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a little about a lot of things. That has forced me to become a good delegator and to build a great team around me. I work with some great people, and I also get to develop some younger lawyers. I have had to learn how to manage issues rather than be the one that works them myself. SP: MGM’s roots were as a Las Vegas land-based casino business. Today, the company has evolved into a global gaming brand with a presence across the world as well as online operations through BetMGM and the respective joint venture with Entain. What have been the main legal and regulatory challenges of that transformation and how have you managed them? JM: Historically, you’re right, we’ve been a land-based casino company, and that is a very important part of the business. Recently we have moved heavily into the digital space with joint ventures with Entain, and acquisitions overseas. Going from being a US land-based operation to an international digital business has really changed our focus and there are probably two parts to that. The first is geographic. When we enter new jurisdictions, we have to be mindful of different sensitivities in different places. There are legal differences of course, and I lean heavily on local in-house lawyers and external counsel in those markets. But there are also cultural differences that we have to understand and work with. The second part concerns the differences between land-based and digital businesses. When you have a heavy land-based presence you have to have a great deal of legal certainty. If you’re investing several billion dollars into a resort, you need things to be pretty black and white and that leads to a tendency to be quite conservative. Historically, in the online space, there has been a lot of uncertainty with regards to the law and companies
have had to navigate that, making judgements as best they could. That means online operators will typically have a higher tolerance of risk and there’s nothing wrong with that. The winds of regulation change, things are interpreted in a different way, and you have to respond, sometimes in quite dramatic ways. You may have to shut down or completely change how your product is offered, but that is accepted as normal. In the land- based business things are more absolute and rigid and we have to make sure we’re above criticism. That’s not just a clash of cultures, it’s the reality of being successful in each of two quite different spaces. When we put those two spaces together, we have to find a balance where we’re protecting our valuable land-based licences on the one hand, without preventing our online business from seeking and exploiting opportunities on the other. Sometimes that means asking our online teams to be more conservative so as not pose a risk to the land-based business. That’s especially important as US regulators tend to judge you based on what you’re doing worldwide. Similarly, you shouldn’t rule out sound opportunities simply because you may be criticized. Everyone understands the concept of the black market and we know that’s not where we want to be. Where that starts to get challenging is when you think you have a viable legal position and then the rules change. We see this especially in Europe where there are supposed to be protections for commerce that should apply across borders. Then it seems there is also the ability to pass laws related to gaming. That’s not a situation the US is used to dealing with. These are not just questions of whether or not it’s legal to operate. For example, thinking about Europe’s more aggressive approach to responsible gaming. How does that translate into
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IMGL MAGAZINE | APRIL 2024
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