Hello viewers, Tim Pool here, editor of Gambling Insider, and I'm with a special guest, Saki Maimon, CEO of Aspire Global, but... President of Neo Games. And I think straight away, you can tell us a little bit more about that actual job title. Yes, thank you very much, Tim. And thank you also for having me.
Yes, so I was the CEO of Spire Global. And with the merge with Neo Games, we decided of restructuring the overall business in order to have more optimization for each of the business lines. So now each company has its own managing director. and me, instead of being a CEO, I'm now moving to be the president of all Neogames, also including the iLottery vertical, but still to head mainly the iGaming business. So I am the president of Neogames, but head of the iGaming, of the new business.
Sure. I mean, a big vertical to be a head of, plenty going on in iGaming. I introduced you as a special guest, and that's because you were part of our...
CEO special. That's you over here. A little bit different. A little bit different, yeah.
And we've got the life-size cutout of you here at the stand, which a lot of people have loved and sort of commented on. I wanted to ask you a couple of maybe informal follow-ups from that one, and then we can get more into kind of the business and Nia games. But, you know, you mentioned in your interview that you're a keen tennis player and you play a bit of paddle.
I just wanted to hear a bit more about that. Yeah, so I was a professional tennis player until, you know, from five, six years. old to 18 until I needed to go to the Israeli army but tennis is still in my blood and I love it so after moving to Spain I live now in Madrid in Spain you cannot walk in the street without playing paddle so I transit to be a paddle player so I'm using my tennis skills yeah and playing paddle once a week so yeah I enjoy it very much in another lifetime could there have been a couple of Wimbledon titles maybe or what do you think right now it stays on the tv but yes And I love it very much. I like to play.
I was a professional in that. And I wish that my other life would have been in Wimbledon. Yeah. Fantastic.
You mentioned the merger, Neo Games, Aspire Global. I mean, that's not the only merger. There's been several. And there's a good few brands there that have come together to make quite the portfolio.
What's it like for you at the moment? Obviously, you said you're transitioning job role. What's it like within the organization, I guess, given that you're working with so many brands?
Yeah. and I guess consolidating them. So it's interesting to see because each one of the companies that we have in the group have a different product.
So they don't feel that they are overlapping each other. So there is a lot of cooperation. And also each one of the companies have a strong foothold in different areas in the world. For example, Bitobet, our sport company, they are very strong in Africa and Latin America.
So all the group... is following them into those jurisdictions. PariPlay is very strong in US and Europe.
So they are bringing in all the others. NeoGames is not a lot familiar with it, but they are the biggest supplier for platform, for PAM in North America. So the all-aspired global group is going to ride on the presence of NeoGames.
So a lot of growth opportunities that we identified. Identified. this process you mentioned obviously iGaming you that being a big vertical for you and then you mentioned North America I wanted to ask you about kind of the progress of iGaming in North America live in I think six states at the moment obviously we're nowhere near where the end goal we I guess the industry wants it to be what's it like I guess in this early stages in America and and are you expecting much movement in terms of maybe new states and that kind of thing in the coming years so the beautiful thing in in our group is that we are not only iGaming.
So when you take North America, we are live in a few states as the lottery. We are providing our platform and products to national lotteries. We are live in gaming with PariPlay and we will be live also in sport later on. So any state have at least one of the products that we can produce and activate. So we see the North America not only as five six states for gaming sure but more broader than that and the ability of neo games with the experience that we have of having or using to have our own b2c we see the traction around the way we Think and act and perform because of our B2C heritage.
So a lot of companies, operators in North America, appreciate the knowledge that we have from Europe and they want to hear more about it. So it seems to be like a very interesting journey that we started. Sure. How much of an advantage is it, say, being live in one state in a different vertical?
Let's say if, you know, just to go back to the iGaming example, let's say iGaming was... was legalized in a state that you're already live in some in another part of the business how much of an advantage is that because i know that in us there's still tight regulations and still kind of new processes to follow so it's a great question because we just now dealt with it in the company we saw that neo games already have license in 22 states so we are going to ride on the existing licenses of neo games and to put in the sport vertical and the game of PowerPlay and the many services of Aspire. So from licensing perspective, one that have the license already bringing in the old products, so it makes the barrier much less than it was before.
So this is very interesting for us. Absolutely. So in terms of what's next, because you know you've had a lot of deals, mergers, a lot of progress over the last few years, what's the next kind of big target for you guys if you were to single out one thing? whether it's a vertical, perhaps another deal or a market, you know, what is kind of top of the agenda for you guys?
So we see the growing demand for portals and apps and we know that there are some companies out there that produce very good apps and we know today in many countries in the world the operators are looking for a strong app in front end. So this is one thing that we are putting our mind into and second but not second in in command is the live dealer. We mentioned a few months already, more than a year, that we are looking for live dealer.
We continue to look. We believe that this vertical will be very interesting to add to our portfolio in the future. Absolutely. Live dealer, very promising, a lot of growth, but very competitive as well.
Depends in which markets. There are some markets where you see only one or two providers, and I'm talking mainly on... regulated markets and we believe that with the existing players we have nice market to grab sure a final question from me so we've talked about you've been in the ceo special as you say ceo of aspire but now transitioning you're more of a it's more presidential um if there's one thing you'd like to be remembered for let's say a long way down the line you know five ten years 20 or wherever as president of neo games what's the kind of one thing that you uh if someone said to you oh i remember sahi achieved this as president what would that kind of your biggest goal be I think to be the number one supplier in all the continents that we are working.
So we want to be perceived as the old Playtech and micro gaming 10, 15 years ago. So we want to be that group that everybody look at and say, wow, we want to be connected to Neo Games. So we have a lot to offer and I hope that we will succeed achieving it. An ambitious goal.
But as you've stated, well on the way to hopefully achieving that. True. Saki, thanks very much for your time. And thank you for taking part in the interview as well. Thank you very much.
Pleasure to meet you here at ICE. Thank you very much.