Dave Pilgrim - Does Tennis need the Betting Industry?

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Daniel Kiernan  00:09

Welcome to Episode 157. of Control the Controllables. In a big week in the in the tennis world, I have to mention the retirement of Ash Barty. Massive Congratulations from all that Control the Controllables on an incredible career. I think it's incredibly brave for somebody aged 25 to make that decision to go against almost what is expected, what is the norm? You know, she's made sure she's looked after herself first and foremost, for her loved ones around her, a three time Grand Slam champion, we think of Serena Williams, you know, she's still desperate to be to be pushing towards number 24 Grand Slam. And ash didn't have that, you know, she she'd had the motivation to enjoy yourself to push yourself to the limits, and fair play to her for making that decision. And that means we have a new world number one on the female side. And obviously a big friend of ours up at the podcast Iga Swiatek, a massive congratulations, I I believe the youngest woman since Caroline Wozniacki to move into that number one spot. And it doesn't seem to have affected her at all. As of yet. She's won her first couple of matches in Miami, and is going strong, and is certainly someone who will carry that mantle incredibly well. A second well done, as well for world number one who's been on the podcast and Joe Salisbury, who overnight after his win, and Mektic and Pavic loss will move into the number one spot in the world on Monday, if you want to listen to either of their podcasts Iga was episode 114. And Joe was episode 132. Both beautiful, humble interviews that we had the opportunity to have on the podcast and would strongly recommend those. And now to today's episode. We've talked for a while about wanting to bring this subject to the podcast, it

Dave Pilgrim  02:20

It should be fun, it should be enjoyable. And if people are getting to that situation where they can't accept the loss, perhaps that's where we get in towards those problems. But yeah, it's it's a real shame, isn't it that that starts to sometimes impact on players that may have gone out given their absolute best and then they come off the court and that they're met with this tirade of abuse because, you know, somebody's lost 20 quid on them that you know, that didn't have that money to lose

Daniel Kiernan  02:41

a big topic, a big subject in the sport of tennis, gambling, does gambling, and gambling companies mixed with tennis, you know, you will hear many different sides of it. I've struggled to get anybody to come and talk about this. And thankfully, Dave Pilgrim, who is at 20, 25 years of experience in the industry, currently works at Sky Bet, got the got the clearance from from his company, and came on to speak to me, for us to delve into all of the different sides, The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly. It's a topic that brings polarizing opinions for and against. But I hope you enjoy the episode and you can see that we continue trying to get under the bonnet of the sport at all levels. I'm gonna pass you over to Dave pilgrim. So Dave Pilgrim a big welcome to Control the Controllables How you doing?

Dave Pilgrim  03:41

Hello, how are you? Good.

Daniel Kiernan  03:43

I'm great. Dave and a big thank you for, for coming on. We we have what a lot of listeners will see as the taboo topic, you know, anticipation freezes at this point is where we're going to be talking about gambling in tennis, you know, and as someone who has got a lot of experience in, in the industry, you know, a lot of people look at betting companies in quite a negative terms, when it comes up and almost they bear the brunt of quite a lot of the blame that people like to give at times. So to start us off, what would your message be to those listeners regarding gambling in tennis?

Dave Pilgrim  04:24

Well, I think hopefully today, I'll be able to answer some of your questions, break down some of the queries the worries that people have about it. First and foremost, I suppose the most important thing is that betting is a great thing. People enjoy doing it, but always do it responsibly keep stakes small, keep it fun, and if the as the message goes, if the fun stops, stop, it's it's you know, it's something that can add a lot of enjoyment done responsibly, and correctly. And hopefully I've consulted explained a little bit about how that works today.

Daniel Kiernan  04:52

And so the listeners know Dave, give us give us a little bit about I know you're working currently at Sky Bet. But if you Give us a little bit on how you got into the industry. And what your what your background and experiences involving tennis as well within that.

Dave Pilgrim  05:09

Well, I came into the industry originally as a punter, actually, I used to bet with Sky Bet. And I used to work for a little odds comparison firm in London about 20 years ago. And it was through that that originally started doing some outside compiling for Sky Bet. So I'd send him my tissue prices for things like rallying and Formula One, which would help them price those up. And then I came up for an interview, it would have been about I think, was 2004. It was, and in the interview, I'd come up thinking there'll be talking to me about motor racing and all these things. And very quickly, it transpired, they definitely needed a tennis compiler. And at the time, I was definitely the sort of person that watch Wimbledon didn't watch an awful lot of tennis at the time, I had to very quickly make out that I was a really big tennis expert in the interview, try and bluff my way through it. Fortunately, that was successful. And then I spent probably the first three years of my career at Sky Bet working almost exclusively on tennis. And yeah, went through the trading team there and then headed up the sports team for a while. And then subsequent to that I've moved more into the product development side of stuff. So not directly involved in all of the odds compilation and that side of things anymore. It still have a really interest, really strong interest in the industry as a whole and how things have developed over the last few years.

Daniel Kiernan  06:19

I think tennis tennis is such a it's such an interesting sport and again for for myself, who who's been involved in tennis for 35 years now, a lot of our listeners, you know, there's quite a niche market in terms of people listening to this podcast, tennis tennis is their thing. And I think what we've seen over the years, you may be used to be able to bet on who won Wimbledon and it was you know, you'd put your your put your 10 pound bet maybe on on Andhra, Andre Agassi, and then you'd maybe have a little got one of the bricks for 10 pound. But as it's gone, the markets now so many of them that you're able to put a bet on. And just with a little bit of research, it's quite easy to work out now that tennis is one of the biggest gambling markets markets out there. And is that why they were looking to start putting experts into into that space within the industry?

Dave Pilgrim  07:19

Yeah, definitely. Tennis is a big sport, tennis for most bookmakers. It's the third or fourth biggest sport behind horse racing, football. And then basketball and tennis come along. And one of the great things for bookmakers for tennis is it kind of follows the sun. And we'll have tours going on in Asia at the same time as we've got tours going on in South America, and maybe European tour as well. So this kind of tennis all through the day. There's lots of different tours going on. So there's lots on really and it's great for live betting because obviously the the way the fixtures are scheduled following on from one another, there's pretty much something going on all the way through the day. So it's a really good sport for bookmakers in that sense. Absolutely. And

Daniel Kiernan  07:56

We'll get into some of those things. Because I guess, people that have gambling, addictions, people that like to put on their next bet, you know, tennis is gives you a point every 20, 30 seconds, you know, but that also opens up the window to try and fix the matches, because you're not, you don't have to truly fix a full match, you know, you can actually just fix a point or two, that might not impact impact the match. But before we go there, Dave, the other thing that I think was really interesting when we spoke on the phone, is you talked about the gender side of, of gambling within tennis, and where if we're talking about football bets, I think you said the ratio was like 150 to one. Whereas, whereas within tennis, it's a little bit more 50 50. And I guess that's that's that's a positive that we're getting that out. And we're showcasing equality within the sport as well. It

Dave Pilgrim  08:58

It is yeah. So I think that numbers I looked at showed that's something I think in football on our top 50 competitions. Our biggest staking competitions in football, it's only 0.5% of stakes are placed on the women's game, it's nearly all exclusively on the men's tennis, it's 66% of stakes broadly go on the men's game 33% on the women and that actually gets even closer when you get to the grand slams. So there's genuine interest from betters to bet on the ladies game, which just isn't the case in a lot of a lot of other sports. Whether that's been impacted by things like the prize money, you know, I know Wimbledon obviously one of the front runners in that in making sure that that prize money was equal, whether that's something that's contributed towards it, I don't know. But it's really quite surprising actually, when you think about how the men's game particularly it's been dominated by such sort of superstars in you know, Nadal and Federer Djokovic and a Maori over the last, you know, 15 years. It's actually quite surprising that the women's game is so close behind it in terms of the interest generates with, you know, with betters and customers.

Daniel Kiernan  10:02

And in terms of doing those markets, we go back to you 2004. It really hits me, again, someone is in the industry, you have to have a pretty strong expertise to be getting it right. Because the variables of, of court surface, the variables of player schedules, you know, you have a pretty good idea in tennis that actually, if someone's had a good week or two, you know, the chances are, they're going to be tired, and going to be a big scalp. Maybe maybe in week three, you know, the previous history, some players just don't like the balls, don't like, you know, Indian Wells happened last week, the balls traditionally bounced around, it's quite thin air, you know, some people just can't get their heads around that. So how much from a personal point of view how much research study? There has to go into that for you to feel like you can actually position the markets correctly?

Dave Pilgrim  11:02

Yeah, I think you need to be following the game regularly. You can't just jump into tennis and expect to do it. And I think, perhaps when I first joined Sky Bet, you know, back back 15 years ago, I don't think that the market actually built enough in for things like surface. I don't think it appreciated when tournaments played at altitude, I don't think there was enough in the market at that stage. I think the markets more mature now. And that doesn't really happen. There's there's definitely more experts, tennis experts working for bookmakers was before you may have been a bit an expert, you know, the way I explained it, I kind of came in as a betting expert, but I certainly wasn't a tennis expert, but I was able to do a job at the time. I'm not sure that would be the case. Now, if you brought in somebody that didn't have that background in tennis, you know, really good knowledge of the game. Like you say player schedules, it's the sort of thing it's always a bit of a guessing game. And it's, it's getting the right balance in that there are players played a lot, that typically means they've been playing well, because they've been winning games and progressing deep into tournaments. But like you say that that then also brings with it the negative side, which is is there a bit of fatigue at work there. If a play, you know, we know ahead of the Grand Slam, sometimes we see some of the better players early in those tournaments, happy to kind of tank and let themselves go out early conserve their energy, they know they've got two weeks of five set, play ahead. I don't think it's a secret that some of the players maybe come with a little bit less motivation. Because, you know, legitimately they're there. They're preparing themselves to win a Grand Slam and want to be a little bit careful that they don't actually play seven days in a row in the lead up to that, you know, and that scheduling is really important. And I definitely think that is is part of the market these days. Whereas 15 years ago, perhaps it wasn't in there enough in the pricing.

Daniel Kiernan  12:40

The listeners are sitting there saying look, this is nice. You've we've talked about gender equality, nice subject, you know, fantastic, you know, and, you know, nice to hear that we've talked about bringing together markets and how this works. But they're sitting there and they said, come on down. Get into that get into the real meat of this because we talked about we've mentioned Indian Wells, we've mentioned Wimbledon, but the reality is, they're not necessarily susceptible to match fixing. When you're at that end, you know, Andy Murray doesn't need to match fix, you know, Andy Murray, I haven't seen his bank balance. But I would imagine there's a few zeros at the end of his bank balance that he doesn't need to worry about. Whereas we go down the levels. And this is certainly what I've seen as as we go down the levels as soon things as soon as that became the market, the IETF 15 Kids, the ITF 25 kids that I know in the tennis world was like oh, no, now that you can bet on this, because you're winning the tournament at that level, and you're winning 1300 pounds to win the tournament, you know, you're losing first round you winning 80 pounds. So all of a sudden somebody comes into your world says, Hey, man, you're the top seed this week, you lose this match, five care comes your way, it starts to become very appealing to that sort of person. As someone who is involved in the industry, I would imagine in the tennis world, you've seen a big uptick in much fixing since the markets opened at that level of tennis.

Dave Pilgrim  14:23

I think I think the first thing to say is this is kind of the way that people would like it to be represented it sells newspapers, doesn't it and if there's ever a story of match fixing, that will sell newspapers will be written in a bad way. The reality is fortunately, most people that are playing tennis are in the game for the love of the game and actually match fixing is extremely rare. So it's a tiny, tiny proportion of matches that suffered from that. But of course it does go on it does go on and tennis. I guess at that level there's there's two ingredients that have come together that make it more likely to happen in that scenario. You've got a game which is essentially one player versus another player. It's wait Different to football or rugby, where a whole team would perhaps need to be involved for something untoward to go on. In this situation, you've got one player that would be entirely in control of whether a point is won or lost. And that is, you know, of course, one important ingredient. And the second you touch on if the prize money is so low, that players start to look elsewhere to make it pay if they're trying to become professional players, but they can't make it pay. Of course, there's a temptation there to absolutely and it's similar with some other sports, where there will always be this risk table tennis, I would say is another one that we would do always watch out for. And yeah, it's an element of the game that we have to deal with. Now of course, like I think like you alluded to at the start, but makers are kind of seen as the enemy one thing to remember here as well is usually when there's match fixing goes on. bookmakers are the victims here because people are trying to win money from bookmakers. But it's also incredibly important for the industry to stamp this out. And then when I say the industry, I talked about the betting industry but also the tennis industry. Because nobody wants a sport with this with this sort of thing going on, do they? It undermines the whole integrity and substance of the sport. So I think really, the onus lies on tennis and bookmakers, working together and setting up the right structures in the right conversations to make sure that we can get on top of this. We can share information, we can make sure that we've got memorandums of understanding that if things are untoward, we can share that data, we can identify it and we can actually hold the culprits accountable. And that's something that's definitely developed significantly over the last 10 to 15 years, the tennis integrity unit that was first formed in 2008. So that was 15 years ago, that was when we really started to make some positive moves towards saying, Okay, let's make sure that we can gather this data, understand what's going on, and see what we can do about it. And more recently, last year, the International Tennis integrity agency was founded. And they run the tennis anti corruption program. And that's something that all the players go through and starting to understand how do they insulate themselves from the risks of this post, because it's not always about the players trying to get a financial advantage. Of course, there are also sort of more underground and dangerous things at play. You know, I'm sure we all remember that the controversy about Nikolay Davydenko was a very high profile, one where nothing was proven. And I must state that straightaway, nothing was proven No charges were finally bought. Obviously, there was a lot of people looked at and thought that there was some things that didn't feel right at the time. And I think the general feeling there was somebody like Davydenko, didn't need to make money from it. So if something had gone on, was there another reason, you know, were there threats to him or his family if he didn't cooperate? And I think that this, this founding of the anti corruption probe, and I think that helps to educate players in ways to ensure that they don't become the victims of those sorts of things. And that's really important to understand as well, you know, making sure that there's support there early on for players that do feel threatened by something that who can they go and talk to, and what what education can be put in for players as well within the game, as well as you know, the betting industry as well outside of it. And I think that's very important.

Daniel Kiernan  18:15

I think it's really good point, I think, I go back, go back a good few years, it was the first time I'd experienced that I was I was a coach. And I was actually in Preston. And not not the most glamorous of tennis destinations. But as one of the top seeds was walking on the court, a guy followed him. And we all saw it, it was in the cafeteria, nobody heard it. But after the match the top seed it was it was very open and honest on this. He went and reported it. And as he was walking on the court, he was offered X amount of money to throw the match. And I think my because there will be some young tennis players out there listening to this. And if you if you take one penny, from somebody to lose your integrity, you're now in you know, once you're once you're in and I think that's another thing that we've seen is and I know there's been some quite big groups of whether they're Spanish players, whether they're French players, and there's often someone who has been desperate as as seen the lights of this, I'll do it once. I'll make this money once and then it doesn't quite work like that because you then become the ringleader. And your next job is to bring in five more players. And then your next job is to make sure and that's what what what I've certainly seen happen from from my not so much experience close to it. But from from hearing hearing on the ground. So I think your point there Dave on protection of players is very, very important here as well. So So tell me how How is the industry, the gambling industry working with the governing bodies to be able to make sure that this is a safe, safer place, but also a place full of integrity as well.

Dave Pilgrim  20:14

First of all, I can't comment too much about things. You know, this stuff you talk about that I can't really comment too much about that it's not something I've ever really seen. We've worked at a bookmaker, never really at the tennis event. So I can't really comment too much about that. What I can say is working with the International Tennis integrity agency, there's a there's a system now where any suspicious betting activity, anything that looks out of the ordinary, there's now processes for reporting that raising it, and not just raising it within the industry, but raising it to the tennis authority so that that information is shared and discussed with the governing bodies of tennis. And it's only by having a little bit of that transparency that it actually puts it joins up those conversations. Otherwise, if everybody's working in silos, it's impossible to join anything up. And it's really impossible to ever prove anything. You know, if there's no paper trail, and there's no talking to each other, then it's very difficult to ever actually substantially change things. So think having that process for reporting those patterns start to emerge. If we say, Okay, well, these are the three incidents we've seen in the last three months and the same name keeps coming up, then a pattern starts to emerge and investigations can really, really start at that point. Yeah.

Daniel Kiernan  21:21

Because I was gonna say, tell the listeners what, what does suspicion look like. So if you're working, you're working at your desk, you've got your laptop on your, your following matches your following markets, how clear is that? And what is in place on on your side to be able to red flag that.

Dave Pilgrim  21:42

So a bookmaker, all bets are coming in a scene and there's bet there's various filters that are applied. So you can see larger stakes, you can see stakes that have come out of proportion with a customer's usual activity. You can see runs of money all on the same sort of thing from lots of different accounts or from lots of different areas of the world. There's lots of things in place like that. I think having the reporting mechanisms are adds an extra layer because it means that all bookmakers are feeding into this. So at Sky Bet we wouldn't see that the bets or have any knowledge of the bets that bet 365 or Ladbrokes, were taking for instance, but if all of us saw something out of the ordinary and all reported at the same time, then that's obviously a key one. Another thing is when there is something reported, all of the other bookmakers are alerted to it and told there's something going on in this match that one bookmaker thinks looks out of the ordinary, can you have a little bit more of a detailed view of that match and see if anything stands out to you something that perhaps wasn't standout at the time, but when you look retrospectively you think, Okay, well, there was a lot of brand new accounts that had never, never existed before have opened and first thing they've done is bet on this match. That's perhaps a low grade match. Why have they suddenly done this? So it starts to build build that sort of pattern?

Daniel Kiernan  22:50

What sort of what sort of money will go on? A 15k? Women's match 1st round? In Portugal, it can you give us any figures on that? Is there a certain amount? And that let's let's say this 10,000 goes on? But then if it is sometimes spikes up to 200,000? Is there is there any any figures you can share like that?

Dave Pilgrim  23:20

I probably can't share numbers like that. What I can say is that it's always a challenge to spot things because depending on the time of the day, other things going on stakes change, we will have customers that aren't thinking what would I like to bet on today. And if the FA Cup finals on there, that may take all of the interest in it, there's very little interest left for low grade. But if you came on on a Monday afternoon, and there's very little football on, there's no majors, we haven't got any Master Series tennis, then of course, the stakes sort of gravitate towards the low end of stuff. And there's more naturally, you know, genuine stakes being placed on those matches. So it's very difficult to say it depends on time of day as well, of course. But the sorts of patterns we would look like is things that are out of proportion with what a customer would usually stake, ones of money all at one time certainly runs on certain markets. So so we'll see good business on a match result on set betting. But if suddenly, a load of money was to come on the next game winner, that might be something that would start to alert the red flags. But like I said earlier, this sort of stuff is very rare. It makes great headlines when it happens and when somebody gets a sniff of a story, but actually, it's really a very small part of the game. And fortunately we do operate in a very, very clean game by and large. And there's also an onus on on the bookmakers to help make this sort of thing more difficult. So when there's a lot of tennis on at once a bookmaker has the option to decide do I offer next game betting on everything? Or actually is there plenty of high level tennis on at this this moment in time but really we don't want to put ourselves in that position. And let's not have those markets or on some of the lower grade tennis, which is certainly something that goes into the, the decisions on a day to day basis on what sort of market depth the bookmaker might offer, what their bet limits might be as well. If you went into to, you know, you're in 15k tournament, if you went in and said, customers can bet to win 100,000 pounds on these matches, that's a very different scenario, then actually saying, Okay, well, these are low grade things, there's not gonna be lots of interest. So let's put a relatively low win limit on it. You know, and really, that's a sensible thing to do all round, really another lever that can be pulled, that helps bookmakers protect their risk, it helps protect the integrity of the game, all of those sorts of things. There's a lot of common sense decisions,

Daniel Kiernan  25:38

And they go hand in hand done there. If the if the if the risk is protected, then and the amounts aren't that large, then it probably stops people from wanting to cheat, because in any line of business, and this is a big belief of mine. Any time there is big financial gain to be made, people will look to push the boundary of of the truth and put push the boundary of what should be accepted. You know, so why would gambling be any different? Why would Why would sport be any different? You know, and I think, why would business be any different? And I think as much as we would like to think that doesn't happen? I think it does. And and Dave, just want one last thing, because before I want to, I want to talk more about the relationship between tennis and betting companies and why it's a good thing, you know, and why, why they do it, you know, and I want I want to get into that. But but my, the one topic that I would, I guess the dark side that we've seen, and as you say it makes good headlines. There's been some documentaries done on this. You see them a tennis tournaments, you know, and I've always wondered, why are all these people on their mobile phones like hanging off buildings? This is weird. You know why? And then obviously, it comes to it. courtside you know, and so explain to the listeners what court siding is and one how they have tried to beat the bookies and two how you've been able to counter that.

Dave Pilgrim  27:19

Yeah, so that's interesting. And it'll probably actually lead a little bit into what you mentioned, talking about the relationship between bookmakers and tennis actually in a moment, courtside and it's all about speed. So historically, when a bookmaker bets in running on tennis, a button the bookmaker needs to watch what's going on and the trader that setting those odds are sat in a trading room and in our case, it's Leeds and there's trading rooms in London and Manchester. And they're watching television televised pictures beamed in. And those pictures of course, by the time they reach us they've they've left Wimbledon, they've been beamed up to a satellite in the sky and it's coming back down and and all of that's taken a couple of seconds. It's very fast. It's going all the way up into the atmosphere and come down. But two seconds typically can be a little bit more in some tournaments depend on the on the technology it's been used. If you can bet quicker against a bookmaker, then those televised pictures are reaching the bookmaker, then it becomes a bit of a race. There's various things that can be done to mitigate bookmakers risk there. So that's why you'll normally see an in play delay when you place a bet. That protects us to a certain level. But the vast, vast majority of customers are not doing this. And so a bookmaker wants to offer the best possible product to that customer. And to 99.9% of customers. We want to have bet delays really low make it a frictionless experience, make it entertaining, exciting. Customers don't want to sit there hitting a button and then wait 10 seconds to place their bet. So we're always trying to balance can we get that delay as low as we possibly can. But accepting that there will always be some people that are trying to bet faster than than the pictures for. And there's a fine line there between what's a competitive advantage and fair game? And what starts to leak into sort of fraud and illegal behaviors. In practice. I don't think any cases have ever been brought successfully against court ciders. I know that the typical conversation is around the games rights holders that selling that data to bookmakers, usually trying to make sure this doesn't go on because obviously undermines the data that they're they're selling and bringing in funds to the game. But it's certainly a difficult one to prove. And it's a difficult one to say where is the line? What's okay, what's not okay. So yeah, it's been it's been an interesting one over the years. Yeah,

Daniel Kiernan  29:32

because I'm on that. I mean, I watched a documentary on this. I don't know if you've seen that documentary. But it was, I mean, it was mind blowing. It really was to see how to see how they did it. And like you say the speed in which they did it. You know, somebody sat in a room, might be in Leeds, it might be in Egypt, it could be anywhere. And then their friend at the court side, you know, sending through that information. And I think it's quite interesting. What'd you bring up about, about the data company? Because tell me this, and this is something I've never fully understood when the umpire, and this is why I've always thought umpires become quite important in this. And I know there was there was a case against an umpire in Tunisia two or three years ago. Because I guess you don't get that data until the umpire inputs that on his on his iPad, which then sends the message back to Leeds to Sky Bet, or wherever it might be. To say that that point is now finished. Is that correct? Yeah,

Dave Pilgrim  30:38

that's that's kind of right. Yeah. So the scenario that I've just explained to you, when we'd watch off TV, that's really something of the past. And that's something that's actually changed the technology because courtside is starting to become more frequent. When you were just fighting against TV pictures, it was, I guess, it was probably quite easy to be beat that because TV pictures by that by the nature of how they're produced, they're heavy processing. So it takes a while to condense that message, send it up, bring it down, and then transpose it back into a television picture. Whereas information about a point being won or lost is a very small amount of data actually. So the umpires part of their role. And this is partly how tennis has worked with bookmakers to monetize their products because they're there, they've essentially got their very own court cider the umpire. So yeah, one of one of the jobs of the umpire is to put in that score. And that drives both the scoreboard you see in these big events that this crowd will see. And it also simultaneously transmits that data for a number of purposes, bookmakers being one of them. But also, of course, Live Score sites. You go to flash goes live scores, those sorts of websites are taking that data SkySports and the BBC that I've got live scoreboards on theirs. That's all being driven by that same data source coming from the umpires chair. And so yeah, that's absolutely something that's that's helped to reduce that delay in transmission from the from the venue to bookmakers, and meant that we can update our odds much more quickly and make sure that that is available for customers quickly after that.

Daniel Kiernan  32:03

And for the listeners, if the penny hasn't dropped yet. Yes, there has been an umpire or two that has delayed that time of input, you know, so the point the point is finished, it's what is the official score is 15-30. But because the umpire hasn't quite inputted the score, yet, it's 15. All. And in that little 4,5,6 10 second window, that is where somebody now gets gets the next bet in. And that was certainly something that was starting to happen or sought, certainly something that was being accused of happening across the board. And it's something that I know that as, as gaming companies as as the integrity units are working towards stopping all of all of those little bits. As you rightly say, Dave, it is it is a clean sport, for the most part. And I think we we all need to remember that, you know, there is going to be people that have tried to push the limit a little bit. But that brings me on to the question that again, I like to ask the questions that I think the listeners are thinking,

Dave Pilgrim  33:13

Can I just come in on that one Dan? And that I mentioned that you know, there is a fine line between a competitive advantage and what leaks into fraud and illegal behavior? And I think the second example use there I think I think that is a much cleaner understanding of what is for and what is unacceptable. Somebody sat courtside betting as quick as they can. Okay. They may know they've got a competitive advantage. But are they doing anything wrong? The point has been played and they're betting with a bookmaker. There's definitely an argument that that's okay. I think there's an argument that it's not okay, as well. But there's, there's an argument to be had there. I think it's a lot clearer. If an umpire whose job and responsibility is to it is to put in the points quickly, who's working for a company who are being paid for this for this data and then deliberately manipulating that I think at that stage, you get into a much clearer understanding in law that that that's starting to become fraud and illegal behavior. So that's easier to take, you know, to take action on and certainly I know that the tennis governing bodies would would look to do that.

Daniel Kiernan  34:15

I mean, I don't know if in those cases it did come to the legalities and if somebody did, was proven guilty on that, but that was certainly what the word the word on the street was that that was happening, you know, and that's obviously something we just can't have in our sport at all. Absolutely. And from a from a bigger picture piece. There's somebody cynical listening to this I guarantee it so I'm speaking directly to you and I understand that you know, we've all we've all got our views and we will all be will all look at things the way that we like to look at things and what they're saying is so why why did tennis even need gambling companies? Just they should just get rid of them completely like that's, you know, we don't need that, that the potential for corruption, you know, tennis should just be a traditional sport. Just let people play. So So why Why does tennis need gambling companies? And and why is it a mutually beneficial relationship?

Dave Pilgrim  35:20

Yeah, I think it's a good question and you know, everybody will have their opinions, won't they so cynical? Some would say some, some would say that. That's their opinion. And that's absolutely fine. I think there's two things I'd say on that. I'd say firstly, there are millions of people that enjoy a bet in the UK and millions more worldwide. That do so we can week out completely responsibly, you know, a couple of pounds here and there absolutely fine. No problems at all with that. So gambling, it may be Bill builders, the devil in the media very often it is it's an easy target. It's certainly an easy political target as well. But by and large, most people and a great number of people do enjoy it. So it's a really valid form of entertainment. If tennis didn't work with bookmakers, would bookmakers, stop betting on tennis, I don't think that would happen. And I think if you look back a decade, a couple of decades ago, those relationships between the between tennis and bookmakers didn't exist. And you could still bet on tennis back then. It makes sense for them to talk to each other and work together. We've already covered obviously, that the benefits of our making sure that that we can stamp out any corruption by sharing knowledge and working together to educate people in those areas. But there's also the benefits of the exposure that bookmakers helped generate for tennis. There's millions of people betting on tennis every week, and they see bookmakers, promoting it, adding another dimension to the game, putting money into it. So the you know, the deals that we do, we have to IMG and to get to get the fast data. And that puts millions and millions of pounds back into tennis, which is then spent developing the game the organizations can then use it at grassroots level, developing stadiums at the main tournaments, all of those sorts of things that go on, that helps to generate the prize money as well, which always improves the standard of tennis, the more money that the players are paying for in any sport, we know that that standard goes up, that's something that's always happen. You look at even things like darts where you know, there's not really any coaching happens in darts, but you look at something like that as More money's gone into the sport, the quality of the game has increased and increased and I think the same is true of tennis. So by working together and almost accepting that, yes, there is there is some dark sides of things. There's some doubts, there's some dubious areas of it. But hopefully, as I've explained earlier, it's a really very small part. And the net benefit, really, I think the organization's working together actually make sure that the money that bookmakers do do make on this sort of thing gets bought back into the game and shared around into the game. Yeah,

Daniel Kiernan  37:52

I mean, they from a from a tennis perspective, you know, you're telling it from a from a gaming company perspective, but from a tennis perspective, the word and again, I can't speak with factual information here. But the ITF, the International Tennis Federation, which is which is almost the governing body that brings tennis together from grassroots through to through to the 200. And the world level would not be in existence without the money that they have received from my my understanding is they have the relationship with the data company. So they sell the data. And then from there, then the data, the central data is then sold out to all of the different different companies. Is that Is that correct? Yeah.

Dave Pilgrim  38:42

So yeah, that's as I understand the structure of it. Yes, of course, the money coming in at the top essentially gets fed in from bookmakers as well as it does for media companies. Streaming, of course, people want to watch these things. Go to you know, not just bookmaker size, but you can strain tennis in other ways. And watch this also the you know, the the money that comes in from the school site to live school sites there they have advertising, that's how they make their revenue typically. And that allows fans to just follow what's going on that that's obviously nothing to do with bookmakers. There's various sources of those funds come in by the data from the data distribution company. And then they handle all of that. And I suppose that's that's made it easier for tennis to distribute their their data. If you're a company or an organization with that data. It's much easier for you You rarely experts in the technology of data distribution. So it makes sense to have a company that come in that help you distribute that help you market that most effectively and send it out to all of the sorts of organizations that might want to purchase that. But

Daniel Kiernan  39:42

I just think so if we talk so again, for everybody listening, whether you agree with it or you don't agree with it, the governing bodies aren't able to put on these events to provide the structure to provide the ecosystem to grow without out it, you know, is the reality because it comes down to supply and demand at the end of the day, you know, and I hear all the time, people say and tennis players are underpaid at that lower level. Yeah, I agree, but the money has to come from somewhere. So how, how is it gonna be created for somebody 450 in the world to make money. Now,

Dave Pilgrim  40:24

you're no more than me Dad, I don't I don't know how many events you attend at that level. But I imagine the crowds are quite sparse.

Daniel Kiernan  40:30

There is no ticket sales, sales, there's no, there's no TV rights, you know, as a starting point. So in, in reality, there's no real sponsorship money. So in reality, it's almost the sole source of income for for those events to run, and for prize money to come through. You know, and I think, if we now if we talk about during the pandemic, you know, during the pandemic in the UK, they they brought, I don't know, if you're familiar with the UK, Proleague, which, which was, which was an amazing thing that came through, because what it did, this is very specific to the British tennis players. But they were able to play these events, where the winner was getting 6,7,8000 pounds to win to win these events. And on the back of that, now you get prize money like that it attracts the higher level players, the higher level players that have more hot, high profile, names, faces, now starts to potentially attract TV coverage, you know, more social media coverage, now, we start to attract more sponsors. So the whole ecosystem of the sport starts to work. Now the money from the UK Pro League was all through selling the data. You know, that's where that's where it started. And everyone in the pandemic said, Oh, my God, why don't we have more tournaments like this? The reality is that, for the relationship to work, that's what has to happen. And I think it's important people in the industry understand that the same with these UTR events that they now have, in this in this more different level of events that are starting to come up to rival the monopoly of the ITF, ATP and WTA. Now, in order to do that, that the money has to come from somewhere, and I think we need to appreciate that the gambling industry is playing a big, big role in that, and in turn, growing our sport. So in terms of in terms of that, where does it go next? You know, I guess this is, you know, speaking to you, Dave. It's something you seem very passionate about. I don't see you running away into a different industry anytime soon. So where does the relationship go next over the next 3,4,5 years?

Dave Pilgrim  42:53

Why does it go next? That's an interesting question is not what I'd really thought about when we talk talk previously. Where does it go next? Well, I can tell you where the gambling industry is going, I suppose the gambling industry, I think over the last probably five to 10 years has taken massive steps to make sure that it is conducting itself in a much more socially responsible way. And I think that we'll see that in terms of all of the relationships we have, whether it's with tennis, governing bodies, whether it's how we deal with our customers, whether it's how the tools we put in place to protect themselves. I think that things like that. And I think we'll continue to see that the industry move in that direction. I hope that that means that sports that have maybe over the last few years, as gambling has become like to introduce at the top a little bit taboo, something that many people don't approve of don't like, you know, there is there is that, that lobbying against the gambling industry that consistently goes on, hopefully, by behaving in the right sorts of ways, responsible sorts of ways. Hopefully, we'll start to see sports change that they don't want to have a habit always have habits at arm's length that actually we can start to make sure that everything that we do is done in a responsible way. And that includes not just how bookmakers deal with their customers, but how bookmakers work with tennis and tennis governing bodies. You know, we talked earlier, a really good example is the anti corruption program, you know, making sure that people from in the industry help feed into those education programs and things like that. And I think we'll see more and more of that as as the years go on. It's so important for all of our you know, the integrity of sport but also the integrity of the betting industry as well and and if we ever get to the position that people don't trust that then that's not good for the betting industry is it? So it's just as important for for both sides that that's something that works really, really well.

Daniel Kiernan  44:40

I massively appreciate you coming on. I think as I said about this podcast, it was how do we look at the sport from all the different lenses get under understanding a little bit more. And, and whenever I spoke to anybody on the gambling side of things, it was Oh no, no, I can't speak about that on its way. What that builds is the taboo, you know, that builds that feeling of, oh, well, there's obviously something not right there. There's something that

Dave Pilgrim  45:08

we can we can only progress and get better if we have these conversations, can't we? And we actually say, Okay, well, there is some challenges. They're not necessarily the biggest problem. But if they're there, we need to, you know, to understand what can go on what can improve? How can we make sure that that actually, tennis and betting can be good bedfellows and work well together and actually improve the game as a result, and make sure that any associated problems are stamped out or minimized? And we can only do that by being honest and talking about it, can't we.

Daniel Kiernan  45:36

We've looked at the the match fixing side of things. But I do think and I know you've said Dave on, on a few occasions that it's not, it's not something that we see lots of, but but at the end of the day, I think a lot of tennis fans, one of the things they really don't like about gambling money going into the sport, is when we hear about these these stories of people being seriously affected by gambling, you know, the the addiction side of it. And yes, gambling can be fun, but it does ruin lives, and it's ruined a lot of people's lives over the years. So what what's in place, says somebody like a place like Sky Bet what's in place to prevent this addiction and, and to spot when people are starting to go down that path?

Dave Pilgrim  46:25

Well, like you say, yeah, it's a very small percentage of people have gambling problems. But it's a very important aspect. Because anybody that is affected, it's obviously a very serious issue. And I think for that reason, it's so important that we have regulation in the industry that we have conversations ongoing all the time about learning, how can we improve this situation. And it's something certainly in my time in the industry, I've seen a dramatic change in how seriously the industry takes this sort of thing. In terms of the regulation, so all UK operators are regulated by the Gambling Commission. And that means that there's a level of oversight to make sure that everybody adheres to set standards and puts in place various measures that will ensure that all of our customers have an adequate level of protection that they can use. And that involves a number of things that we can put in place. At Sky Bet, we've got a number of these. So we have a self exclude option, which allows customers to decide that they want to sort of exclude from one or more of our products that could be just betting, it could be just a casino, or it could be all of our products. And that allows them to exclude for a significant period of time from six months to five years. We also have cool off functionality, which allows you to put a shorter term, opt out on your account that basically says I know I've been punting for a little bit too long, I want to take a break from this now and knocked out for a shorter period of time. We always ask our customers when they register with us to consider putting a deposit limit on their account. So that limits how much you can deposit in any period of time. Those options when when you register on that, and that's something if you wish to make a change to that in the future, there's actually a few hurdles you need to go through to make sure that people can't just change that in order to then actually start to deposit more. So you have to really think about that and decide if you do want to increase that there's a period of time it takes for us to change that we also ask that you ring and speak to somebody. And at that stage that there'll be a review of the account to make sure that the customer knows what they're doing. What else do we have, we have a profit loss, which shows on all accounts. So we make it highly visible to customers, what they're winning and losing. That's something we developed, I think probably about 18 months ago to make it really clear. So customers aren't ever lulled into that false sense of security, they think they're winning when they're not, you know, they can see accurately what are they winning or losing over a period of time. Reality Check is another tool that we have in place. So this is particularly prevalent on casino games, where customers can opt for a reality check that pops up and tells them when they've been on site and logged in for a certain period of time, then we can set that from 20 minutes to I think it's two hours and it pops up continually, if you have any sessions that exceed that time. And also affordability checks. This is something we've been increasingly developing. In recent years, we've particularly applied it to younger age groups where we know that customers are more at risk. And so this is something that's in place to make sure that within certain age groups, you can't deposit more than a certain amount of time in a certain period. And this is something to basically prevent customers starting to spend more and more and of course we have lots lots of other systems in place where we monitor customers behavior and if we see things like stakes, accelerating, we'll contact those customers and offer advice and refer them to various bodies that can help and there's there's increasingly large numbers of of those around people like gamstop, which is a network that's been set up that allows multiple operators so different bookmakers can sign up and offer customers tools that allow them industry wide exclusion. So if you decide you've been having too many bets with bookmaker a you can go and set it up gamstop. And they'll also help you block all the other bookmakers in the industry. So you can actually kind of you don't want this situation where you can exclude yourself from one bookmaker and then immediately go on and have a problem with another. So that that's one of the systems that allows us to share that data with the customers consent to say, well, we'll help you exclude from everybody and place things like app stops so that you can't go on to your smartphone and enter and you know, go into any book any other bookmaker.

Daniel Kiernan  50:27

I think the thing that jumps to me there, David, it's great to hear that there's, there's lots that's in place, but so much of that seems to be self exclusive, you know, I am going to exclude it to exclude myself, myself from something whereas I guess what we know from addiction, you know, if we take if we take alcohol abuse, if we take smoking, if we take drugs, you know, these, these types of addictions, which gambling is right up there with with those things, in terms of deaths and difficulties that it leads to, you have a desperate individual at that point. And if the if the if the individual is desperate, they aren't going to admit to it, they're going to, they're going to try and find find ways to be able to do it to try and get themselves out of the trouble that they're in. So if we take the example of, of match fixing, you know, being able to see those, those patterns jump up, the you know, you can you're following those, I guess it's fairly easy. And you've just mentioned that there to find those patterns of an individual. You know, is there ever a time where, where the industry actually steps in and stops somebody from, from gambling, because they can see that it's gone into dangerous waters?

Dave Pilgrim  51:47

I think it's a difficult question to answer. I think a lot of the evidence and the research that's gone on in this area suggests that if you put in place blocks on behalf of a customer, very often it drives them to somewhere else. So I do think the most accessible way to help people is to present enough tools, things like the profit loss account, the reality check, present those and help the customer identify themselves. Of course, that's not going to work every time I fully accept that there's certainly the research and guidance we've been given over the years, from a lot of the evidence and the reviews of it, whether we'll ever get to the situation where we can introduce you why step in and block a customer, I think possibly that's something that will come out of the the gambling review that's going on at the moment. And maybe there'll be some advice on that. One of the problems at the moment is if you blocked that from all the regulated operators, you drive a very serious risk that you send the customer to unregulated markets, and then you've lost any oversight and any real goodwill to do the right thing. I think it's definitely a difficult one, we focused over the years putting in as many checks along the way that will hopefully help nip these problems in the bud for customers and give them enough tools, we also make them very accessible. And it's not something where you have to have a problem before you start to engage with these tools. So I think that's been our view on that. We've also done an awful lot of work to start to identify things like steak acceleration, and then physically contact the customer and speak to them. And I think obviously, having a conversation with a customer there, you really need them to to accept that there's a problem. And that's really the first step to to helping them. And we're definitely proactively go contact customers where we identify patterns that that suggest that customer could be at risk, and we think they should start to use the tools available.

Daniel Kiernan  53:34

Because it's a difficult one, isn't it from a business standpoint, because from a business standpoint, when you if you're looking at just pure numbers, you know that they're probably not a bad, not a bad client to have. But from from a moral standpoint, it's so important that those things are in place.

Dave Pilgrim  53:50

I think the culture has changed in that actually, Dan, I don't think And so no, I've not not seen it at Sky Bet. But you know where I work? I don't think we would ever think that there's, it's good to have a financial uplift at the expense of a customer. You know that their well being comes first? Absolutely. There's no customer that makes enough difference to the bottom line that that would ever be something that should come into the thinking. I hope I you know, when I say that hope that applies to other operators. I'm sure it applies to the vast, vast majority. But that's certainly my experience. You don't want to take financial gain out of somebody's misery. I don't think there's anybody in the industry that really wants to do that. I hope there's not anyway. And

Daniel Kiernan  54:29

one more small point as well, David, I don't know if you're familiar with this, but certainly in the tennis world. It's quite highly publicized that as tennis players are coming off the court, their social media is receiving all sorts of abusive messages, you know, that are coming from what seems to be someone that's put a stake on 25k. In Portugal, the player that I coach comes off cause they lose seven, six in the third set, they feel devastated because they're they're playing to put food on the table for themselves already. And then they open up their account. And they're being told all sorts of horrible things as well. That seems to be also maybe a bit of a pattern that some gambling companies, but also tennis, the tennis world can come together to be able to start picking up individuals, that one clearly have a gambling problem if they feel they need to abuse the pool of 17 year old who's played a match in Portugal, but two are going to the lengths that we just don't want in our sport as well. Yeah,

Dave Pilgrim  55:43

it's a real shame, isn't it? How social media sometimes sort of drives itself to the bottom? I think from a gambling industry is quite difficult. We don't know who a you know, person A is on Twitter when there's all this anonymous anonymity. So it difficult for us to bring those and actually put a name to that and actually work out who is this this customer with us? Or are they even with us or with somebody else? That's very difficult. I personally think that the world of social media does need to consider being regulated more openly, like the Gambling Commission, Gambling Commission does for gambling, like various other bodies do for financial industries. And it's things like this. There's there's lots of industries, which require you to have a level of Know Your Customer. Personally, I think social media should should be forced to sign up for that. I think there's all sorts of other areas where you know, that would that would hold people accountable for their actions? Yeah, look at racism on on Twitter. Absolutely inexcusable. But there's an element of sort of anonymity that allows people to go out and, and say whatever they want without fear of retribution. And I think that actually, if we had some element of Know Your Customer, we would actually be able to understand those sorts of elements a lot better. When we do see the sorts of Twitter accounts and Facebook accounts abusing players, it's not acceptable. But equally, I think it's important to look and see that there is, that's often one of the first signs of people that might have a problem. And that might need a little bit of help, they're there perhaps better and a little bit more than, than they can happily lose. Because it really, you know, it should be fun, it should be enjoyable. And if people are getting to that situation where they can't accept the loss, perhaps that's where we get in towards those problems. And and hopefully, those customers will then start to pick up and use some of the tools, hopefully will identify them and reach out to them and you know, put them in the right like positions. But yeah, it's it's a real shame, isn't it that that starts to sometimes impact on players that may have gone out given their absolute best, and then they come off the court and that they're met with this tirade of abuse, because, you know, somebody's lost 20 quid on them that, you know, that didn't have that money to lose.

Daniel Kiernan  57:46

Tiny Tim 373 on Twitter, I'm sure isn't quite as brave in person, as he is on a Twitter account. And, and I think, and I think the point that you bring there, around, we all need to be accountable to our actions, you know, and if somebody is doing that, and if you were able to then go in and find out who they are, one, yes, get them banned from social media, it might sometimes goes into abuse, that the police need to be involved. But three, as you say, if they do feel the need to do that, they clearly are betting more money than they should be betting, they clearly are in a place that they shouldn't be in. And actually, maybe they are a danger to themselves as well. So I think that is one that it's for, it's for another podcast. I think, Dave, I don't think we're going to solve that problem today. But certainly getting people to be open and have to go past certain checks to register who you are on social media would be a really positive step forward.

Dave Pilgrim  58:46

Yeah. And in that environment, it's hard to know who maybe has a problem and who is just been a bit of an over the top keyboard warrior because they think they can get away with it on social it's difficult isn't it? It's definitely I think a challenge for for the next forthcoming few years for social media to to really understand how how can they look at these sorts of things and hold people accountable but also help people that need it?

Daniel Kiernan  59:08

Absolutely. And I, I massively appreciate you coming on now. What we have before we finished it, and you are nor no exception is our quick fire round. So so so are you ready? Okay,

Dave Pilgrim  59:21

Yeah. Okay, let's see how we go. Control. The

Daniel Kiernan  59:24

control was quick fire round. Okay. Your what's your favorite Grand Slam?

Dave Pilgrim  59:30

My favorite Grand Slam, I think is the Aussie open. And the two reasons that I would say that I love getting the season started again, it tells me that we're off and running again. But I also love that feeling when you've kind of been up half the night watching things and you get so tired that even though the sun's coming up and the sun's there, you've watched your final quarter. final match is finishing at about three in the morning in Australia but you're tired and you just hit the sack. I love that when you're so tired because you've watched it all night that you've just done in I love that feeling. serve or Return. Serve. Statistically, Banner charts are winning the match if you serve first,

Daniel Kiernan  1:00:06

What's the highest ever staked sporting event?

Dave Pilgrim  1:00:11

I are not 100% Sure, but I think it would be probably a boxing match. That's one of the things we see the spike is stuff off. Yeah, so most mostly boxing bouts are really, really spiky. And people that don't bet on boxing for the rest of the year all suddenly come in and when it's live on Sky, they go absolutely monster. Yeah.

Daniel Kiernan  1:00:29

So I have to ask you now on the back of that, in terms of the fixing the spikes that you see in where does tennis fall compared to other sports, comparative

Dave Pilgrim  1:00:43

to other sports, it's one of the more risky sports for bookmaker. It'll be up in the top three. Table Tennis is certainly one that we see. And we do see a bit with football. But obviously football there's so many games on a day it proportionally it's quite small in football, even though you know that the actual numbers will be higher because there's so many fixtures going on when I think

Daniel Kiernan  1:01:07

My football team Dave has been throwing matches for 15 years and Newcastle United. I'd like the bookmakers to look into them because they can't have been that bad for that long.

Dave Pilgrim  1:01:17

I can agree the data I'm in Ipswich fan, so you can imagine how many we're going to get relegated I think three times in that period. So

Daniel Kiernan  1:01:26

Roger or Rafa

Dave Pilgrim  1:01:29

Its Roger every time. Absolutely.

Daniel Kiernan  1:01:32

Serena or Venus.

Dave Pilgrim  1:01:34

Serena

Daniel Kiernan  1:01:36

Red or black?

Dave Pilgrim  1:01:39

Red

Daniel Kiernan  1:01:40

 I thought you're gonna say green medic medical timeout or not on a tennis court?

Dave Pilgrim  1:01:48

Oh, I think I'm gonna have to say medical timeout. I think it's a necessity. But I do think that they should do something about the people that game it. And they don't know how you do that. I'd like to give that a bit more thinking on how do we make sure that you know there's one or two culprits aren't there that that like to to carefully time their timeouts. But it'd be you have to have it totally because you don't want people retiring when they could carry on, you know, with a bit of attention halfway through

Daniel Kiernan  1:02:15

ATP cup or Davis Cup

Dave Pilgrim  1:02:18

ATP cup.

Daniel Kiernan  1:02:20

And if there was one rule change from your lens that you would have in tennis, what would it be?

Dave Pilgrim  1:02:28

Would it be? Oh, that's a hard question. So quick file. And I don't know if I've got a quick answer.

Daniel Kiernan  1:02:34

We can edit we can edit your pauses.

Dave Pilgrim  1:02:37

Okay, good. I think I would like to sit high, it's probably something around the tie bikes, isn't it? Do we just let the tie weights carry on? Do we have to stop at seven they're gonna get resolved sooner or later? It's a problem when you get like, Isner in action against Opelka? Or something like that? Maybe it would go on forever? I don't know. I don't know. I'm going to pass that one if I can.

Daniel Kiernan  1:03:03

And who should our next guest be? On control the controllables?

Dave Pilgrim  1:03:08

I think you've got to go out and get Roger. Have any of you got any?

Daniel Kiernan  1:03:12

Paul, have you got any?

Dave Pilgrim  1:03:13

I don't think I don't think I have. But I think if you really seem so nice. I think if you rang him up, just had a nice chat and asked him if you if he just spare you an hour or so I think I think you've got him, I think at module on on the

Daniel Kiernan  1:03:24

Raj, you've been you've been called out Mr. Federer, you know, it's time to come. Dave, thank you for your time. I think, like I say for me for you to for you to come on, you know, for you to talk so openly, I think is is invaluable insight for, for people in the industry. You know, and I think, as with anything, there's always two or three different sides to every single story, you know, and I think, you know, we shouldn't just look at the headline, you know, we should we should dig in and find out what's actually happening. And I think you've done a great job of giving a balanced view across the board. So thank you very much for your time. Thank you, and emotive topic. And as always, I've got Vicki next to me. So I know you have a lot of emotion attached to this topic as well. So what were your thoughts?

Victoria Kiernan  1:04:14

Oh, I mean, I am very much against any kind of betting gambling, I'm not a better at all. It makes me very sad that we're so heavily reliant as a sport and all sports really on the betting industry. I can see the pros I know especially after lock downs, the betting industry is kept so many companies afloat really so many sports teams afloat. I mean, you're not getting being able to get any ticket sales and that sponsorship has been huge, but I don't have the answer. I don't know where the income would come from and it from somewhere else, but it just never sits right with me. Especially football games, seeing all the sports To share banners, advertising, gambling companies seeing sports when on the telly promoting gambling companies, it's just never anything that has sat right with me. I mean, it was great to hear Dave talk so much about what they do as a company to try and help people who are who are struggling. And that's brilliant. But for me, no, I'm, I'm not a fan. Yeah, no, no, preparing the entire episode. Sorry.

Daniel Kiernan  1:05:27

No, but I think that's something very personal, and maybe something we will bring to the podcast at some point. You know, back in the day, when I used to gamble a little bit too much, which I'm sure brings brings it all home home, to yourself Vickie, as well. And, but it brings up a second thing for me, which is, it's been a massive area of the podcast, which is control the controllables. And, you know, taking responsibility and have it at my own personal experience, where, where I was definitely gambling way too much for a time. Ultimately, that's my responsibility. You know, I, we, you can walk into, you can walk into a supermarket, and there's lots of sugar, left, right and center. You know, I think for someone who's overweight to say, Well, it's because it's in my face, that the selling sugar everywhere I go, ultimately, as human beings, we have to take our own responsibility. And, you know, I can I certainly don't think morally, it's a great industry. But they, you know, I think Dave gets that across very well, in terms of where they are trying to position themselves, all of the all of the different areas that they have in place. But ultimately, supply and demand, how does how does a sport like tennis survive? If there isn't that entertainment factor to it, that brings the money in, you know, how many people watch sport just to watch sport? Quite a few. How many people watch sport because they like the added adrenaline rush of having a bet on the sport that they watch, I would argue quite a lot as well. So all of that leads to us almost needing to have something in place that is bringing in the money and bringing in the television money and bringing in the attraction to the sport. And up until now. I haven't seen anybody take place of the betting companies.

Victoria Kiernan  1:07:28

Yeah, that's I think what what makes me sad that we're in a position where there's no choice. So you know, where we're so reliant now. And the rebuttal is oh, well, there's no other option. And I don't know. I mean, we like you, you gave the example of sugar, look at alcohol, look at smoking, there's now much tighter rank much stronger regulations on companies advertising on the television, advertising, sponsoring teams, various things like that, but we're not quite there yet with the betting industry. And I do think there does need to be much stronger restrictions, much stronger regulations. I mean, there's also the side as well, that actually there's a lot of there's a high proportion of sports men and women and former sports men or women who do go on to develop gambling problems

Daniel Kiernan  1:08:13

massively. And and I think that the the flip side, I would just jump in on there, Vicki, yours is around education. I think we're going into a much bigger topic here. And I don't think this is just a gambling topic. I mean, this is, this is the sports men and women that they come towards the end of their careers, and how do they then deal with life away from the buzz? The the bounce, that everything that the sport gives them? You know, how do they fill their time? You know, how do they get their adrenaline rushes? How do they feel like they have a purpose. And I think this is part of a much bigger topic of education that we need to put in place for all sports, you know, when you're coming towards the end of your career, it's very scary. You know, we've had, we've had many guests that have talked about that the scariness of, of what's next. And falling into these into these bad habits into these taboo subjects is something that that lots of lots of sports people in the past have done and my urges, as part of the organizations, whether that's the ITF, the ATP, whether that's FIFA, you know, whether that's the Premier League, where whoever that is, that there's a lot more resource goes into educating sports people into what to do with their money, what to do with their time, you know, how they're going to transition back into the real world. And I think that's part of a much bigger problem as well. It's a subject that I wanted us to at least start to scratch the surface of, you know, I want us to get under under the skin of the sport. I'd love to hear all of your thoughts. I'm sure it has provoked thoughts. I'm sure my questioning could have been tougher at times. I'm sure we could have gone down different routes. I wanted to be fair, I wanted to to hear the different sides of it in today's episode, I hope everyone out there did enjoy it. Please send me your questions. Please send your suggestions of how we can take this a little bit further. But until next time, I'm Dan Kiernan and we are Control the Controllables