Back to what Pontus is saying. The bigger picture, that's your bloody responsibility. You have to understand the bigger picture and you have to then put that in a context that works for you, for your company, in this situation. But on a more personal level, I usually say to peers and people that I talk to, get a fucking life. Because if you don't, if you just are at work and in work, you will eventually the only you will know is your employees. You need to broaden your perspectives. You need to read books. You need to speak to people, train a football team or sing in a choir or whatever. Meet other people. People that only work are degenerating as experts and leaders because they don't see, they can't get the bigger picture.
This podcast is sponsored by Pragmatic Solutions, the player account management platform chosen by today's smart betting and gaming operators. Don't let technical constraints delay you from achieving your business goals. Expand your business, boost your margins, and dominate the market in any leading regulated jurisdiction with our powerful, flexible, and secure iGaming platform. Enjoy its extensive marketing tools, compliance protection, realtime data, and a wide portfolio of over a thousand industry providers. It's time to upgrade your technology. Let Pragmatic Solutions show you the modern approach. Visit pragmatic.solutions and join the smart thinkers.
This podcast is brought to you by Pragmatic Play, a leading game developer providing player favorites to the most successful brands across the industry. With an award-winning multi-product portfolio of slots, live casino, bingo, virtual sports, and more, Pragmatic Play is powering up new possibilities of play through one single API. Visit pragmaticplay.com and discover your favorite every time.
All right, guys. We're firing off here today with an episode of Legends today. So for those of you who have been in the industry for a long time and particularly those of you from Scandinavia will perhaps recognize the two panelists today. Just to set the tone a little bit if we go back to the 2000s. There was a very interesting dynamic in Sweden at that time where the monopoly in Svensk Spel was starting to become challenged by these up-and-coming online gambling companies and one of them was Betsson who was led of course by Pontus Lindwall. Pontus was the kind of up-and-coming CEO at that time for Betsson. He was trying to make his mark in the Swedish market and take market share. And then on the other hand we had the CEO for Svenska Spel, the monopoly in Sweden, and these two figures were like the nemeses of each other at that time. They were fighting against each other with tooth and nail to try to take each other down. 20 years later they are now friends and thankfully friends of mine as well. And so I would like to welcome to the stage our panelists today. Jesper Sharing, CEO of Emens Group, and Pontus Lindwall, CEO of Betsson AB. Welcome to the stage.
All right. All right. Thank you.
Hi. We take the sofa here.
We can make it nice and cozy. I think we sit next to each other.
Yeah. Back in the days, we would have taken one sofa each.
Yeah. Yeah. These days it's okay. Okay.
And since we already have kind of warm-up with our hands with a lot of applauding, I want to start with some more audience participation here this morning to get people fired up. And I have some fun facts about these two gentlemen here. And what I want you guys to do is I'm going to read a fun fact and then if you think it is Jesper, then I want you to give an applause. If you think the fun fact belongs to Pontus, I want you to give an applause as well. We're going to do this one by one. So, I have a first easy one. Okay. Who of the two gentlemen is a professional DJ or a semi-professional DJ rather? So, do you think it is Jesper? Don't give an applause. Oh, well. Okay. Do you think it is Pontus? Ah, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. You got that right. You got that right. Is it true, Pontus, that you were almost a part of Swedish House Mafia?
All right. All right. Well, it would have made sense. It would have made sense. Okay. Second question. Who of the two guys were once fired from their job while wearing a tight spandex cycle outfit? Do you think it was Jesper? Oh, what about Pontus? Okay, who was it, guys?
Who was it to? It was me. And yeah, it's quite fun because I wear spandex quite often as I am a biker and I got fired.
Exactly. It could have been you.
but it was me. And yeah, this was when I was at the Nero, I had a call from a chairman. He lived in Mallorca. So, we often had meetings in weekends when he was in Sweden. He called me and I had to run into the office. Then I was about to change. Then I realized, no, I'm going to take a bike tour after I had a training day. So, fuck, it's just him. So, I just changed into my bicycling clothing, tight spandex with this blowy you're sitting on, tight t-shirt and my bicycling shoes. So I came into the conference room like this. Click click click click click click click and when I open the door I realized there's something odd in here because he was sweating like a pig and yeah he was there to fire me. So I got fired in my spandex.
Yeah. That's another level of walk of shame when you have to go out.
It is brilliant. Okay. Next one. Who of the two guys have seven children? All right. Do you think it is? We start here with Pontus. Pontus. Seven kids. All right. What about Jesper? It's even between the two actually. And who is it? It's Jesper. Yes, you're doing your part to keep the world population going. We like it. Pontus, sorry. Okay. We do a final one. Last one. Who one time got the full attention of the roulette pit boss in Vegas after an unlikely winning streak and had to dash out of the casino before anything more happened on that. Okay. Do you think it was Jesper? What about Pontus? Yeah. And it was
Yeah, it was me. Yeah, it was me. It was a terrifying experience. Actually first time in Las Vegas ever. I was playing the roulette and suddenly this guy, this is before I'm entering into the gaming world by the way, it's way way back like 30 years, and these pit bosses I can see he's just looking at and by the way yeah I was winning, I think I made nine bets and I was winning like six out of them and I always bet on 17. I think three or four of them were on 17. So he was quite sure I was colluding with the dealer somehow. So he started looking at me, starting making notes. He was talking in his earpiece and I kind of whoa, I'm getting out of here. I've seen all the movies what they do with people that they believe cheats. I just walked away. But I won a lot of money.
That's an interesting fact. I always bet on 17 myself.
No, we didn't. This is like an unlikely romance thing that's waiting to happen here. They're coming together.
We should. You never know. But then there's no more kids.
No. No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We learn. No more kids.
All right, guys. Let's go back all the way to the late '90s and early 2000s here. Just to set the tone a bit. I spoke just before here about the fact that you guys were true nemeses in the 2000s when Betsson was up and coming and Jesper was trying to protect his monopoly back in the 2000s. Jesper, talk about this time and how did you see Betsson at that time when you were running the monopoly at Svenska Spel and then all of a sudden here comes Pontus Lindwall as a thorn in your side and trying to disturb your business.
Yeah. If I should look back, he was the reason or they were the reason why I got the job because they wanted to have someone that perhaps could compete with them and realize what needed to be done at Svenska Spel. But at that time and since I'm a very competitive person, Pontus was a pain in the ass honestly. For me he was a competitor. I didn't like him because he was kind of taking my customers and taking our customers in an unfair way. We were the monopoly. We had the right. We were regulated. We were owned by the state and we've been running this show for the last 100 years. And then these internet startup guys coming in there having products that we couldn't match and they were a bit cooler than we were and that hurts a lot of course. So we were not communicating back in those days. We were enemies, pure enemies.
Yeah. And for your perspective, I mean
Yeah, we had a huge respect for the monopoly as we just heard they had been around for ages and it was so cemented in the whole country and in every country in Europe more or less that the state monopoly, they were doing the gambling in the country and that's it. So of course we were very much painful for the monopolies when we turned up and yeah we grabbed market share and we were a lot smaller, a lot less powerful and we were not invited to conferences and discussions around gambling at the time but that has changed now.
We arranged them and I banned them.
Yeah. You did. We had this spear at Vsp where we had the head office on the island outside of Sweden and SP was an institution where gaming companies
I was invited I was invited first
yes first and then I stopped it
where where the proper gaming companies came together and ATG
and exactly and the lotteryies uh and then these guys tried to to come in there and squeeze the way in and and no, I banned them.
I mean I mean that Pontus this was
we were not we are not building communities back then that you were
it was maybe a bit less formal times at that time. You weren't listed on the stock market at that time or
You were already listed but you were still I mean you were still did some like gorilla tactics at that time like what did you do to upset Jesper at that time? We did many things uh because they they were strong, they were a big monopoly, they had a lot of people but they were not that fast and swift. It was a constant fight and what what Betsson and the the online companies could do at that time since we couldn't we couldn't even we didn't have a casino online casino we had sports book all at this time everything was about the sport book basically and and from our perspective and then you open up a a betting shop in the middle of Stockholm that was like unheard of you you can't do that that's not okay because that's that's basically the the the the essence of the monopoly to having having the license giving the license to these betting shops. And then Pontis comes to us. I wake up one morning and I read in the newspaper that there's a new betting shop in Stockholm. It's like what the fuck? They put all the lawyers on this and they probably called the police and they came and and and asked Pontis what he was doing. So no, it I mean everything they did was annoying. Every every morning I woke up, I realized today I will lose market shares. Whatever I do, I will lose market shares to these guys because I can't can't they have we had regist we had restriction on how much we could pay back on sports book. We had like 82% RTP on the sports book. They were running 96
players were they just left us in in hordes of course.
Yeah, I remember that betting shop. It was beautiful. It was orange and the police came the very first day and they actually invited me to the police house where I had to go. So it was I had to go to the police house to get questions. It was very complicated that well how can you operate a betting shop when there is a monopoly. So yeah we had to shut it down several times actually and reopen it after we had the legal investigations on it. So that that was that was fun. Another thing that we did to kind of annoy the monopoly was that when they decided to launch new product lines such as the video lottery terminals, then we registered the .com domains for those brand names that they had.
This was before my time I have to say.
And when Bill found out and they called us, they were not happy.
So you were you were doing this on purpose. Admit admit that Pontus this was like more than just growing the company and earning a salary. You just wanted to annoy people essentially.
Yeah. But it was a part of the game. We wanted to make sure that we were noticed, that we existed, that we were fast and that we were challengers.
That was the main point I think
and and in hindsight that was actually what built the a big part of this industry. I mean we have to remember the the the the Scandinavian absolutely the UK legacy is huge as well but the Scandinavian legacy for this industry was quite is quite strong. I mean it was the Scandinavian companies that moved to Malta perhaps the first to get the licenses etc etc and that happened there. So it's thanks to Pontus more than thanks to me that this industry actually took off in in the way it did. If they had not competed in the way they did back in in in in these years, we wouldn't be sitting here like as as we are now, I would assume.
And I mean to that end, Pontus, uh can you talk perhaps a little bit about the origin story of Betsson? How did it all begin? Actually, we were operating, which was legal in Sweden, we were operating blackjack and roulette tables in restaurants and also slot machines on board ships between Sweden and Finland. So, we had a legal gaming operation and I worked there for a while and I realized that we can never go anywhere with this company because we are getting so pushed by the monopoly and the regulators. We had just a very thin narrow part of the gaming industry where we could act. So that's when I started netand at the time that uh we both built the games and we operated we did everything in house and we did that in order to kind of circumvent the regulations and be able to offer our our simple view was that if they are allowed to operate casinos and sports book then we should be allowed to do that too because we do that on behalf of the customer you know and we give better prices, better odds and and everything. So, so that's that's how it came about.
Yeah. And then that legal stuff in the background that it doesn't matter. It's all about the customers.
Yeah. But legal is always catching up with technology. That's how it is, you know. So, we use the technology and what we could do and then the regulatory side had to catch up with us.
Yes. Yes. And so during this time did you guys ever communicate you know as the at the time you you were CEO of Svenska Spel and and CEO of Betsson like did you ever get in touch with each other? I can start by saying that even though we worked pretty close because I was based in SA from time to time and you invar it's less than 1 kilometer. We didn't meet because we were not invited but then later on it happened that I was in the playground on the weekends with my first son. He was born in the year of 2000. And next to me at the playground was Matias which was one of Svenska Spel's top bosses. And we were finding ourselves on this bench, you know, being like enemies in the playground, but still having two kids that played and we were discussing. But it went on for that for several years. And I I don't think we ever met when you were CEO because
I think we were treated like someone who wasn't, you know, wanted
and that's true and we we we moved we were in the same industry but in two different circles. I was to the WLA seminars and and and things like that and and Pontus was running this startup. It was two different worlds and in between that we had Matias by the way a brilliant guy uh being one of the two vice presidents in in in Svenska Spel and I remember when he came to me and explained that he had a kind of a neighborish friend that was Pontus that was a bit awkward for him to tell me and he say yeah but you know we live in the same house and the kids on the same age I totally understand that no problem but it was on that level that he had to kind of he had to explain that to me that he met Pontus. So yeah, it's it's strange these days when you sit here. So met physically and talked like in in intelligent people. We did first when I started at Mr. Green, I would say.
Oh, that's 2015 or something like this.
Uh and uh Okay. So I have you on stage Pontus today and I mean I can't let you off this stage without talking about Betsson's legendary or shall we say infamous uh trip to IBA in 2012. I don't know if there's anyone in the audience who who went with us on that trip in 2012. Do we have any like experts on it here? There's no one I don't think I don't know if anyone has heard about that trip in general. There's a couple of them. Yeah, this this story lives on for 12 years. Okay, so let me set the tone here and tee you up a bit, Pontus, and ask you about this. So uh I was working at Betsson at the time. So I was I was there as well, right? And Betsson had this uh yearly uh trip that they did for the employees for a couple of times. We went to Vegas one time, but uh IA was the last company trip that Betsson did uh as as a company. And uh what happened was that uh a couple of uh a couple of months or like a year earlier betsson and bet safe has mer had merged together and it was a bit of a chaotic merger shall we say and people were maybe not the happiest in the company at that time and uh to kind of come together to bring the companies together bets decided that we're going to take people on a trip to IA thousand people book a full resort there's going to be some nice evenings out and uh there's going to be conference to, you know, set the tone for one betsson and let's move forward together. The only thing was that people just took the piss out of this trip basically. And um how the trip started off was uh bets had booked two private jets that was going to uh private flights that was going to go to take people to. And on that flight was the new CEO uh of of Betsson or Luke Banks at that time. and he stepped on the plane only to find that his seat was uh taken by someone else. And so Pont so so he goes, "Oh, excuse me. You're sitting uh you're sitting on my seat." Only for this person to to to look up and say, "You go find your own fucking seat to the CEO to the CEO." That's how the trip started. Okay? And it went on and on. And um when the conference was going to take place, this was after two days of heavy heavy heavy drinking. And uh half of the people half of the employees didn't turn up to the conference. Uh and after that trip uh the people who didn't turn up at the conference got an official warning. I remember it was no happy days that the company done and I I sat next to Ulrich at that time on the plane back to Malta and I was a young VIP manager at the time and I was thinking this is my chance you know to have a conversation with the big CEO and so I asked him look you know how how is it going in Malta so far? and he just looked down at his newspaper good and then he looked back like he was not happy about this trip. So I want to ask uh the kind of inside story uh uh here at Pontus uh when this all happened uh and this trip went down like what was it like in the background during this time like what what happened really?
It happened a lot of things. I think we had many good conferences before I was good too. But the conferences developed in like this, you know, they were kind of taking off.
And yeah, uh Kevin and I went home in together one night after heavy drinking. We were at the clubs of course partying but the conference as such was not bad.
No, no it wasn't to be fair.
But I think we made a conclusion afterwards like okay we made this huge conference and we kind of survived it but let's not challenge it anymore. So that's the reason for not making those big conferences anymore. We still have a lot of conferences in a different fashion.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I must I must say I teed that up. We did have a good time over there. So, I shouldn't beat you down too far.
But it was the edgy thing to do.
I think we showed the clubs in the pizza how to party
that that we did. Yeah, that's true.
