we find people that know about the industry that have gaming experience in your jurisdiction when there’s no gaming legislation? It’s very challenging. And that’s where you have a conversation about what it takes to be regulated and what are the different skills that you need within a regulatory entity to be able to be successful, not necessarily people that know about gaming, but you have to have the right skills: attorneys, auditors, IT, technical experts. You have to have data analysts now with online gaming and sports betting. And as the industry evolves, you will need to create different departments. Responsible gaming now is really a big thing, so it’s really about finding the right skills for the creation of the entity. JK: Martin, speak to us a little bit please about subject matter expertise. I mean, with your long experience of regulation in a number of jurisdictions, do regulators come into office with a lot of subject matter expertise. MSy: That depends entirely and every country has a different experience. There are jurisdictions that have made an effort to hire in experts from abroad so that they start off with people who have the expertise necessary. There are also jurisdictions that find it politically important to have local regulators who are close to the population and to the policy of the nation. And they then need to reach out to people in other jurisdictions. But what Karen has said is absolutely right: it’s indispensable in a regulatory framework to have those different areas of expertise. And the big initial challenge faced by small or new regulatory jurisdictions, is to have enough resources available to be able to get all of the necessary expertise present. I work for the government of Liechtenstein where it took a long time to convince parliament to give them enough money to hire the staff to do the job correctly. Now, they’re very happy because they have the number of staff, but it took a small scandal and a couple of difficult licensees before the parliamentarians were prepared to say, we’ll give you the budget that you need to do the job correctly. JK: Birgitte, maybe I can ask you a slightly loaded question. You have experience as a former regulator in Denmark, and you’re advising some other jurisdictions. In Ireland, we have just appointed a CEO designate of the regulatory body being established, somebody with no background in the gambling industry, and somebody who has been involved in the regulation of domestic tenancies. Is that a good background for doing a regulatory job? BS: When I look at all the great people regulating around the world, that we have as members of IAGR. I don’t really recall many of them coming into office knowing that much about gambling, but they turned out to be great regulators in their own right. What you need to do is realize what you don’t know, right? You need to have the personal competence to regulate and run an office so it’s much more about the person than knowing about the different games. You need to know what you don’t know and you need to be honest about it and reach out. You need to figure out the stakeholders to build relationships with and you need to be open and honest about the situation. And if you can’t hire someone to advise you, at least try and have them as advisors for some time, right. There’s nothing wrong in admitting that you’re new in office. People respect that and you’ll get the help that you need. I mean, I was quite honest about it and I had operators lining up, absolutely willing to invite my newly appointed staff members to come and see their businesses. So from the very beginning you have to establish that kind of relationship. There’s a balance there but everybody knows that. The good guys know that. I don’t think it’s really a challenge. You just need to pick the right people. And you will be f ine. JK: Matthias, speak to us a little bit about that dynamic. Give us an insight into the regulator’s perspective, as somebody who’s sometimes the meat in the sandwich, the bit in the middle. What’s the role of the lawyer? MS: I think it’s very good advice and I think all regulators should find the right expertise. In Germany we are in a situation where a new regulatory body has been established from the beginning of this year, but the previous regulator had to create a lot of rules from scratch that the current regulator has now inherited. However, mostly for political reasons, a lot of this regulation, for example, advertising, restrictions on bet types and online slot games. These kind of things have been rushed and there was no consultation with industry stakeholders and experts like GLI, for example. That has resulted in a situation where, on the one side, the regulated market is struggling. From what we hear, regulated licensed businesses have seen a drop in revenue of around 70%. And it’s not just that the revenues have disappeared,
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