Transcript for:
Interview with Seth Young: Insights and Future of Jefe Bet

foreign [Music] to be joined by Seth young the chief strategy officer of Pick 3 gaming digital I said and thank you so much for joining us how are you hi Marie I'm doing wonderfully thank you very much for having me thanks for being here so today we're going to talk about half a bit and for any viewers not familiar with the brand have a bet supports the igaming and interactive Sports wagering industry by providing media content for the Latino Community but in the United States and have a bet launched just over a year ago so would you mind telling us a bit more about the idea behind it what what do you offer exactly and how do you reflect on that first year of operation yes fantastic question and thank you again for having me Jefe bed is is is a really interesting business so the concept really was born more than 15 years ago at a 5th Street gaming Seth Shore who is the the CEO of Fifth Street gaming and his partner Jeffrey fine uh who are the Proprietors of that business own and operate a number of casinos in Las Vegas and two of them in particular are in the heart of the Latino Community within Vegas being what was formerly known as the lucky club and and the Silver Nugget uh the lucky Club recently rebranded to Ojos Locos Sports Cantina e casino at hotel Hefe it's the nation's first Latino Casino uh and whereas uh the Silver Nugget has the Hefe Ben Event Center which we've recently branded it's kind of a cultural center within Las Vegas uh for events and music food truck rallies things like that you know cultural stuff for the the Latino community uh so those businesses have been serving predominantly Mexican clientele for the last 15 years and when Seth Shore and I started talking about this concept and the more research I I did about it the more interesting it became 64 million people in the United States identify as Latino 12 million of whom speak Spanish as their first language and outside of the United States I mean obviously a very large Spanish-speaking population so we decided to embark on a journey of creating an audience uh of gambling interested Spanish-speaking consumers a lot of things are commoditized in the gambling Market but an audience is not a commodity so last year we know we launched the site with uh really March 1st was was kind of when we we went public with the intention of of building and engaging and retaining an audience that could continue to grow uh and it's vastly exceeded our expectations so far from an engagement perspective we've blown all of our internal expectations out of the water in terms of product Market fit and um and audience metrics and it's it's phenomenal so that that's led us to accelerate a number of of strategic initiatives which I'm sure you're going to ask me about uh but high level we're super pleased with the team that we've put together um we're learning so much every single day about the audience in and outside of the United States and building that audience has given us the flexibility to do some very interesting things moving forward throughout 23 and 24. fantastic and you said Peppa is quite an interesting brand and I totally agree that's why I actually reached out uh to you guys for our interview because I don't think I've seen another brand like yours which actually found quite interesting as well have you seen any other similar competitors emerge after you launched have a bet or not yet not really in the United States I mean some things here and there there's there's not nobody quite like us you know we are again I think so as well from what I've seen in my research we definitely stand alone it is unique you know what we are we are perpetuating being a Spanish language gambling focused brand all the content that we put out and it's over a thousand proprietary written articles monthly uh are both in Spanish and English and um there are definitely affiliate sites globally that are focused in Spanish whether it's foreign you know partially for the us but there's nobody that's really you know started a play like like we have um you know where we where we started and where we're going are two different things um you know as we continue to invest in the media side of the business and support that we are shortly expanding into uh different kinds of operations and different kinds of places right but how much export betting operators missed out by not marketing and creating specific content for the Latino community in the US and do you think they're starting to realize that they need to do more of that I mean I I obviously contend that it's a big Miss not to engage in audience that is so large I mean we think of the Latino audience in the United States as as being a subset of the American populace the niche market 64 million people isn't really Niche that that is mainstream right field it's huge we've said it before you know Seth Shore myself that translating an app into Spanish is table Stakes actually engaging and you know putting out the right kinds of content for the audience is quite another thing and it's not a primary focus for any operator in the United States which is why you know we've we've been able to to grow so rapidly I think and one of the reasons anyway because it is our primary and sole focus is is the Spanish language audience there are major differences in how uh a a Latino May consume content vis-a-vis uh you know a non-latino uh gambling interested or sports betting tumor the types of sports how they bet why they bet what they're interested in how they made uh how we we may perpetuate promotions and there is no single operator that I've seen today that is actually doing um really any meaningful work for this audience uh so that's very interesting actually um what sports are the most popular among hyphabet audience would you say yeah it's different it's definitely different by by locations so we have a fair amount of traffic in the U.S obviously and we have a fair amount of traffic outside of the U.S and uh in the US it's it's all the major sports that that you might expect but soccer always wins the day football right not America makes sense football football uh we're seeing a tremendous amount of Engagement with tennis with highlight uh which we're leaning into uh definitely a sport where a fair amount of the athletes do identify as Latino Or Hispanic and uh the audience obviously resonates with that uh in places like Chile and Peru where we focus a tremendous amount of of content development efforts for reasons um that will become apparent imminently we are seeing a tremendous amount of Engagement with things like tennis or surfing or golf parts of Mexico really into auto racing others like alternative sports but you know it really is led by by soccer uh American you know football soccer American football basketball baseball uh boxing MMA um yeah just depends on the client right and how do you engage with your audience do they respond more to written content audio video Everything yes I mean the consumer I think has has the same interests and proclivities as any other consumer it's just a matter of how the content is uh is is developed you know we we put a huge focus on on authentic content development and a lot of people throw around the world authenticity what it means to us is is a primary focus on the audience and content that is developed by the audience for the audience um so we engage today uh in in all formats but predominantly in in through written content so we have a full-time editorial team uh that's based across Latin America produces um tremendous amount of content for gambling lifestyle Sports picks and predictions uh sports betting general information and general Casino uh and gambling coverage and that's anywhere between a thousand and fifteen hundred articles on a monthly basis uh we've been growing so fast um our traffic is is about 90 percent organic uh it's not paid for which means that our content is definitely resonating with the audience um we have a a really fast growing social profile you know we reached uh to date about 60 million people across our social channels um through putting out you know great content um AV content um you know focused on sport we have a free to play prediction game uh where uh prospective consumers are gambling interested consumers can uh predict the outcomes of games for free and win cash and we really focus on on soccer and highlight and then the Marquee uh Global events whether it's you know the NBA finals or uh Marquis Champions League game or Bundesliga game um we also have a newsletter that's nearing 50 000 subscribers uh that we're doing some work on we've been fortunate to to engage a fair amount of consumers that are interested in hearing what we have to say every day uh so those are predominantly the areas in which we we engage our consumer and then shortly I guess I've buried the lead a little bit but we are looking to launch uh real money gaming profile in Latin America imminently and we will be engaging with a real money value proposition uh in the very near term wow that sounds absolutely amazing I only have a couple more questions um three of the biggest states with latino population California Texas Florida they don't actually have sports fitting as we speak and there's been loads of talks in the industry over the past couple of years and I think most Executives tend to say that it's a matter of time before we have supportive I think there what was your personal opinion and obviously what sport betting in those States change everything for half a bit as well yeah I I think I agree it's a matter of time I think the structures may end up being wildly different in all three of the states that you referenced uh because of the state politics in each and uh it's not lost on us that California Texas Florida are three states where Latinos over index has a percentage of the populace it's nearly 50 in California uh so for us that's a really uh solid read through for um you know future opportunities we've been engaging in audience in the United States for just over a year now and um as it you know our our traffic distribution sort of mirrors the distribution of Latino audience in the United States so California Texas and Florida are very large uh markets for us and um makes for a great affiliate opportunity makes for a great you know uh media opportunity from an advertising perspective and to the extent that we have real money enabled products in the United States makes for a fantastic opportunity uh for a Spanish language value proposition that will likely stand alone right and finally what does the future hold for have a bad for history gaming you mentioned some things already anything else that you can reveal yeah the the biggest the biggest thing that we're working on now and we're working pretty much around the clock with great Partners who are yet to be revealed but we are uh planning a launch in select Latin American jurisdictions for online Sportsbook and casino and we are considering our options for uh a real money enabled product in the United States that may make sense uh for our business and and the life cycle of the market uh so we're super excited about that sort of been been full on executing against that I'd say you know we're probably anywhere between one to two and a half three months away from from that being real and live um but it's it's been in progress for a number of months now so very very exciting as we continue to add to the team um continue to bring on great strategic shareholders to our business uh we think we've got a bright future with this product I agree you certainly do have a bright future and that sounds so exciting so I'm looking forward to finding out more about this and I'll catch up with you in a few months and see what you guys have been up to thank you so much for your time sir thank you thank you thank you [Music]