iGaming Daily

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We believe that we're constantly in the spotlight, that everybody's watching us. And that's how we perceive things, which is obviously not true, right? Nobody cares, actually. Nobody cares about your mistakes and like whatever. It's only you that cares so much about it. Hello and welcome to the iGaming Daily Podcast. This episode is brought to you by Optimove, the creator of positionless marketing and the number one player engagement solution for iGaming and sports betting operators. Today's an important episode we're talking decision making and mental health in such a complex and fast moving industry like iGaming. I'm Joe Streeter, the editor of iGaming Expert and for a special episode today I'm joined by Leo Judkins from iGaming Leaders and Tom Galanis from Tag Media. uh Tom, how are you? Everything well? Very good. Thank you, Joe. Very good. I'm just I skipped the Molta show. I was taking some soul cleansing time off seeing the boss in Chicago last week. So I am energized. Nice, nice. It was a brilliant show. So, yeah, make sure you check out on SBC Connect and Leo, how are you always, always energized, always raring to go as well? Yeah. I'm doing great, mate. How are you? Yeah. I'm, uh, yeah, steady enough, uh, steady enough excited for, uh, yeah. I'm at the boxing this weekend at the, uh, Dubois Wardley fight. So I'm pretty excited. Loving the week, but yeah, I'm ready for some, some, some good fights at the weekend, but, that's by the by, uh, you had me thinking about that with this, uh, this, this podcast, because it is a performance based podcast, right? It's about mental health. It's about, uh, yeah, looking after yourself. Um, and I wanted to kind of go into that and, just, just go straight off the bat and ask you guys, um, I think this is a really pertinent question and it's kind of something that you, you know, you, you deal with often when, when you're in a management role. Um, but what are some of the difficult decisions that you have had to make in your careers? Um, or some of the common decisions that need to be made in iGaming. Yeah. So for me, probably the hardest decision was, um, was resigning from, from bed Victor. was in a. stable career, well paid, secure on a good trajectory. And I walked away from that role to start my own business just over five years ago. And what made that really hard is because I love my job, actually, I really enjoyed it. It was in the middle of COVID. I just signed my first mortgage, uh two kids uh living in a foreign country. And uh the hard bit is that like Tom will contest to this is that it's very difficult to find people to talk to about starting a business. Most people don't understand they are in a secure role they're waiting for whatever it is for a payout or their uh pension plan and it's difficult to find people to kind of talk through those decisions and um yeah in iGaming I think that's often true as well. It's a very unique industry, obviously very high paced, high pressure. And a lot of the decisions that you've got to talk through are not just strategic, they're kind of existential, know, whether to leave, whether to sell, whether to step back, whether to fire somebody that you respect. um Yes, I think those are some of the common threads. Leo, that's really interesting. um I wanted to ask you just to follow up on that if that's okay, just because you mentioned, you know, we're in iGaming. It's always very forward thinking, you know, the World Cup's coming up, we've got a new product coming out, we're going into new markets. um It very much sounds, and I've kind of kept track of your story on LinkedIn, you're very good at documenting what you do, I think, to your credit. um But sometimes you need to step away from that and then step back to step forward. How challenging is that to do in iGaming? It's funny, isn't it? I, uh, I was talking to Finton Finton about it a while back. He, uh, so he calls people that come from outside the industry. He calls them civilians, right? Because you get, you get like this, let's say this brand manager from Coca-Cola or something to come into the, into the iGaming and they go, they do their once a year big campaign and they've got months of preparation for that one campaign. And yeah, of course we've got the world cup coming up. But then, you know, the next thing will be like a few weeks later and then the next thing and then the next thing and it just doesn't stop. And and that's just talking about big events, right? Like we've we've got slots, launches, we've got regulatory changes, we've got market, you know, market volatility, we've got tax hikes, we've got all sorts of stuff that we've got to deal with and it just never stops. So the difficulty is exactly that, Joe, is that, OK, how do you from something where you're almost drinking from a fire hose, how do you step back and kind of you know, pop up your head to think about, okay, am I still doing the right thing? Am I strategically making sound decisions? Because when you're always making decisions at pace, of course you can't consider everything. And yeah, that's where it's really important to step back, to talk to others, to, you know, to do some strategic thinking and, and, and, and really to clear your head and, to remove some of that pressure. Interesting. Tom, I'll bring you in there to follow up. Yeah, I think Leo's thought on a very good point about having the time to think strategically, never mind tactically, we're on the fly. We work in an incredibly busy industry, it's event driven, particularly work in sports, but to Leo's point, even if you work in gaming, the same applies. Lay on top of that all of the events that happen within the industry. it doesn't give you the time to reflect overly. And when you do turn up to events, the projection that most businesses, most leaders in those businesses put forward is one of eternal success, even in spite of challenges that we know every business faces in this industry. But for me, I could point near to answer the initial question about uh difficult decisions. We will all face these as leaders. guess your interpretation of what is difficult. I guess, to the point, letting good people go is always uh a challenge. But for something specific, I have one fairly recently, and that was to divest from our UK affiliate asset, Punters Lounge. As everybody is aware, the market conditions in the UK have changed fairly recently. And I just decided, looking at our numbers, the data told me that frankly, it was going to be too tough to continue on the margin that we had. And I decided to exit at a price point that was just unthinkable a couple of years ago. know, a big part of the iGaming leader mastermind was invaluable for that. But ultimately, I'd already made my decision knowing the data. So, you know, I made a decision that actually we needed to really be focused on B2B, the B2B intersection of a food operator and game studio and continue to develop the products that we have and to evolve new products too. But it was quite a consequential moment when actually came to signing the agreement because, as I said, I was cutting my losses to an extent and it made it even more challenging and it happened the same day that the, probably on SBC, frankly, that the blockbuster deal between Genius Sports and Legend was announced, which by my reckoning was roughly 6,000 times greater the exit than I was about to sign. But I did have the conviction to go through it. I was actually on the chatting to Leo at the time when all of this happened. And I think it is very difficult as a leader, particularly in a bootstrap business where we don't have shareholders, there's certain things I... can and can't talk to the leaders in my business about. This, to an extent, was one of them. So it was a big challenge to actually go through with that. But having a clear mission, a clear vision of what you want to do is vital in such moments. Yeah, that's a great example, to be honest, a really pertinent and recent example. Tom, obviously you mentioned that you talk to Leo, you talk to your colleagues, you talk to industry comrades and people that are kind of in the trenches with you in a different type of way. Is it important also to, even if not from a business sense, but just from a human sense, to talk to your loved ones and people that are close to you, your civilian friends, so to speak? Is there a value in those conversations as well? I think so, yes, but probably to resonate with Fitton's point, they just don't know. They don't know what it's like. There's a line, isn't there? No one is a soprano's line, isn't it? Nobody knows what it's like to be number one. But yeah, I obviously I've talked to my wife, you know, about it. I've spoken to friends, particularly those of a financial background. But I'm naturally an introvert at heart and I keep a lot to myself and... Yeah, decision was mine and mine alone. And yeah, you, you, I don't like burdening people with that responsibility, frankly, but it's certainly important to do so. And within the iGame, I needed a mastermind. I was able to have such discussions and things from one was like, yeah, screw it, man. Just take it into a different market. Easier said than done. uh Others, won't name names, suggested that we could just pivot it into black market. which for me, and I this is a really important point, you know, in terms of leadership, terms of decision making, you everybody has their core beliefs, their moral values, which, you know, as a business owner, business leader, you hope that this translates to the company culture, the direction of the company, the vision of the company. And under no circumstances would I have entertained that idea. Yeah, that's a very good point, because, you know, it's not a cookie cutter approach for each kind of leader or manager. It's different. Everybody has their own approach and as much as you can learn, you can't copy paste. It's a different approach for everyone. And yeah, I also wanted to take note that the sopranos reference, you've got a Tony soprano style piece of artwork on the wall. This is very cool. like it. I would pay tribute. That is a park top and Lester Pigott. Funny story about that, actually. I once had a call with Jamie Pigott, who is Lester's son. And uh that was in the background. It was very odd having a video call with someone's dad in the painting behind me. Yeah. Interesting. Very, that's very cool. And Leo, Leo, to keep on with the kind of flow. What is it like to be in a position where you know a decision needs to be made for the upside of the business? It has to be made for the good of the business, but there is a personal or emotional cost with that decision. Yeah, great question. It kind of goes to Thomas point, right? A lot of these decisions actually, they don't have a clear answer. There is no, you know, left or super clear left or right. A lot of it is just interpretation and best knowledge and, you know, kind of bouncing around ideas. I remember when when I first moved into into gaming was was actually a poker strategy. They were we were one of the first five to move to Gibraltar from this company in Hamburg when the poker industry was still big. It grew to 400 employees in a really short period of time, became the biggest uh poker affiliate in the world, did something like 80 % of poker stars, FTDs or something. But then the whole poker market collapsed because the FBI raided full tilt and poker stars, right? And um yeah, of course, as an affiliate, the whole our entire business collapsed as well as a result of that. I had to make 80 people redundant. And I knew about that, like weeks before, weeks before the actual announcement of having to make these people redundant. But these were all people that, you know, we had moved abroad with. These are friends and people that, you know, I was out with at night and would have dinner with and I knew their wives and the kids and they had uprooted their entire lives. in that period of having to do that redundancy, that's probably the hardest. hardest period in my, been the hardest period in my career because you can't talk to anybody about it, right? You can't talk to those guys about it. You got to keep it confidential. You also can't really, like, it's really hard to decide who you're making redundant, who you want to retain. It's very difficult to then focus on the high performers that you want to, that you want to retain afterwards. So all of that was super difficult. I did it. We did a, we did a group announcement. 80 people made redundant. And then two weeks later, well, I promised them it would not happen again. Two weeks later, we have to do another 40. And it's because we hadn't made the right decisions. And so these are decisions that are, to your question, for the good of the business, but come at a very heavy personal emotional cost that you can't do anything with. personally, that affected me so much that I decided to leave with that second round of redundancies. I think the hardest decisions in in general aren't the ones with bad options. They're just the ones where like every option almost comes at a personal cost and you're the only one that can choose which decision that is. Leo, do feel like you have to kind of be too, yeah, there's kind of two versions of yourself in that situation. There's, know, Leo that is in the bar, it's just Leo the man that, you know, chilled guy is in the bar watching the football, whatever you do in your spare time, you're just a... a human guy and then there's Leo the the businessman um and you have it's really important not to blur the lines in that situation between those two not different characters but you know two different personalities two different people that you have to be. Yeah, it's a great question. For a long time, I thought that was the case. And for me, that came with a lot of as a result of that, a lot of that came with imposter syndrome as a result, because I felt I had to pretend to be somebody that I was not. As soon as I decided in a business or the other way around, as soon as I decided in a business environment that this is just the guy that you're going to get and I don't have all the answers and I don't know and I screw up all the time as well. Like that's when all of that imposter stuff kind of left and it became a lot easier. In fact, At SPC Lisbon last year, I met a guy whose name is Mikko and he was one of the people affected by those redundancy rounds. we had a, like I ran into him randomly afterwards at the bar across from the exit at SPC and we had a few beers, probably a few too many. And he told me the story about that period that I just mentioned about the redundancies. And he said, what I always really appreciated about you then is how open and honest you were about everything. for the things that you could actually say. And both started crying and like the beers probably crying, right? But that was such a cool, um for me that was a real personal highlight because for all those years, whatever it was, 15 years, I'd been holding onto that feeling that I had made this horrible decision that had affected so many of my friends back then. And just hearing from him that it was, he felt I handled it well was great, it was awesome. Wow. um Yeah, that's quite a story. I'm kind of glad that you got to have that moment in Lisbon where not closure, but you got to have a nice moment with someone that you'd been through kind of something quite traumatic with. So yeah, that's quite the story. And I think on that story is a good place to go for an ad break. We'll wipe the tears and come back and continue. yeah. Learn how OptiMove's positionalist marketing is changing how iGaming teams operate. Discover how operators are using OptiMove's positionalist marketing platform to launch personalised CRM campaigns, dynamically change casino lobbies and bet slips and create engaging game-wide experiences. Learn more at OptiMove.com. Welcome back to the iGaming Daily. And Tom, this next question is one for you, definitely, because I think, you know, based on the story that you told in the first half of the episode, em very recent story. You know, when you're dealing with what we might call data driven decisions, as it felt like you were, you know, you were crunching the numbers. How do you recognize when you have enough data to enact the decision and you, you have to just show that conviction. Yeah, I think, you know, data. I mean, expression data never lies. It's probably not true, right? You can sort of steer you in a steering a certain direction, but the decision to execute on a decision is one of eternal gut instinct, built on experience. And obviously, the more experiences you have, the better your instinct is. I mean, in the day, you know, when the data does present something. There's always another way, there's a way to take a different decision. But I think if you are clear and as crystal clear as you can ever be, and you're always going to doubt in these moments that the vision you have for your business, your company, the company's culture uh is strong and you need that to remain true, then the guttural instinct is telling you, if it's telling you to make that decision, go make that decision. The data guides ensure. to be overwhelmingly convincing, of course, in certain instances. But there's always a way, and it's certainly a challenge as a bootstrap business owner, when you might sit back and say, I could hold this decision off for another month or two. I won't pay myself. I'll keep this employee in place, uh even though the revenue isn't there this month. And it looks like it won't be next month. But perhaps, perhaps we could. we could find a new client or find a new revenue stream. But it's always a challenge to back your gut instinct. And the data can support that either way, I find. To go back to the previous question under that Leo, that talk about letting good people go, obviously it's brutal. And I've had to let some... very good people in my business go in the past, many of whom become very good friends. Many leadership gurus will tell you that you need to build separation as a boss and your team. Boss first, in some cases only. I don't buy into that at all. think authenticity is key when hard decisions need to be made. I probably do script out what I'm going to say to to staff members because it is a painful, painful experience. And you just got to get to the man, you know, I do waffle on as probably comes across sometimes on these podcasts, guess the number of it and say what you have to say. But I think in the, in between the lines and after the event, the authenticity is what counts. And, you know, the data can always tell you one thing. Your team can look at that data, perhaps not understand the data, like you might. The fallout from that has to be reflected in an authentic version of yourself. that whoever's left in the business, if that's the decision you need to make, uh or if you're actually part of your business or the entire business, one, you can live with it. And two, you can get people to follow and rally behind you. So for me, data is... ask the question data is it gets you gets you to a point and then you got instincts based on experience gets you over the line one way or the other. Sorry, Tom. What I just wanted to add to that as well, think is that very often, especially the really hard decisions, right? We want to have like 100 % data. We want to have more data because we want to be 100 % sure. But I think it's often kind of a proxy almost for you know, the discomfort of making a really hard decision because there is, you will never get to a hundred percent, right? So because it's, because the hard decisions are so uncomfortable, you almost want to wait for more data or you want to wait for it to solve itself somehow. I think that's the, you often talk about it, Tom, right? Having the conviction to actually make that decision, I think is key and then sticking with it. Yeah. Exactly. It's painful. Everybody in every line of work, whether you're leading a company or whether you're an employee in a company, is going to experience a painful moment in their career. I think, your example, Leo, with Mikkel and that experience you have with him, it's a shame it took 15 years for that moment to happen, of course, because you've been holding on to it. And we do hold on to these things as leaders because, does the person affected really want to speak to you? Do they want to know you? My hope is that, you know... I rarely fall out with people, I would say. And think a lot of that is because what you see is what you get generally. And every decision I make, if it's a bad one that affects somebody's job, it's incredibly painful and that will tend to come across. uh Even if in that moment, uh clearly the employer's really only thinking of themselves and their family. But as I said, what's important is what comes after. both with that individual, if you ever speak to them again, but certainly within the team that remains because that is vital that you can really convey that we have to make this decision. And one, the data told us to do this, but really it's about ensuring that your one, it sits with your moral compass and two, it aligns with the company's strategy. safeguarding future of the company and making sure that the mission, the vision for the company is, remains intact and strong. Yeah, that's a, that's tough, Tom, right? The, you know, once you've kind of, you've had to destabilize the ship a little bit, you've had to kind of destabilize the boots on the ground a little bit to bring back people back on board. You know, they've just seen their colleagues go. They've just seen all this deep destabilization, all this turmoil, uh, to bring them back in and to bring the division back into focus. That's a, that's a real tough ask, right? It is. To be honest, it didn't really start happening until we started scaling the business up in last few years. As an agency, you have a client base, you look to add to that client base, but there's inevitably a and market conditions dictate that. What's happened in UK market alongside selling our asset in the UK, our agency lost four of its major clients, all UK focused businesses because of cost cutting. With that, had to lose some very good people. People who are understanding, obviously those that remain, but they want to look at you and go and listen to what you're saying and really believe what you're saying. I like to think that nobody in my team sees me reaping the rewards of the business overly. For me, it's about the company culture. is the number one mission statement for us is to ensure that those within the business can achieve what they need to achieve in this business. And obviously if you leave this business, you can go on to achieve great things. And that's something that before I started scaling up the company, was concerned about hiring good people and then having to let them go fairly quickly if the book said, we can't keep hold of them. And actually I had another leisure guru before I met Leo in a chapter called Phil Fraser, who said, look, ah You're bringing this person into your business. ah They're going to learn stuff they haven't learned before, couldn't learn anywhere else working with you and for the company. And even if they're with you for a month, two months, three months, six months, they're likely to walk into a role that probably pays better at an operator with a great deal more experience than they would have ever found anywhere else in that time. And that really resonated with me. It gave me the conviction to scale up and has me at peace knowing that but when we do have to let good people go. I don't want to make this all about letting people go, but that is probably the most painful experience one can face short of, I guess, business failure. that the career path is part of that career path and you've given them something that they wouldn't have found anywhere else and that sits comfortably with me and has given me the confidence to hire one, a CFO if we have one, we'll probably say don't do it, to keep hold of somebody perhaps a little longer than we might because you're hoping for better things. These are sort of decisions that a bootstrap business owner will face regularly. And knowing when to pull the trigger to hire somebody or fire somebody is, as I said earlier, tends to be gut instinct. The data will tell you one thing and whether you back yourself, you back the business, back the team to deliver some form of remedy in the intervening time. It doesn't always work out. Yeah, that's really interesting. And Leo, let me throw that onto you as well. How do you, you know, when you're dealing with kind of doubts and, uh, you, you've got to project confidence onto the team, both stakeholders and the team on the ground. Yeah. Any tips? How do you do that? Yeah, I think, I think you can't, well, you can, you know, the fake it till you make it type of thing. There's some truth in it, I suppose. Um, what is definitely true is that we set our, our own ceiling and that we have more doubts about ourselves than, than anybody else. We sometimes talk about spotlight effect. It's a bias that we all have, which basically means that we think that we believe that we're constantly in the spotlight, that everybody's watching us. And that's how we perceive things, which is obviously not true, right? Nobody cares. Actually, nobody cares about your mistakes and like whatever. It's only you that cares so much about it. But the problem is that you can't fake it for long. And I think what happens is that when you fake it for too long, the audience starts knowing, you know, especially in senior teams, people smell hesitation. So the real answer isn't projecting. I think it's having a place where you can be uncertain in private so that you can be decisive in public, if that makes sense. Right. So it's really important to be able to talk about, like I'm not talking about therapy or anything, but It is really important. We all have doubts about, there's always decisions that we're not 100 % sure about, like we just talked about, right? There's always things that don't have a clear answer. And so of course that there's uncertainty around that. Being able to talk about those decisions that you're not 100 % certain about is really important because that gut instinct that we were talking about or that intuition, like it's not really gut instinct or intuition. It's a pattern recognition from years and years in the industry is things that you've seen before and you've recognized the pattern and it kind of comes back into the situation that you're facing today. And so when you're not sure about kind of data versus decision versus gut instinct, it's really about talking that through with someone to see where that gut instinct is coming from, where that's, you know, where you've seen that pattern before and then kind of spitballing that with someone. And that then gives you the conviction. to project more confidence to your team, to stakeholders, and managing that internal doubt. Because in the end, it's just a conviction thing, right? Are you convinced about the thing that you're going to say or not? Yeah, that's a super good point. um it kind of made me think about something Leo there. know, sometimes, uh you know, obviously it's about discussing these points with all these decisions with other people, but sometimes it's about kind of digesting them internally as well. um And not just going through them in the midst of a meeting or in the midst of a work day. And sometimes the best decision isn't conducive to You know, we see so many people in our industry working 12 hour days, working ridiculously long days. Sometimes that isn't conducive to making the right, most rational decision for yourself. Sometimes I always find, um you know, when I peel away from work, if I've had a tough decision to make at work, sometimes I peel away from work. I go for a run, I go for a swim, I go for a walk. Sometimes I'm just sitting, you know, half watching TV, but not really watching it. I'm thinking about this decision. But when I'm away from the kind of the trenches of work, I get to digest it properly and actually think about it. Yeah. So sometimes I think maybe you kind of make, made me thought of the point that the best decisions aren't conducive to kind of long working days where you're constantly behind. Yeah, mate. Such a great point. Because when do our best thoughts and ideas happen? They happen in the, they happen in the shower, right? They happen when we're drifting off. sleep, it's when our brain actually relaxes, right, and calms down. And it goes what is what's called into default mode, which happens when you're doing things that you don't have to think about. Now, we still live like we believe that we still live in this age where our grandparents were clocking in and out of the factories, you know, and, but we're not like at our levels, we're not paid for the time that we work, we were paid for the value that we bring. to every hour that we work, right? And so as we push through, of course there's periods where you have to push through and of course you should work hard and of course you should push hard and of course you should do all of that. But without actually stepping back and relaxing and having those shower thoughts, you're just going to be operationally firefighting all the time. And as a leader, that's a massive problem, right? Because you're paid for strategy and strategic direction and to Tom's point, to the culture within your business. You can't do that if you're constantly firefighting. Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly and Tom to close us off there. think we are running out of time. I could talk to you guys about this all day. And I look forward to another podcast, hopefully some really good insights, but yeah, just close us off Tom. Anything to add there? Well, I Leo probably said everything I was going to say if I'm honest with you, but Yeah, I think when it comes to specific techniques that one can use, switching office is key. uh Probably the best thing I've done in recent years is get a dog, uh a Labrador who requires a lot of walking. And I used to work all hours of the day, stupid hours and just be immersed, just willing things into action. it is self-destructive. uh And as a leader, it's self-destructive for your business. So it's very, very important to step away, whether it's a shower thought or a dog walking thought. That for me is the, it gives me the clarity of mind, the space to think clearly and to weigh up a decision ultimately. So I recommend getting a dog. They are life limiting in some ways, but in terms of business, having that space to think is vital. Yeah, that's, here we go. Get a dog. could be the name of the podcast. Multiple showers a day. know, dozing off. Brilliant. Yeah. We've, uh, we've had some brilliant nuanced points about a really complex industry. Uh, lots of some real world examples too, but that's how we're ending with, uh, you know, have a shower, get a dog. Those are the keys. Keep, keep it simple. But yeah, Tom, Leo, thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for your. your advice really, I guess, and your kind of tips and yeah, really interesting. I'm going to listen back to this one and certainly use it in real world situations and try and translate it into how I work. So yeah, really good stuff guys. Thank you so much and thank you to everyone for listening as well. you