Maltese-owned gaming company hedging bets

● The single market works for every industry, but not for gambling.

cause we’re not a very big team - we aim to be around 40 next year.

Why do you think people overlook the entertainment element?

There is this element, particularly with sports. Imagine you’re watching a live game and you can log onto your account from your phone and you can bet, there’s an element of entertainment there.

With the lottery, it’s more about hope because you’re risking €2 to win €5 million, so the chance of winning is much lower, but the return is much higher.

Other than that, right now the largest negative impact on the sector is not the gaming authorities’ fault, but mostly that of the European Union because every country is now regulating individually. If I need Danish customers, I’d need a licence in Denmark and so on and so forth.

Before, with a Maltese licence you could operate everywhere; now you can’t operate anywhere.

The whole idea behind the EU was that we can have the product or service in one country and sell it to everyone else. But the single market works for every industry, but not for gambling.

What good has come to Malta through this explosion of gaming companies?

We got a lot of foreign investment but, unfortunately, large companies are no longer opening here. That is because if their market is Sweden, they’re going to be spending their money and paying their taxes there, or they might create elaborate corporate structures.

Why did you decide to sponsor Pride?

Actually we haven’t only sponsored Pride. We’re a Maltese company so we try to help Maltese communities in areas such as animal welfare and sports, like the Phoenix Sports Club. We have sponsored about 15 feasts, the Mqabba fireworks and, now, Malta Pride.

We try to be out there, and if you look at our product, you will see that it’s for everyone.

We cannot, however, do a lot of marketing in Malta, we can only provide sponsorships because we have services that involve gambling.

Sweden created its own licensing framework, and we already have a licence in the country. It was actually the other way around for us, our growth shot up by about 50 per cent last month. The Malta Gaming Licence is only good for grey markets, such as those countries that are not licensed, like Germany and parts of Latin America. With regard to our lotto, we share the market with Maltco and Jackpot.com. We have actually launched a new one now based on the Irish lottery. The Maltese seem to love that and we need it to grow. There doesn’t seem to be a casino culture in Malta, but I think that it will grow, although we do have a turnover of 60 per cent casino and 40 per cent sports. Lotto is more marginal. We need to get the public to learn how to go online to get their lottery tickets. I remember reading an article where this woman lost her ticket and was claiming around a million euros – if she had bought it online then she would have had proof of the ticket in hand. Most likely it’s due to habits – there’d be that day of the week where you go buy a lotto ticket. You do find the younger generation is online though – just like the younger generation is more likely to use Netflix or Apple TV rather than watch traditional local stations.