today gaming america is speaking to thomas rosender the ceo of real luck group which is the parent company of luck box we're going to be talking about his company's role in esports betting as well as their anticipated launch in ontario next month mr rosender thank you for speaking with us today thank you very much good to be here indeed uh my first question is actually more of a personal one i would like to know sort of about your career and how you wound up uh at the role which you currently are at luck box or real luck group yeah so uh besides some management consulting right in the beginning of you know right after university i have been on the igaming site uh or a gaming site for various online gambling companies and started off with online poker basically but i've also been on the video gaming side and i was a marketing director for for electronic arts uh and i think i have always known that sooner or later these two were gonna meet at some point and now it is happening with esports and especially with this situation that we have now with with luck it's like uh it's like my whole career led up to this basically uh and because esports and uh and blackbox is right in the middle between i gaming and video gaming and uh like my whole career i've had a lot of ideas how you can combine these two and now it's actually happening so it's like uh i don't know it's the it's the peak of my career i guess this is the one well it's nice to get there i suppose after many years of toil and labor yes hard work yeah um well i wanted to ask about esports i i read somewhere that you consider that uh esports is going to be a esports betting is going to be a larger market than uh traditional sports betting which i think some would say is a controversial stance i was wondering if you stand by that and uh if so what conditions would have to fall into place for that for that to be the case yeah so uh i think it's uh completely inevitable that that will happen and that is based on the fact that uh video gaming is enormous already there are three billion or one-third of the population earth are gamers everybody has their cell phone game or whatever uh but and that is just growing and if you look around what what people do is even you don't have to look at kids even if you look at the new digital generations younger millennials or gen c what they do is they play with the game or they watch video games they still play sports too regular sports but as soon as they leave the practice or the match to go home and play video games again and this is what we're watching right now is a a shift in how mankind consumes entertainment that we never has happened before so there is a reason why netflix and apple and all the big traditional sports clubs and brands are starting esports team and wanting to get into this space and that is because they know that the future generation this is what they will do and you know based on that that's why i'm i'm so certain that this is going to happen it's going to take a while we're still in the beginning but it is moving fast so it will happen and i think what's going to make the the real leap and what's missing right now is the fact that the offer the betting offers are not quite there yet but the big thing is that the betting products that are offered up until this point also for esports are just a version of how of a paper slip basically you know and if you go on most of the sports building sites they look the same you have a list with matches and they have odds next to it it's it's like an excel sheet and if you think of this new generation they play video games they you know they they play video games they used to get engaged they they use tick-tock even youtube is too slow for them so it has to be give them that kick so what is going to make the difference in my mind is a betting product that really speaks to them and has that engagement and that velocity when that happens it will definitely disrupt things and it's going to be clear that this is what's happening yeah yeah sure do you have any predictive timeline on when that might happen yeah i would uh uh i think we are looking at much faster than people think uh some say five to ten i think we're gonna really start realizing that this is happening in three years and i know that we for for one uh we are of course building this disruptive innovative product that's gonna change it and we're hoping to launch it already this year so but things take time to to get traction uh as well and uh so uh i think i don't know three years or maybe a little bit faster would be my guess sure sure um and speaking about launching products uh i believe his last autumn he uh launched an eye casino and i was wondering uh in what markets is this operational and what about it is distinctive from the competition yes so um we we are live in a lot of all the markets where you can operate with an international license so we have a premium international license in in the isle of man and that opens up for around 80 different countries uh across the world so we are we're going for pretty much all of them of course some are better than others and and but we are also going into canada and i think you're going to have more questions about that so of course our online casino is going to be there as well what is important to know about our online casino is that [Music] it's it's not fair to say that it's a support business but it's not our core business and i have had huge successes building online casinos in the past and uh we are doing it also with the new generation and the more fast-paced video gamey kind of style on that as well but uh we really think that it will be our main revenue driver until what we were talking about before this uh change happens so for us you know we love to we love to see you know we love to to do them as well but what's going to make the become really fun and as i said like what i've been waiting for is the esports thing so uh the casino uh definitely plays a role but the main role there is to increase our runway until the the disruption happens basically i see i see at this moment in time what would you say uh are the biggest markets for you for a real luck group um so we are very focused on on a lat time and especially brazil is doing well europe and scandinavia so finland and norway are doing really fine as well but we are of course looking at the expansion on all the continents almost so asia is very interesting uh africa is coming as well and then of course you know we are we're going into canada we're getting a license um and then we have us as well and all of these are uh we're an international brand so we're gonna try to be everywhere we can and we have a number of regulated markets that we're going into of course starting with canada but i think the whole world is regulating and that is something that we have to go along with as well and uh so you're going to go live in ontario on april 4th is would you say uh canada is going to become a major pillar of the company from here on in are you putting a lot on this move into canada it's another way of asking the question i suppose yes i mean we are a canadian company and so it is home and of course we're gonna do everything we can to to really try to take a market share there we have a very solid growth strategy already in place how we're going to do that of course driven mainly by online casino to start with but uh what i see is that uh canada is also really strong when it comes to esports and you see a lot of a lot of potential uh basically and uh uh yeah yeah so where do you where do you hope i mean what do you see as a major where do you hope to be in canada like in the a year from now and how are you how are you second part of that question is how what is your strategy for growing your market share in canada i mean you don't need to give away too much but yeah so uh so i think de luis said that it's uh i think it's about 500 million uh market now and they're expecting it to grow to some 28 billion or something in 2026 and of course we want to be part of that and as if you look look that far into the uh into the future then uh esports betting will have picked up substantially and since our strategy is to have the best esports betting offer that that exists uh together with a product that speaks to the new generation i really hope that we can have a big part of that and and that means that where i want us to be is to be the number one esports betting destination which is our our mission and and all that we're aiming for um and uh considering where we are right now and the strategy uh and the fact that their esports really is brewing in uh in canada now i think it's uh totally doable but at the outset it's going to be uh i casino and sports betting and i expose my questions are you going to try to learn from these two different facets of of the industry to help uh help create your esports brand is there going to be a combination of traditional sports betting in eye casino or is it a completely different approach um yes and no uh i think that the new generation you have to speak to them in a different way and people will always love you know online casino uh independently and it is very spread around the uh in all the ages uh but the esports players you have to talk to them in a in a different way for them to to get attracted about it they are kind of uh they're a little bit skeptic to the big betting brands and so on so uh because of you know bonuses and it's too much in your face if you put it like that so we we will have a little bit different approach when it comes to branding and how we speak to potential esports players while we towards traditional sports bettors and i casino players we will do everything that we learned over the years so like we have an amazing team experience of launching these things in across the world many many times over done it very successfully so we we will of course use all that knowledge that we have in-house and from myself as well so yeah yeah well so i saw you're talking about marketing right now and marketing to a younger generation uh i was wondering if you could elaborate a little bit on that uh what what does marketing to a gen gen generation z what does that look like briefly that is a [Music] very difficult question to ask but as i said uh you have to change it a little bit so that you speak to them in their language uh and uh you cannot come with a a big off a big bonus offer or some kind of incentives and for canada that's uh the rule now is that you can't do that directly to players so that fits very well with our strategy and that voice they consume a lot of content much more than any generation before them so it's very important to really provide value besides the actual betting product they really have to find a way and and identify with other products that you provide might be calendars or other tools that they can use for for what they like and i think one way the interesting thing is that there is a lot of betting going on on esports uh already it's just that it is unregulated and it's happening on skin betting sites and uh cryptocites and so on and it's massive it's just that it's tweaked in a way so it really really fits this generation and that is something that we're looking very much at utilizing as well but of course our benefit would be that we are we are going to be a regulated company we're a big listed company meaning that you know uh what we can offer that those sites uh don't have is the safety for the player both in terms of responsibility to order their gaming habits as well as you know making sure their money is safe at all at all times yeah just wrapping it up i i always sort of finish on this question but where would you like to see every luck group in canada in 18 months yeah so uh the number one esports betting destination is the first thing and the other one that we will have launched some uh interesting esports betting products that nobody has seen before and hopefully they will be growing very quickly and showing how the future sports betting and potentially traditional sports betting will look as well cool well mr rosender thank you very much for sitting down with us today much appreciated i appreciate it thank you very much thanks