Why personal stories define player protection, with SBC's Steve Hoare

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you

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Ladies and gentlemen do welcome to the next episode of my safe bed show It's a pleasure to have you here and it's a pleasure to have Steve Hall editor at SBC as my guest today said that We'll be doing things little differently today because I have a few questions For Steve, but he will also have a few questions for me and we shall see how that goes. It's a bit of a

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Hopefully it won't turn out to be a stand-up comedy, but it's a bit of an improv session. Anyway, welcome, Steve. It's great to have you on the show. Thank you very much, Martin. Yes, let's see how this works, shall we? And for those arguably few who may not know, Steve and I have been working very hard on the Save Bad Show content. As you will also know, the audience, the Save Bad Show is, dare I say, one of the...

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flagship products of SBC's Player Protection Hub. And that's what my first question for Steve will be all about. So Steve, the Player Protection Hub. It's largely, I dare suggest, a well-established brand, but still a fairly new in the SBC portfolio of brands and products. So why don't you tell the audience a bit more? What is it you guys?

01:36
got in store for us, of course, above and beyond this particular show. Yeah, sure. Thanks, Martin. Yeah, so I love the Player Protection Hub. We all do. Good, good. But I would say that. So I'm the editor of the Player Protection Hub. It is relatively new in the SBC universe. In fact, the Safe Bet show has been going longer than the hub itself.

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which launched just last year. It's supposed to basically be, um and I hate the term, I'm not sure why I do, but I think just because I've heard suppliers say it so many times, but it's supposed to be a one-stop shop for all your responsible gaming resources. um It takes stories from all over.

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at the SBC world. SBC have got so many websites, you know, whether it's SBC News or SBC Americas or SBC uh Noticias for Latin America. So what I get is a news feed from all those sites, all stories related to responsible gambling, player protection, black markets in any way related come into a news feed.

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on the site, which I will add to as well with stories that I find. But that's kind of in a way the sort of central hub-ness of it. It brings together all those stories. And then also we have a research hub as well where I try and collate all the research I can find on responsible gambling.

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Now there is quite a lot of it despite what people say. um So in a way I'm a bit behind. It's something that we're building. um And then we add features on top of that, interviews with important people like you, Martin, and so on. So yeah, it's a great thing and it feels really, um it feels like potentially quite an important thing as well.

03:59
Thank you for your kind words. I'm not entirely sure whether I'm that important, but it's always a pleasure to talk to Steve because that means I'm not the only one who's making up words like hubness in the language of Shakespeare, but on a slightly more serious note, and this is really turning hopefully

04:21
and I and the team will not cut this out because it's turning, we've got nothing prepared. I swear to you, the audience, let's turn it into a real improv session. But I would like to go back to the stories that you have just alluded to. a ton of stories across all the SBC portals, but in particular, I'd like to talk about personal stories, so the RG stories. You know, we tend to...

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talk a lot on the Safe Bad Show about the likes of lived experience and similar kind of stories. So, free of the existence, albeit still a relatively short one of the protection have. Have there been any stories that have come very close to your own heart for one reason or another that you would like to call out right now? Well, um...

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It's an interesting choice of words very close to my own heart. um I could cover a uh range of things. Do you know what? And you mentioned lift experience there and the most um heart touching story I've heard recently was actually not on the player protection hub, although I did highlight it on my LinkedIn page.

05:42
It was a podcast on on radio four, BBC radio four. Um, it was called the girl gambler. Um, and it was about, um, a girl who got addicted to gambling and, um, and her story. and whenever I hear from people with lived experience, it's, I mean, it's always very powerful, but it's always very enlightening the reasons why they became addicted to gambling.

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And it's never just the gambling itself, that there's always something behind it. um I mean, this girl, for example, was gay and she didn't like being out of the ordinary as she saw it. um And she used gambling to turn off the noise, she said. And that's a phrase I've heard quite often from people with lived experience with regards to gambling addiction. uh

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But it was very well told and it was, and it mentioned um people that we've interviewed on the Play Protection Hub, like Gordon Moody, where she went for treatment at their women's center, which is a relatively new facility. um And she literally credited that with saving her life. um And now she works for uh Epic Restart, again, another partner that is close to SBC.

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So yeah, that was, I mean, literally that this was broadcast this week. So it's front and center of mind. No, absolutely, if I may, absolutely. These are very powerful stories. And in my book, what makes them powerful is that they're real, they're human and humane at the same time. And talking about Epic Restart and our friends at Epic.

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global solutions these days. Of course a few of them have kindly joined this show, but one of the many favorite stories of mine, if I may reiterate it here, that really put things into perspective for me. I will not name any names, but there's a person on their staff who happens to be a huge Seattle Seahawks fan and as the football, now I'm speaking American, American football fans will recall back in the day

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The Seahawks faced the Patriots. My team. There we go. I just brought this back from Mexico. Let's make it real and human. This episode faced the Patriots, faced the Seahawks and the Super Bowl. And at that point, I still lived in London. I was up at night and it came down to the final play, the famous Malcolm Butler and deception that won the Super Bowl for Tom Brady and the then

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Patriots. So I'm running around. This means absolutely nothing to me, Martin. Absolutely. I've heard of Tom Brady and the two football teams. Football. Yeah, They don't really kick the ball that much. But there is, if you bear with me, there's method to this madness, because in terms of putting things into perspective. the Patriots win the Super Bowl. It's like half free in the morning in London.

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running around, literally like headless chicken, goose, any other poultry around my lounge celebrating the glorious victory, whereas this guy being the Seahawks fan and also, unfortunately, he happened to be at that point a gambling addict. He's recovered ever since and has found the courage to tell his story. He's at the stadium with his family and he'd put his, but also his family's money

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on that game. So whereas the likes of me are going absolutely berserk because the Pats just won the Super Bowl, this guy is literally hurt in his hands sitting next to his family, his family not knowing that he'd lost a lot of money off theirs. And that really, and that's the serious moral of the story, put things into perspective for me on the gambling addiction side of things.

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Think twice, enjoy the moment, but remember and bear in mind that there are other people, or to speak American again, folks out there who may not be sharing your vibe, your sentiments. I thought that story was very, very powerful. And indeed, to call out that point again, which is even more critical, the fact that that particular person plucked up the courage to go up and down this country, as in the US in this instance, to tell.

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this story's been even more admirable. So in my book, these are the stories on the player protection hub across the industry, to your point, even beyond that should serve as motivation for all of us to make this industry even greater, even more sustainable. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, completely agree with that. And I don't think we hear, we, as in people working in the industry,

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necessarily hear enough from people with lived experience because it is very powerful and it's very important. Yeah, we don't, though to be fair, suppose it's getting better and better. But certainly, the likes of, just to say that again, the Player Protection have been a forum to promote these stories, I do think.

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though you guys at SBC have done a ton for that and you've kindly allowed me to run my own largely RG focused show which is much appreciated. Yeah, I suppose there's still some room for maneuver if not improvement when it comes to the lineup of the content that conference organizers like yourselves put forth at their events.

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Anyway, no, we're still talking about the Player Protection Hub. So my next question for you, Steve, is what is it you guys got in store for the industry when it comes to the Player Protection Hub? Any new features? I'm sure there will be many more powerful stories, but where is it all going? And what's the plan to the extent there is a plan? Sorry, A bit little bit presumptuous there, Martin, yes.

12:28
Well, slightly, yeah, from the pillar to the post, as they say, but I'm sure that you've got a few tricks and aces up your sleeve for us. To be honest, it's case of more and it's about um devoting more resources to it and getting more of those stories up there. You know, I think we can... um

12:54
We work fairly closely with the events. We have a player protection symposium in Lisbon coming up and um also at the Americas event. I would like it to become a real community hub, not just a news hub. The founding philosophy em

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if that's quite the right phrase, but it will do, was for it to become a place where people can come and talk about these sorts of issues. It's a members only site. You have to register to get into it. And that was deliberate because we wanted it to be a safe space for people to talk about these issues. We don't want, you know, someone being...

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you know, having their words repeated in the Daily Mail if they don't want them there. And that takes a lot of work on our front and a lot of time to encourage those sorts of interactions. It is becoming a, I can sense it's becoming a community of people that take notice of it just through feedback that I get.

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um But for it to actually be that kind of active online community rather than a passive online community, um that's kind of the next step. That's where we would like to take it. um I needless to say, I believe what you just said is critically important. I.e. these places need to be very safe and they need to turn into

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a community so that folks who choose to do that can feel comfortable about sharing the stories. know, I might sound like a broken record, but I believe the theme that permeates this discussion about the player protection hub is courage. Plucking up the courage to share the story, but to do that, you indeed got to do it to come full circle in an environment that feels comfortable and that is safe.

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To your other point, course, if somebody chooses to go and share his or her story with the Daily Mail, that's their choice as well, but I presume that's not what the SBC's Player Protection Hub is designed to do. No, absolutely not. So part of the show, Martin, was going to be me interviewing you. Yeah, although if I may, sorry, I can't resist. Go on.

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If I can see correctly, you're wearing a Cameroon shirt? I am wearing a Cameroon shirt, yes. So if you pardon the pun before, and again, apologies for cutting across, can you tell me the story about that shirt? Why are you wearing the shirt today? Or is it just purely random? Or why did you get a Cameroon shirt in the first place? It's just really cool, isn't it? It is very cool. So there's nothing else to it.

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He's partially in tribute to Roger Miller, course, who beat Argentina back in 1990, was it? was 1990, yeah. That's the first World Cup I remember. And yeah, I definitely remember all the dancing of Roger Milos. Yeah, you just have... I've just done it no justice, but everybody knows what I mean. Yeah. While I was checking out your CV...

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in preparation for this. I realized how young you in fact are, Martin. uh My knowledge of World Cups goes well before 1990, I can tell you that. I beg me and my grey hair back to differ, but that's very kind of you to say. Anyway, I will shut up now and then. Yeah, happy to answer any questions you may have. The best of my abilities. Yeah, yeah, well, I'm going to test how old you are because this is going to be a memory.

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test of your memory. So I was looking at your CV and you'll have to kind of flesh it out a little bit for me but it looked to me from your CV that you basically went from, uh did a law degree in Prague and then had a year at the College of Europe in Belgium, of course it would be in Belgium, and then it says you joined Paddy Power Betfair but that didn't actually exist then so did you join Betfair or Paddy Power?

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I joined Betfair. Ah, okay. Lot of respect for petty power, but if you will, I've always been on the Betfair side of the business. So this is back in 2009 you joined Betfair. And did they help you do your LPC and GDF? Okay, for non-lawyers and a place. Tell them what a LPC is, Martin. See.

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Mr. Horace, not only a Mark Aurelius style philosopher making up words, but he's also educating all of you about the intricacies of the UK legal education. Effectively, LPC is the course you've got to do to qualify as, I was going to say UK solicitor, but...

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lawyers amongst the audience, I presume that they would give me, if not some hide-in, then at least some kick-in. The outcome, the ultimate outcome, is to qualify as a solicitor to the senior courts of these days His Majesty in England and Wales. You don't get qualified in Northern Ireland or Scotland. That's a different route. So in essence, that is the classes that you've got to do to ultimately qualify.

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as a solicitor and GDL, yeah, funny story about that because as you've kindly pointed out, I graduated from the Prague Law School many months ago. And then I did my postgraduate degree in Belgium at the College of Europe in the splendid city of Bruges. But when I moved over to the UK, the UK authorities were not that keen and that's an understatement to recognize my legal diplomas. It's actually GDL.

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that the step carrier changes or those gringos amongst us who moved to the UK had to take to do sort of legal re-qualification before being allowed to embark upon LPC and ultimately the solicitor qualification. Hopefully all this makes sense, it's little convoluted. We'll edit it if it's boring. But did Betfair help?

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because it looked like you were working for Betfair while you were... Yeah, they kindly did, yes. I've got very fond memories of working at Betfair. be a little dubious whether the people who are still at Betfair would have had fond memories of having worked with me. I will let them judge that. But the answer to your question is yes. Yeah. So what I thought was really interesting about this time was... So was 2009 you joined Betfair and around this time was when we first started to see

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regulated markets as a thing. 2010 was where I think Italy was probably the first regulated market and then France followed shortly and then Spain the following year. mean, this kind of what you went through during those early years at Betfair was really the genesis of how the market is now regulated today.

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Oh, absolutely. As you just set out, it's been a little sea change, if not an ocean change, if I may make up some words in effectively your language. Indeed, perhaps to put some flash on those bones and illustrate the flesh and the bones with what hopefully won't be too fruity, but certainly colourful story. When I joined Bedfair and I'm saying it with all the love.

21:28
I have. Owing to the absence of regulation, typically the question from any commercial lot would have been, oh well, could we stick this billboard up on the main square in the capital of country X? I'm deliberately not naming any countries. I don't want anyone to land in hot water, although we talking 12-15 years ago. Whereas looking at the trajectory you have alluded to these days,

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or even prior to me leaving Bedfair, we started going through all these lobbying and legislative and regulatory and ultimately licensing processes. And of course these days we look at Europe in particular, but also many places in Latin America and of course a lot of places here in the States and up in Canada. All these countries are jurisdictions to be fair. Let's not forget about the likes of the First Nations up in Canada and the Indian tribes here in the States.

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individual states, provinces and what have you have regulated this space. So it's a completely different beast, which I suppose in parallel with that, I apologize if I'm stealing your fun there, the industry has also seen the rise of responsible gambling. Cause I can guarantee you, and yet again, I'm saying it with all the love I've got, cause the industry was a completely different place all those years ago.

22:56
We did talk about responsible gambling, but by no means on such a scale as we do and for all the right reasons today. one of the interesting things about that time as well, at that time, you will know this as a good European who studied in Bruges, but the industry was very much hoping or dreaming or expecting, I'm not quite sure which, for the harmonisation of gambling laws.

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across Europe. we never got there. No, and we never got there. No, because it was only really with Italy regulating when the European Commission said, oh, yes, actually, it's OK for member states to make up their own rules about gambling. Up until that point, I don't even remember, there was lots of ECJ infringement proceedings and so on.

23:56
Yeah. And I used to know, to my shame, I've forgotten most of them, but I used to know all those ECJ cases by heart, all the Placanicas and Gumballis and Schindlers. And recently, as you will know much better than I did, I've been a few Germany related cases and I probably need to sit down and...

24:20
to brush up on that knowledge. But yes, you're absolutely, absolutely right. So the result in pictures that patchwork of regulation in Europe, which to some extent,

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is being replicated in the Americas. And I'm not talking about the content or the context of the regulation, of course, cultural idiosyncrasies do apply different countries, different people, what have you. But in a way, you know, the country by country or state by state pattern is being replicated. And I will be majorly over simplifying things.

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that ultimately, feel free to disagree, but any online sports betting, online gambling regulation seeks to do the same thing in different ways. There's an element of reinventing the wheel that ultimately all these processes tend to have the same starting point. Here's the industry pre-existing. Not the case in the States in a way, but let's brush the decide for the sake of the argument.

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We need to do everything in our power to capture it, get as much of it on shore as possible, it while making sure that customers are protected. And one final point, if I may, though I believe I may have perhaps overused it on this show, because it was Bedfair and Love Brokes back in the day, as you may remember, that were leading the charge on the potential harmonization that's never materialized at

25:59
As every cloud has a silver lining, so let's look at that bright side. I suppose had we succeeded in that case against the Netherlands of all countries back in 2009, 2010, you know, I might have litigated myself out of the job in this industry. So 15 years later here, I still am. Yeah.

26:25
So as part of this research, I went back to a magazine that I edited from 2011. Here we go. Look, that's Michel Barnier, short-lived Prime Minister of France. at that time he was the... Yeah, it's like three days, but good on him. He's got his resume. He was the EC Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, I think his title was.

26:54
Yeah, I interviewed him to find out what he thought about whether harmonization was still likely, which he sort of didn't. But it was really interesting looking back at this, because this was also the time when the Black Friday indictments were handed down. And so on the one side of things, you've got Europe here, on the other side of things, you've got the United States. And I've got a load of comments from

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prominent lobbyists who you will know all of them and a lot of them are arguing that state, oh I've got to say that, state by state regulation would be madness I think was one of the quotes. About America, yeah I suppose this is the beauty of the benefit of the hindsight because in the retrospect the state by state regulation we take it for granted but going back to the lobbyists

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Yeah, I wouldn't go as far as saying I know them all, but yeah, people close to my heart, if I may grab that expression back, our friend PP3 and that gang, you know, you've got to give them credit where credit's due because they fought really hard for the state's rights under the 10th Amendment to regulate sports betting and might have been perceived as a folly, if not madness.

28:18
But I still believe it's been the right decision. Because if I may use that expression again, having traveled up and down the US and talked to regulators and legislators, and it's always been a great pleasure. It's like sports gambling in particular, not so much online casino, but let's not go there. It is very close to those guys' heart and they're very proud of it, I presume because of the link between sports betting.

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and sports, which with all due respect to many other countries, of course, it's very robust in the UK, many other places, but here in the States, it might be even, even a tiny bit stronger because everybody here loves sports. Yeah. I mean, I'm not sure your CFO would feel quite the same about state by state regulation. I think he'd be quite happy.

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to have a one size fits all and slightly less... I won't even speculate about that for obvious reasons. I'm sure that there are people out there who would prefer the fats to regulate sports betting. But then if I may borrow my friend Bibi Free's expression, you know, the federal government can't run even a one card funeral, perhaps a funeral.

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full stop, especially these days. So I'm not entirely sure whether any US federal regulation would have been such a plain sailing. From the pure economic perspective, well, perhaps, perhaps not. But yeah, there was, I mean, and there was an infrastructure already in place for regulating gambling, albeit not online gambling at the time. So that helps.

30:10
Um, but, but the next thing that I thought of when I was looking through your CV and so you're at Betfair and were you there for the merger with Paddy Power or had you gone to GVC by that stage? I was there for the merger, least the, well, the merger completed and then I believe like a year into it, I moved on. So, so, so you experienced probably the two defining mergers.

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of the UK market in, well I say that now, the Puddy Power Betfair Union, um which of course eventually became Flutter, and the GVC acquisition of Ladbroke's Coral, which of course then became Entain. I mean those are huge deals. Talk me through the kind of living and working through those. Let me approach it from the people.

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perspective. All silly jokes aside now, on the back of the two unions, as you call them, I've had the absolute privilege and pleasure of having met a lot of great people at both sides of the then united or uniting houses.

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On a slightly less serious side of things, looking at the Petty Power Bed Fair, two points. Being on the gardening leap between my Petty Power Flutter Bed Fair role and my GVC slash Entain role, allowed me to meet the girl that happens to be my wife now. Oh.

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Oh, what a lovely story! I see. Two daughters, so I effectively live with three Brazilian women, which especially the Brazilian members of the audience will appreciate, but I shall digress. And also, I will forever be thankful to Entain for having...

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dispatched me over to the US because that's allowed me to build up my career in the States and throughout the Americas, including in the likes of Canada and Brazil. So long story short, it's really come down to the people that I have met in the industry, but in particular the people that have been, some of them still are, with my respective employers of uh

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of the past. I've always felt very, very welcome and appreciate everyone's insights and knowledge. And some of them, I'm pleased to report, had become lifelong friends even after having departed their respective employers. So hopefully that's a useful perspective because... It's very lovely story. lot of the other stuff, yeah, either would be confidential.

33:21
It would just be boring. Everybody's heard that. Again, I mean it in the nicest possible way. You know, you don't want the stories about the mergers, the mechanics of the mergers rethought. And I most definitely wish both businesses the very best in the world. And they've been going strongly. You have had a variety of...

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roles and capacities in the industry. I'm sure that you're bound to say that the SBC roles, the one that you've cherished the most, but you know, working with SBC, let's make it little personal. What has it been like for you? Any particular story you'd like to share? Because to be fair, and I do mean it, every single person I've met at SBC, because I'm sure that

34:15
My friend, Mr. Seymour have handpicked all of you well, at least those folks that I have met. It's a very, very nice person, very driven at the same time. So that's the question, you know, what is it like, you know, give us an insight into the inner workings of the organization a bit. Okay. Okay. So, um, don't worry, Andy. I won't tell him everything. oh

34:44
I may know that already, but you know, for the purposes of the podcast. um I'm a freelance journalist, but SBC is my largest client and my most important client and my most loved client. So, inner workings? Probably don't know them, but I see enough. my um biggest impression of SBC is one that I...

35:10
I had fairly early on and I think most people who know SBC will probably recognize this attribute of the organization, but it really stands out from other publishing companies, publishing stroke events companies I've worked for in that.

35:32
It always tries to say yes. Or the people that work there always try to say yes. And I think this comes down from, from Rasmus and, and, and Andy on the, on the publishing side. They want people to do business. They want to get people together. They, it's not, it's not a, you will not come up with many no's. And, and that's really, really refreshing.

36:02
Um, and while I'm sure it's not unique, it is quite unusual actually. Um, and it does, I think that's why a lot of people want to, want to work with us. You know, they want to be at the shows, they want to be, you know, they're happy to be interviewed, all these things. It makes my life much easier actually. Hair, hair, ladies and gentlemen.

36:30
This has been a slightly extraordinary but hopefully a very cheerful episode of my Save Bad show and I look forward to seeing you next time because we've got, as Steve knows, a long list of guests that we've invited and that have very kindly agreed to come onto the show. It will be the usual but still crazy format. So looking forward to it.

36:58
My name is Martin Lidschke, this has been the latest episode of my Save Pet Show and I shall see you next time.

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you