we've got a few minutes left. We just wanted to maybe switch the conversation quite a lot, quite far away from India and look at the Premier League and sports betting at the moment.

Anaya McDonald (17:57.58)
So obviously the league hasn't been won but my team Liverpool is almost running away with it you could say. Relegation is looking almost guaranteed to be the three teams that came up and there's still what 10, 11, I think it's 10 games left remaining in the season so still a lot of time left until one of like the most prolific competitions for sports betting operators finishes.

Lots of action, lots of action still to play. Lots of action still to come but with those sort of big outright markets almost looking like they have been decided and obviously I think we've seen Paddy Power have already paid out on Liverpool to win the league, Betfred have already paid out on Liverpool to win the league. Where can these operators sort of look to be creative in terms of finding different ways to like see more engagement with Premier League betting? Well I am going to, you've asked me about Premier League betting so

My answer is kind of a bit of a detour and I'm going to fire the question back at you too because I think you might have a few opinions on it. But I think you've just got to just scale down a little bit and look at the EFL. Some of the football in the EFL, some of the races in the EFL are fantastic. You've got the top of the championship, obviously still very much three teams in a race for the top two and the title. Braves are close, Leeds lost at the weekend.

That is right back on. Burnley just don't concede any goals. Really good race there. And then go down a little bit further and you've got the playoff race. So many teams could still get that playoff spot. So many informed teams. And if you're asking me, I think it's going to be super Frank Lampard's Coventry are going to get it. They're just brilliant. Down again, you've got Luton looking at consecutive relegations, be unprecedented that. So you have some real stories there.

Even if you want to drop a little further than that, you've got such a great race at the top of League One with obviously Wrexham drawing a lot of global eyes. That's one that could get a lot of interest. I think that's one that operators can tap into the Wrexham story. They're looking like they could get top two. I think maybe the TV platforms and even the betting operators will be hoping they fall into the playoffs because I think they're just in the playoffs at the moment, but we'll be hoping they stay there because

Anaya McDonald (20:21.311)
If so, the narrative around Wrexham in the playoffs, potentially getting to Wembley against a big team like, yeah, but a Bolton or a Wigan or somebody like that. think that will be a, no, not a Wigan. What am I talking about? Wigan. Yeah. Potentially get into a Wembley final in the playoffs. Wrexham would be quite the story and would draw real globalized. So some really interesting narratives there.

But yeah, how about you Danny? What do you think? Are you going to give me a Premier League angle? I realise I've copped out there a little bit and not giving you anything from the Premier League. Well, I thought you were going to mention the race for the top of the league too. Bradford City are looking to catch on Walsall, which I'd be happy about if they did. But yeah, in the Premier League, think you've still got to look at the top side of the table, right? Even though Liverpool are almost running away with it, like I said, and Arsenal look to be getting into second place, you can still look at who is going to qualify for the Champions League. And I think

with the way the coefficient is working out it looks like it's going to be likely that five teams are going to I'm not sure if it's guaranteed yet or not but five teams might be going up this year so there's lots of bets that could be made there in terms of which team finishes in the top five because you've got like Forrest who you'd never imagine would have been there at the start of season Man City obviously don't look like themselves at the minute Chelsea have had a good first half of the season but have really been sort of lacking in quality in recent games

And then you've got like a real sort of roulette of teams with Bournemouth, Brighton, Newcastle all around there if I'm missing anyone out then apologies, but I think that's definitely that's definitely an interesting race towards the end of season. You raise an interesting point though about the coefficient because I wonder how hard that is to price for betting operators because do you have to signify that who's gonna get top four rather than who's gonna get Champions League football because right now we don't know if that

top four or top five so yes a tricky one to price I guess you just have to clarify who's gonna finish in the top four or the top five rather than who's gonna get Champions League football if you know what I mean yeah I mean you'd imagine it's it's either like a finished top four or finish top five are we all right yeah it says Joe stop recording that's all

Anaya McDonald (22:38.333)
is it because my... it won't have been long.

His voice will be recorded though, won't it? And we won't be using this bit in the clips because... your voice is going to be recorded anyway. So is that okay? Yeah, we won't be using the Premier League stuff in the clips anyway, will we sir? Don't worry. Alright, I'll on. Yeah, I'd imagine that it's going to be like a top four, top five sort of thing or surely there's going be a much trickier way of doing it if you could do it any other way. But that's all we've got time for today. A nice little bit of football chat at the end for us there.

But thanks for tuning in to the latest episode of iGaming Daily. We'll leave all the appropriate links in the description of the episode and we'll catch you on the next one. Thank you.