Simon Westbury

iGaming History, Episode 10 Transcript

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Narcis Gavrilescu: Hello, everyone. Welcome back. This is igaming history, episode 10.

I am absolutely delighted to be joined today by Simon Westbury, Senior advisor for 1xBet.

Simon, absolute pleasure to have you on the show, and thank you for dedicating the time.

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Simon Westbury: My absolute pleasure. It's good to be here.

And I'm following a very illustrious cast. I know it's quite a new concept, but there's some big names you've had already.

So for once, I actually feel a little bit nervous attempting a podcast interview, or whatever we're calling this.

 

Narcis Gavrilescu: But, yeah, to be honest with you, I also feel nervous because I have so many cool people on the show and I'm doing... this is the first time I'm doing a podcast and I'm feeling it.

But I try. I try to work into it. You're doing a good job so far, so hopefully I can live up to those that have gone before me.

 

Simon Westbury: Thank you very much. I am absolutely sure you will.

 

Narcis Gavrilescu: Simon, I think we can both agree that you are in a nice and interesting moment in your life right now, right?

 

Simon Westbury: Yeah. I mean, life's always interesting. My life's never been dull, but interesting generally means exciting, and for once, I'm genuinely excited.

And it's a new stage in my life, a new stage in my career.

You know, I got married 18, nearly two years ago now, so that's obviously quite new and fresh. And obviously a new job and a new world that I live in.

It's interesting and I hope it's fun. It will have challenges. My life always does. It's never dull. So we'll see where we go.

 

Narcis Gavrilescu: Before the shows, the big positions, the whole world you're in now... who was Simon Westbury many years ago, before he joined iGaming, and what did he want from life?

 

Simon Westbury: You know, I think I normally do these podcasts without any preparation or anything. You were kind enough to send me the questions, and actually, thank you for that in advance because it's given me a lot of time to think.

I think if we look at Simon Westbury, let's just say pre-25, when I first started working—because I took an elongated time to go to university because I wasn't sure I wanted to go, but my mother made me go—I think I was probably quite naive in life.

I really didn't understand how the world worked. It was like, Simon Westbury wants to do it this way, so Simon Westbury is going to do it that way. And obviously that caused me a few problems along the way.

It was a very direct way to live, and it was a way that I didn't sometimes understand the intricacies of what was going on and how things should happen.

And I think from that, what transpired was I became a very confused, angry young man that didn't really understand how the world worked because he didn't get it.

You know, if you needed to tell someone something, you told someone something. And I don't want to go into my personal upbringing as a child, but it wasn't always easy.

And I think that led me to rage against what I believe to be an unfair environment and society.

I was pretty isolated as a child. There was three of us as we grew up. Unfortunately, back in 2016, my brother passed away.

But what that made me realize was, because I was the eldest, I didn't really know what I wanted in life.

I think I didn't realize this at the time, but I didn't know what I wanted in life. And I really struggled to actually understand if I was good enough.

And I think in life I've always wanted more. I always want more. I demand more from myself. I'm not talking about the world, I'm talking about people I interact with, because I always believe there's more you can do.

So I think I always look for perfection, and you can achieve perfection, but you can't maintain perfection. And that was a big challenge, probably till I was 40, or a good friend of mine, Peter Nolan, explained this concept to me.

And it wasn't until I got to university that I really found a tutor, a guy called Dr. Lobby Siddiqui, who actually saw the value in me.

He was like, "Simon, you're intelligent. You should study." But he also understood the other side of Simon: the fun, outgoing character that loves life and probably, well, at that time, certainly liked a beer too many.

Passion is the currency of life. And I think at university, apart from education, beer was my main passion. But that kind of evolved.

And I think going into gaming, I struggled at first because, in the halcyon days, the late 2000s, let's say, there was a lot of drinking, there was a lot of partying, and I genuinely felt like I was still at uni.

And that was a challenge for me because I didn't adapt. I didn't turn up at conferences until lunchtime most of the time because I was too hungover. And that's an honest appraisal of where I was.

In 2010 I decided to make the change and kind of focus on this as a career and realize I wasn't at university.

But I think I was really just a bull in a china shop. A very naive bull in the china shop. Very direct and wanted more.

 

Narcis Gavrilescu: How did you happen to get into football?

 

Simon Westbury: Yeah, that's the rich tapestry of life. It was. I was working for a guy called Kevin McCabe, who is a really good, honorable guy.

We had VSoftCo, which was the virtual sports football company. And he just happened to own Sheffield United.

I think he saw some skills in me that he liked and he admired and he put me in the football club at a time of jeopardy and trouble.

It was 2015, things weren't going well on the pitch. They'd appointed a manager—well, one manager got sacked and then they appointed another manager—and the club was struggling.

I think he appreciated my directness. He's a Yorkshireman. They deal in blunt, direct language and I think he saw that. And I think that's how it happened.

I mean, if you want to ask me about how it was in a football club, that's a different story. But on the top and bottom of it, I got into it by luck because I managed to work for a guy who owned a football club. That's how it happened.

 

Narcis Gavrilescu: And yes, I do want to ask you: what is it like to work in a football club? What kind of perspectives does it give you? What do you learn?

 

Simon Westbury: I remember speaking to a very good friend of mine. I'm not going to name him, but he's an ex-Premier League footballer and he said to me on my first day, "What you think, Simon?"

And I was like, "I think football needs changing. There's a lot of ego, there's a lot of under the table dealings," let's say still—I mean, you're never going to prove it, but it happens. And agents are involved. It's a merry-go-round. It's a circus and it's a circus of egos.

I think everyone gets caught up in what I call the elixir of football. It's an adrenaline-filled, fast-paced environment.

And again I went in as this cocky Londoner, bull in a china shop, trying to tell Yorkshire people how to do it. And I think on reflection that was probably not the best way to do it. I should have probably been a little bit softer and a little bit understanding.

But to me it was so clear what needed to happen in Sheffield United. And I was there to work for Kevin. I wasn't emotionally attached to the football club in any way because I wouldn't support Sheffield United.

They now have a massive affection in my heart. But I was a Tottenham fan growing up. So, you know, you support the team your dad supported.

I think the thing I really struggled with football is: once that ball's on the center circle, say at 3pm on a Saturday, there's nothing you can do.

You can do everything in the week to make sure the business is good, the manager makes sure the players are good, the ball goes on the center circle. It's down to 11 individuals to decide your fate.

It's not that I want to sound like a control freak, but it's something outside of your control. And it was challenging.

I remember Sheffield United being in the playoff semifinals, I think it must have been 2016, and I was more nervous than when I was exposed because I had no control or no influence on the 180 minutes that were due to come.

I think a bit like gaming, there's a lot of egos involved in football. But the difference with football—and maybe because it was Sheffield United—you had a real responsibility to the city and to the people. It's a very working class club.

I met a load of good people there and I had some real career highlights as well.

I think one of the things I also was doing at Sheffield United was I ran the director of the company called Premier Security, which did match day stewarding and security events.

We had the Kell Brook fight against Daryl Spence Jr. in 2017, post the bombings in Manchester, where tragically a lot of young people lost their lives.

That was massive pressure because 24 hours before the fight we weren't even sure that it was going to happen.

We sat in a safety briefing and the first thing the police said was, "We can't guarantee this event was not going to have an attack."

Of course you look at it in the cold light of day and you realize any event can have an attack. But the reality of the situation when everyone was hyped up and concerned was, "Oh Jesus, it's going to happen to us."

So it's a time, on reflection, I learned a lot. And maybe that was the time I tried to really start to adapt and try and understand other people and not just the Simon Westbury way of doing things.

 

Narcis Gavrilescu: Just a very small detour. Because you mentioned this element of not being attached... do you think, and you also have commercial background... I want to ask you at an even more personal level: do you think that this is one of the keys to making it? Like, not being so attached to the product or whatever you do, because it gives you a freedom that other people don't have—that those who are attached don't have.

 

Simon Westbury: I think in football, yes, maybe. Because if you're a Sheffield United fan, should you buy this player or should you do that? That becomes a bit emotional.

I think in gaming, and it's similar to football, everything's made by the people you work with.

When I look at gaming and my career in gaming, every company I've worked for I've become very evangelical about and I've probably become over-supportive of. And maybe that's a mistake at times, and I always say to myself, "Don't do it again." But I always end up being a very proud exponent of the company I work for. And that's how I view life.

Rightly or wrongly, that's for me. I think, look, if you're not emotionally attached then it's always helpful. And I think it's very difficult to separate the two, especially for me in gaming, because I'm very passionate about this industry.

I'm genuinely passionate about the jobs I take and the companies I work for. So it's a challenge.

But I think obviously if you don't allow emotion to cloud your judgment, it is beneficial. But also emotion and instinct aren't bad things as well.

I think you just have to get the balance right: when to understand to allow emotion or instinct to be part of the decision-making process, and when just to look at it a very cold-hearted way.

For me, most people would view emotion with hiring and firing. To me it's not emotional, it's a transactional process, but there's people involved so you have to respect that.

Whereas when you're a company—and every company I've been in I've viewed myself not just as a sales guy or whatever—I've been an ambassador of that company and each during that company. So that's difficult to detach the emotion to understand the reality sometimes.

There's times I should have probably said no to delivering certain messages in my past career which I haven't done. But we live and we learn and nothing's terminal.

 

Narcis Gavrilescu: You've been in the industry for 15 years now. Do you remember if there was a moment or a sequence of moments that made you think, "You know what, this place is for me, I like..."?

 

Simon Westbury: Yeah, I mean it's more than 15. I'm never sure if it's 17 or 18 and I think that's just because I'm old. So 17 or 18 years. But I do need to work it out because at 20 years I'm gonna have to do something positive to celebrate 20 years in the industry.

I think, look, I believe... I don't believe in fate per se. I believe that your life is fluid and you have certain junctures in life that you create, and that is created through hard work and dedication.

These opportunities come and you have to grab them. And literally, I left university wanting to work for the Foreign Office etc., but due to my directness and probably pig-headedness, I'd managed to be arrested in Syria.

I was there as part of my MA in Middle East politics and the inquisitive side got the best of me, and let's just say I met some other opponents to President Bashar al-Assad and he wasn't particularly impressed by my movements.

But that kind of tempered any opportunity for me to work in the Foreign Office. So I was like, "What am I going to do?" And it wasn't planned.

I ended up doing oil and gas conferences because it kept some relation to the Middle East. I lived in Dubai for a while, didn't really like it and came back and ended up doing conferences in oil, finance.

They're pretty boring German pension fund conferences. I did all right out of commission, but it was pretty boring life.

It was February—and this is where I need to work out the year to work out how long I've been around—and I just got told, "We're doing a gaming conference. The guy who organizes it's resigned, you need to step in. Deutsche Bank is going to be here in an hour and you need to understand it."

So that's how it happened. But then when I went to the show I was just blown away by it.

I remember Carsten Koerl giving a presentation on the good, the bad and the ugly of gaming. Tom Hall doing an amazing presentation on Asia.

Having a panel of Jim Ryan, Malcolm Graham, Roger Withers, like great people in the industry, just engaged.

I always remember my good mate Roger Withers ordering everyone in the bar in the Intercontinental in Madrid a drink. I'm talking about 30, 40 people here. And I was like, "Bloody hell." And he signed it to Warren Bartlett's room.

He told Warwick as he walked off, and Warwick didn't actually object to it. And actually that was the point I realized that I wanted to be in the industry because it was fun.

People weren't taking themselves too seriously and obviously there was money involved. And those three things came together that suited my personality at the time.

These guys were really forging what was meant to be happening in the future of the industry. Gigi Levy was around, Manfred and Norbert from BWin as well. So they were fun times.

It just happened that I really enjoyed what I did. A couple of years later there was the BWin-Party merger which obviously happened, but there was also meant to be BWin-Betfair.

I saw Deutsche Bank not understanding who they could represent. So it was just... the business was done in the bar, as I alluded earlier to. Maybe I was drinking a bit too much in those days. So that's maybe why it happened as well.

 

Narcis Gavrilescu: I think one of your major career highlights is Digitain and what you achieved there. You led one of the most aggressive international growth pushes in iGaming. Can you tell us about the journey and what that taught you?

 

Simon Westbury: It taught me a lot. I mean, I think what people don't always understand is when I took over in 2019, they'd had their worst sales year, having gone backwards from 2018.

So it wasn't an easy environment to go into. It's a very different, culturally diverse environment. I think we'll talk about that later. So I'm not going to get into that.

But one thing in life is I've not done things for praise, because praise doesn't come often and it never really satisfies me, because I'm always trying to push for more.

At Digitain I had the rare occurrence to actually do something I love and that was right for the industry and me at the time. And those two combined perfectly. And it was a blessing. So, yes, that was a great time.

Digitain did very well out of it financially. My KPI in 2022 was to bring, by the end of it—by December, March 23, because we had a longer KPI—to bring 2.5 million a month net revenue in new business to the company.

I'm pleased to say we hit it. We didn't hit it in the March, we hit it a bit later because it takes a while to get deals to go live. But those businesses are still running and working with Digitain.

So if you look at 2.5 million a month since March 2023, they've done okay from that.

But what was most important to me wasn't about the numbers. It was actually about building a team. And actually Digitain made me realize for the first time that I could be a leader.

Leaders take people where they cannot go on their own. And that's interesting because I led the team, but the team led me because we went to places I couldn't go on my own.

The worst trait for a leader, in my view, is self-pity. We had Covid happen. We had the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan at the end of 2020. And I didn't feel pity. I just took it as a challenge to move forward and build a team and really demonstrate how good that team was.

To this day, I'm still impressed by the fact they were so multilingual, the fact they actually learned the product—because if I hired someone in the UK, they wouldn't have learned the product in the way they did. They'd have tried to use their network to sell.

And it developed me as a leader. So I learned what I call depth. And it's around delegation, empowerment, patience, trust and honesty. They were the ingredients to the success of the team. And that's how we did it.

Ultimately, in hindsight, it was just over three years as CBO and two years at Sport General. I'm asking myself at times now, was it worth it?

On reflection, because I understand that ultimately I was probably not appreciated as much as I should have been. But I didn't do it for praise. I certainly wasn't valued. And I became a victim of politics in the end.

When you give so much, you have to stand back and go, "Was it worth it?" And I think overridingly it probably was, because the people, that team that we—you mentioned that I built—the ones that stayed at Digitain are all in management now. The ones that left have all gone to tier one suppliers.

So on reflection, it was worth it just for the memories. But it wasn't as easy as everyone made it out to be.

There's some really key learnings from that. And I think the reason I sometimes wonder if it was worth it is because I gave so much.

I think any business relationship should be as close to 50/50 as it can be, where you both want a bit more. And I'm not sure my relationship with Digitain Group was 50/50. I think it was probably more like 80/20, where I gave 80 and they gave 20. But that's life and you live and you learn.

 

Narcis Gavrilescu: One of the things you talk about, and I really appreciate, is style over substance in this industry. What is making you talk about that?

 

Simon Westbury: I think there's many reasons.

Firstly, when I first joined this industry, there was so much energy, so much passion, so much desire, so much drive. There were people that were really driving this forward. This was never done before. No one knew where the journey was going to go.

Now, I kind of go back to football. When I was younger, I wanted to be a fighter pilot because I like flying. If you ask kids now what they want to do, most male kids want to be a footballer.

Now, do they want to be a footballer because they have a passion for football, or do they want to be a footballer because they have a desire to earn the money that footballers earn?

I would venture most kids see the lifestyle and want the lifestyle. They don't understand the hard work that needs to be put in to being in that 1% of 1% to become a professional footballer.

Now, I think if I transpose that to gaming, I just see a lot of what I call peacocking. The peacock, when it has its feathers out, showing itself, is a wonderful creation.

But I just feel that the people in this industry now aren't always in it because of a passion and desire for the industry. I think they lack a lot of authenticity.

They create these images based on what they believe their personal branding should be in the industry and they push that in their peacocking way.

Ultimately, what I've understood over time is money can't buy happiness, it can buy the mind and it can buy complicity. And I think there's many people in this industry that are devoted to the money. And that brings their complicity, but it lacks authenticity.

And to me, authenticity beats perfection—touching on what we were talking about with perfection.

So I think I see a lot of rehearsed buzzwords, a lot of people preparing for interviews. And I admit I prepared for this one, but I think when we met in Rome, I was quite clear, "You don't have to send me the questions. I'll just go with how we go."

So I think people make the industry and I just think people are a bit carried away. I think some of the meaning of what we've lost within the industry has been lost.

I really realized that when I was at Digitain, when I just got fed up with people in interviews saying, "I want to travel, I want to go to a trade show."

And then it wasn't just to travel. They wanted me to book a flight back via Vienna so they could have a holiday in Austria and then book on.

I'm like, "I understand that. I was from the old school that we were told to get on flights, etc. And I understand the new generation have boundaries and they have things that they need to do."

But again, it comes back to this balance between the employer and the employee. And when I'm facilitating people's travel for personal holidays, it becomes a bit of a problem.

But at the same time, I don't agree with how I was brought up. You know, ICE finished, you're out of London on the Friday, you had your post-show report by the Friday evening.

I saw the world, but I saw airport lounges, hotels and restaurants. I think the balance needs to be there and I think that balance is lost.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: There's a lot of ego in the industry. How do you deal with that? I think some people would say I've got an ego.

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Simon Westbury: But I think you have to have a certain level of ego. I think perception is everything and how you're perceived. But I think authenticity is the most important thing.

When you know your worth, everyone panics because you're pretty unstoppable when you know who you are and what you are and what you want to achieve.

During my career, I never knew my worth. I always wanted perfection. And that, as I said a minute ago, was achievable but never sustainable. So I always wanted to do more.

But now I know myself, I'm very comfortable in me. And that comes from authenticity.

But I think there's a lot of ego and that relates to the peacocking. People are more focused on creating their personal brand and their personal identity—which is important, I'm not saying it's not—but I would come back to: the name on the front of the shirt is bigger than the name on the back of the shirt, as a football analogy.

I think the company is always bigger than the individual. Some of this has also been born about because it's always been easy to make money in gaming because it's entrepreneurial and it's developing and it's new. I think it's becoming a bit harder now.

Ego doesn't just relate to individuals. It comes down to who's got the biggest brand, who's got the biggest and. And that's the ultimate. It doesn't mean anything.

Ultimately what matters is—and I love what Alex Alia says, he says, "We're not a family, we're a tribe" in his company.

People always talk, "Oh, my company's my family." It's not, it's nonsense. You're part of an ecosystem, you're not joined by blood. You can join together in a tribe, as Alex says, but this whole family environment... honestly, gaming's got bigger.

So as gaming grows, the more egos that get involved. The easier it was to make money, but I think now it's harder. So I think some of the egos are for show.

I think that's part of what we do in the industry: award ceremonies. We all know which ones are bought, we all know which ones mean something. But some people buy an award to feed their ego, which I've never understood.

I did ask your question. I don't know if I answered it. I rambled, I don't know.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: No, no. It's like, when you meet somebody who has a big ego for no reason, how do you deal with it?

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Simon Westbury: I think that it's very easy for me. I'm honest and I'm pretty direct and I think that's been my problem at times.

I don't like wasting time. So if it's a trade show and I see the name badge, I can avoid it or I can say I'm not the right person.

The good thing about 1xBet is they have an upstairs bit of their stand, which I think I showed you in Rome. So I have an ability to hide up there now as well.

I give people time and I think people find me quite intimidating at times. So I'm not always approached because I think people view me as pretty unapproachable. Maybe because of ego or not, I don't know. That's for them to decide.

But yeah, I mean, I'm always polite unless you're being a right idiot, and then I'm gonna tell you you're being an idiot.

My friend said to me the other day, the key is to learn the subtlety of not giving it. And I think the fact is I haven't always learned the subtlety of it. I've been pretty direct.

If you've got an ego and you're wasting my time or you're being annoying, I tell you. And I don't do it to be rude. It's just I'm here to do business and I want to make money and I want to grow the companies I work for and I don't have time to listen to nonsense.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: One of the things that I wanted to ask you is: have you ever been guilty of having a big ego? No, let's just stop with that for the time being. No, I mean, you can answer that.

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Simon Westbury: I don't have a problem with it. I don't probably think I did. I think if you ask people, they probably did.

If you go back to the early days when I was working at Amaya, where I thought we were taking on the world and they ultimately bought PokerStars, I was drinking too much, I was enjoying myself too much. I was working with David Baazov.

But people don't understand why I took the job there. I took the job because Chartwell, which Amaya bought, was ultimately losing money. I didn't join Amaya, I joined Chartwell.

I joined Chartwell when I was 29, I just turned 30, and I just was like, "I want to turn this company around and I want to do deals."

Genuinely, people forget that side of me because I've been a leader or a manager for so long. I used to be a very hungry sales guy. And I think that may have come across as ego. It wasn't ego. It was just a desire to do really well.

I was lucky that I had someone like David Baazov around to drive that through his corporate acquisition of the world globally. But that just was a happy coincidence.

But I think people probably did think I had a massive ego at that time. And I didn't think I did. But as I say, perception's everything.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: What do you think true innovation looks like in this industry?

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Simon Westbury: I think people are confusing innovation with invention. Inventions are a tool.

So AI is the invention. How we apply AI is the innovation. How we use processes, new tools to streamline what we're doing, increase gamification, increase personalization.

I think innovation is not invention. It's an organic growth of new tools. For example, I always compare AI to a washing machine. A washing machine is brilliant, AI is brilliant.

But if you don't have the data and you don't have the machine learning with AI, a bit like if you don't have a human to put the washing in the washing machine to make it effective. And that's how I view data to AI.

So I think innovation to me is organic and a natural process which is developed from invention. Possibly, but it doesn't always have to be.

Back when I classed as innovation, I combined roulette with virtual football to have a spot-the-ball game. So that was taking two different concepts, bringing them together to create something new.

Now, to me, that was an invention, that was an involvement of roulette and virtual football to create a new kind of game and a new concept.

So to me, innovation is organic, grows from invention. But I don't think, "Oh, I've done this new... this is innovation." I think that's generally accepted as a definition of innovation.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: Do you think that the industry lost some of its creative edge?

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Simon Westbury: Yeah, I think we've become very lazy as an industry. I think we've become very "monkey see, monkey do," as I call it.

Aviator, which was great—Aviator redefined the genre of the industry. Okay, it's a crash game. Brilliant, well done. But majority of crash games in the years succeeding that have been based on a plane.

Now, it's not the plane that makes Aviator successful, I'm sure Aviator would also tell you that. But then, even in Rome, Chicken Run... I mean, I know about 10 Chicken Runs. It's absolute nonsense. It's like monkey see, monkey do.

I think part of that is because as the industry's matured, there's been less risk-taking.

I remember sitting in front of casino managers early 2010, saying, "I've got this new game." I was telling the story—sorry to bore you again—Bars and Bells, which was if you didn't win in five spins, you won on the fifth spin.

And the casino manager said, "I loved it, great. But it's too risky because we need to educate the player. So I'm going to stick with the other content."

So I think there's been a lack of risk-taking. I think also that feeds into regulation. We are very good to get as close to the line as we need to be, but we don't understand actually how to take risks in a creative way to actually move the industry forward.

It's not about pushing the limit of the regulation, and it shouldn't be about just monkey see, monkey do. God, the industry doesn't sound good, does it, from my perspective? Forgive me: peacocking, monkey see, monkey do.

But I think it's easy to copy because it's less risk-taking. If you've got an integration in... I don't know, let's just say E-Lear, because I mentioned them earlier... and you're a crash game, someone sees a Chicken Run game doing well and you've got the aggregation to all these things, it's easier just to copy Chicken Run because you know it works, to stop them integrating to an E-Lear, for example. This is all hypothetical before Alex starts ringing me.

So actually there's no real desire to move everything forward because actually someone has something, and there's a lot of game studios now that may have a new idea, but the big guys just find it, copy it and make it.

I don't think that's just across game studios. I think that's across a lot of the industry vertical, even media and socials, all that.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: A lot of people complain about it. They like when I talk to them at events or whatnot, it's just a lot of this complaint: "It's just a copy of a copy of a copy." By the way, I was thinking of putting this song from Fight Club where he said "copy of a copy of a copy."

But my question to you on that is slightly different. Because when I speak to people about this peacocking, let's say, or the concern I have about the future of the people and also the product, 90% of the people I speak to agree with me.

Now that might be just because they're my friends and they're old or whatever. But who actually has the cojones to speak about this publicly? That's the thing. You talk about it when you're in the audience, but you don't talk about it when you're on the stage.

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Simon Westbury: And I think, again, not trying to make this about me, this is why people maybe think I have an ego, because I have no concern about saying what I think.

Rightly or wrongly, it's not about being right. I have an opinion. Let's have a conversation. You can tell me, "Actually, there's loads of innovation. There's loads of stuff going on that I don't see." And quite rightly, there might be. Genuinely, there might be.

But at the moment, since I've been at 1xBet, the amount of people that have been writing to me, trying to work with 1xBet, saying, "I've got the next big thing," and I'm like, "It's not. Have you done your research? It's not the next big thing. This has been done five years ago."

And again, that's not being critical, it's just being honest. And I think this is what I'm talking about with authenticity. I have no fear in having an opinion, and I think a lot of people do, or a lot of people have a fear of voicing it.

I think, actually, even when you go to these big expos, a lot of the knowledge exchange is lost on the conferences. The conference aspect is not as important as it used to be, and it really should be, because that's where the knowledge exchange happens.

That's where the information is challenged and discussed. And if you get good speakers, it's really bloody interesting as well.

I used to love—actually, again, I'm not plugging SBC, forgive me, I'm not, I haven't got paid endorsements under the table—but back in the days of Betting on Football and the original Betting on Sport, that grew into SBC Summit, we'd get together at Chelsea.

During the panel sessions, there was no one in the Expo. But now I was in Tbilisi a few years ago and some of the guys were like, "Why has everyone gone into the panel sessions? Why are we not...?" People don't understand, even some of the younger generation sales people don't understand the difference between an expo and a conference, which is quite worrying.

But to me, we need that information exchange and we need to challenge each other. I'm happy to be challenged on anything. I can be wrong and I can adapt to my viewpoint.

I think I learned that at university when we did negotiation: you take part of argument A and argument B and make argument C. It's normally the solution.

Please don't think I'm saying I know all the answers. I don't. I just have an opinion. Feel free to challenge.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: You said that gambling should be treated as entertainment and not just betting. How does this look like? How would the implementation of this look like in your head? And why do you think that the industry resisted so much?

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Simon Westbury: I'm not sure the industry resists entertainment. I think it comes back to the risk-taking. They are scared to evolve entertainment.

At times, even in sports betting, we've got bet builder, we've got accumulators, we've got in-play. Those things took a long time to develop.

I think anything anyone does outside of their work environment—be going to the pub, going to watch a local football team—it should be entertainment.

It should also actually—and again, as an example, I took this from a fellow panelist in Lisbon—it shouldn't just be entertainment, it should be exciting, what we do.

I understand casinos are judged by RTP, RNG and stuff, but the player should have a feeling of entertainment and excitement. Good slots always... and I think this is why crash games do well: the player feels their skill affects the outcome.

Now, we know it doesn't. We know it's all generated by the RNG or the RTP, whatever you want to call it. But I think also on sports betting, there is an element of skill.

The joy of sport is that it's unscripted and that brings entertainment and excitement and misery.

When I used to go to Spurs—Arsenal when I had a season ticket—they always used to enjoy the game. You never enjoyed Spurs, though. It's not an enjoyable experience, even if you're up with five minutes to go. Being a Spurs fan, you're like, "We're gonna get this wrong."

So I think you have to take the fact that this is a social environment, it's a social product. And I don't mean social gaming, I mean it's something someone chooses to do in their social time, their time outside of work.

In that case, then, you do something. If you play a video game or you read a book, you do it to be entertained. So that's what we need to do, we need to entertain.

Because ultimately, screen time is getting less and less, attention spans are getting less and less. Even me, I was in the gym yesterday and I took my phone to the boxing lesson for the first time ever.

But that's because I had some work. That used to be my hour of solitude. But now we can't live without that interaction.

That's where the entertainment and the excitement has to really evolve and appeal to the next generation, while catering for old people like me that maybe spend a bit more time on websites and mobiles.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: I wanted to ask you, in the realm of risk, what do you think has been the biggest professional gamble you have ever made?

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Simon Westbury: There's two ways to look at that question. One way is to look at it from a pure business perspective.

When I was doing GAME and Executive Summit the second year I ran it, everyone had complained about the gala dinner the year before.

We're going back a long time now. Brochures for conferences used to be printed and sent out. I decided, me being me, that I wanted to do the gala dinner in the Bernabéu the next year.

I'd created this great thing in the President's Box, tour of Real Madrid, everything. The bit that no one knew was when it went on the brochure, we didn't have the approval.

If that had fallen through—because people were genuinely booking to come to the Bernabéu and have dinner in the President's Box—that would have been a real challenge, probably one I'd have overcome. But actually, that's where the risk worked, because it was confirmed and we had a great dinner.

Moving forward from that, I took a risk with Betfair. When I did the deal with Amaya, David Baazov said, "You have to win that thing, you just have to win it."

When David gave you that kind of motivation, it wasn't an ultimatum, it was motivation because you knew behind you he would do everything. He was like, "If you need to put a million pound penalty clause because we're one day late, put it in, but you win that."

I was competing against NetEnt. This was when HTML5 was just coming about. It was doing through the OpenBet OXI integration. There was only one slot every six months at Betfair gone. So it was big pressure.

I worked out—for me and a good friend of mine, Benedict McDonagh—that a bit like now, there was a lot of young, organic slot houses coming up. People were leaving the big boys, setting up their own thing.

Betfair wanted this content, but they didn't have the integration space. So I was like, "If I take all these on to the Chartwell Games platform as it was, and then aggregate out to Betfair through your one integration, you get lots. And I will give you one month exclusivity on every new integration."

It won. It worked and it won the deal. But that was a risk because when I went to contract, I wasn't sure how that was going to work and actually I shook hands on it without confirmation.

So, yeah, I'm talking about Real Madrid and Betfair in terms of risk.

I think one other risk I took—and it failed, this one, the other two worked—this one didn't. It's a comic strip in the UK called Striker, part of The Sun newspaper at the time. I loved it when I was growing up.

The guy who had the rights to it, Pete Nash, came to me and said, "Would you like to make a virtual football game on it?" Brilliant. Didn't do my due diligence. Created the football game, met with Sky, they loved it.

Then they came at ICE and said, "Yeah, we put it out to our consumers. They don't want it." And there was a lot of investment, you know, a lot of time, people, legal, products. Because I changed the whole product roadmap. So that was the time I got it wrong.

But I think in reality, the biggest risk I ever take is with any job. I think you kind of mature over life. That's why it took me a while to find this with 1xBet.

I took the learnings from my past experiences, maybe touching upon not feeling valued or necessarily wanted in my past role—but my success kept me there—to actually understanding I wanted to go somewhere where I'd be valued.

I also wanted to be honorable to my past employer because I didn't want to look cheap. I mean, the easiest place I could have gone is an office in the background behind... but I didn't. I'm in Yerevan, by the way, just in case anyone needs to work out what that company might be.

But I didn't, and I wanted to act honorably. And ultimately I've not even gone to a B2B company. I've gone to a B2C company—without being rude to my past employers, a bigger company. So ultimately they should be proud of what we've achieved and done.

But it's still a risk. And I think you're gonna ask me some questions on that risk in a bit later, so I don't want to spoil that bit of the interview.

But because of my dedication to anything I do in terms of work, that's the challenge: the risk in taking the job.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: You've worked in all parts of the world. You worked in UK, worked in Europe. You're working now in Yerevan. What is the wildest culture clash that you've ever seen?

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Simon Westbury: I'm gonna be a bit careful because I'm sitting in the country that I'm going to mention here.

Armenia, to me, was just different. I don't mean that in a negative way. And actually, I've only worked in one company in Armenia, so this might be disrespectful to Armenia as well.

But in terms of what I've experienced, the level of personal... people just take everything personally. And that's such a challenge with me because I'm pretty direct, and I'm honest and out there.

I always remember being at ICE in 2019, and I won't mention him because he's a mate of mine, but he came to me and he was like, "You don't like me." "What are you talking about? I do like you. You always challenge me."

Just because I challenge and argue with you about a product doesn't mean I don't like you. It means I want the best for the company. And he was like, "Oh." I was like, "So if I see you in the hotel bar tonight, I will buy you a drink."

Because I don't take things personally, and I think that's just a different business culture. You can sit in a meeting with me, call me every name under the sun. As long as we get the right outcome, I'll have a beer with you.

Also there was a fear—a fear of decision-making and having an opinion here in Armenia. That option of taking responsibility was something I really tried to ingrain in the team.

That comes down to empowerment, the ability to understand making a mistake isn't the end of the world.

One of the failings I had, maybe, or disappointments, was that some of the people I really believed I trained to have an opinion, since I've left, have had no opinion. And I think there's nothing worse for me than not having an opinion, right or wrong.

In Armenia, there's a real desire that's driven by the individual. I don't want to say ego, because it's a bit strong. If you look at Armenia, they're not very good at team sport, and there's a reason for that: because they're very individualistic. And I think they have to be right.

I remember having conversations with colleagues about the difference in tax between Romania and Malta. I think we all know there's a difference. These arguments went on for three days.

I'm like, "It's not even an argument. There's the website." I'm not trying to be clever, I'm not trying to be rude.

The legal department... I had one contract, and in the UK every law is an act—it's an Act of Parliament. And this contract said, "Under this Act, clause whatever." The lawyer wanted the whole Act put in.

I was trying to explain politely that if you put the whole Act in, you're going to have a very long contract, because Acts of law are generally quite long. And I got told off for undermining her.

I was just like, "Well, hang on, actually, I'm trying to help you, because if the law changes, you just amend the contract to say under this clause." I just felt that there was a lot of time for me discussing things that didn't need to be discussed.

One thing I learned very quickly is that the person in the meeting who didn't speak was the person who had the answer.

Because of this desire to show themselves and the desire to speak, those that spoke didn't know the answer. Those that knew were very proud that they knew the answer, so they waited for me to ask them for the answer. So it was difficult.

Also in the office, you're used to clocking in and out when you go in, so they know you're there. Every floor in the office had... you had to tap in, tap out. And the toilets were the other side of the barrier.

So to get to them, if you went for a pee, for example, that came off your hours. So everything was monitored. It was just very odd to me.

We even used to joke because there's a canteen in the Digitain office that they did the menu to make sure you didn't go to the toilet so that you could actually stay at your desk longer.

I understand you need to be monitored and you need to know when you're in and out of the office, but to know what floor you're on, to put the toilets past that, was just a bit odd to me.

I believe in trusting my colleagues on my team to do what they needed to do. There's also, back to this thing of making decisions, I owned it. If we made a mistake as a team, I owned it.

But managers used to throw their team under the bus and say, "Oh, no, they did it wrong." And I'm like, "Oh, hang on, you're the manager. If your team made a mistake, just own it yourself."

So I think it was just very different. And honestly, speaking to now, I don't know how I did it for nearly six years.

But as I say, it comes back to the team that I led and we did a great job. So I think, yeah, that's the big one. I think I don't need to say anymore. That's pretty clear why it was a big culture clash.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: When you joined 1xBet, some critics said that it would damage your reputation. What made you say yes?

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Simon Westbury: Anyway, I'm glad I've got critics. I'm glad 1xBet have got critics.

I think, look, I saw an opportunity. To me it's about opportunity. There was a lot of discussions before the role. We started talking in April, and for me, there was a real desire to change from 1xBet and engage. Not change so much, but engage.

I think they have a complex reputation. I understand that. My biggest frustration since I joined is journalists won't engage with me because they want to write their nonsense. And we can touch on that if you want.

I don't want to give you the headlines, but you can ask me the questions and I'll answer them.

Ultimately, 1xBet is a highly regulated company, 35-plus local licenses, working with global brands like FC Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain. That's not to say they're perfect. I'm not sitting here and saying they don't have challenges.

But I'm here to engage with the industry to understand the perception of this. A lot of what's written is chip paper the next morning. But I do feel if it's a slow news day, people just want to write the same nonsense about 1xBet.

So to me, I saw an opportunity and actually it's the biggest job for me to move things forward.

There's a lot of strategic conversations ongoing, which will come apparent in the next six months, where we're having some success.

There's a real dedication towards player protection. You've seen the reports that we've done in Europe, we're moving to Africa, then we're going to go to LatAm.

So there's many different components to this that excited me and I had the opportunity to deliver the message to the industry.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: How do you reconcile joining a company with a complex reputation and your commitment to transparency and responsibility?

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Simon Westbury: I think I'm here to be transparent and be responsible and you can ask me any question you want. If you want to ask me about the topless croupiers or Thai football, I don't mind. Ask me. Most people haven't got the cojones to ask.

One thing I would say—sorry to cut you off—I think, look, I'm sitting here in Yerevan. I grew up in the UK. I've got a very Western view on life.

In my politics degree, it was about Occident and Orient, East and West. We're based in Cyprus. It's kind of on the Eastern side of Europe. We operate in Kazakhstan, CIS, etc.

So I think: don't view us through a Western liberal optic or a colonial optic. Actually stand back, understand and look at the evidence.

If you still don't like us after you've looked at the evidence, fair enough. I'll engage in a conversation.

I cut you off. Feel free to ask me whatever you want.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: Not at all. No problem at all. I wanted to ask you: what do you think this transformation requires beyond PR? How does it...?

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Simon Westbury: I think part of this is the story. PR is the story, but it's engaging on player protection, it's engaging with regulators, it's getting more licenses, it's working with more brands internationally in terms of sports.

I'll put it in a nutshell for you because I know we're a little bit tight on time. It's about the three Ps: the power of the product, the power of the people and the power of the brand.

Those three things come together ultimately to make 1xBet. And I think that story is not instant. I'm not going to change everyone's mind overnight.

What needs to be done is not based on PR talk and me speaking. It needs to be based on evidence. And you will start seeing that evidence come through in the next six months, and you saw it with our player protection index.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: Simon, before we wrap everything up, I want to also ask you the magic question. How would you like to be remembered in iGaming history?

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Simon Westbury: Just as a good bloke. Someone who cared deeply, desired to make the industry an open, from place for everyone to work safely and enjoy, and thus create an environment for players themselves—which is why we all do it—to have a fun, entertaining, exciting experience.

Judging by everything that I see up until this point, I'm sure that will happen. Who knows? You know, my life is never simple. Who knows? It's going in a very good direction.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: It is, hopefully. What is the most misunderstood thing about you in the industry?

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Simon Westbury: This is a question that you sent me and I found the hardest to answer. And actually I'm going to be honest with you because I viewed it as a negative question. I looked at all the negative possible sides of me.

If you're misunderstood, that means perception is wrong about you. I actually asked some industry friends to say what they think it was.

One guy said something very interesting. He said, "You're maybe viewed as an ambassador versus a rainmaker, and people don't understand: to get on front of camera, deliver the message without it being prescribed, without it being rehearsed and it being authentic is a skill." My sister-in-law informed me it was a skill.

It's misunderstood that I may have worked mainly in gray markets because of my previous employer. But ultimately if you look at VSoftCo, I worked in Italian virtual regulated market heavily. We had a UK license, I was a PML holder. We also at Chartwell were highly regulated.

People forget—maybe don't know—the numbers. As I mentioned, the 2.5 million a month net that Digitain still makes: 2019 they did 35 deals, 2020 we did 85, and then 117. So there is the ability that I make money. I'm not just an ugly face on front of camera.

Other people said, "Look Simon, I found you very unapproachable but we never had touch points. But you're the nicest and one of the most caring people that we know."

I don't shout about people I mentor. I don't go on LinkedIn saying, "Oh, I've got this learning because I've mentored someone." I keep that private because I think that's a private point.

A very good friend of mine said, "Sometimes you can come across as opinionated and direct, but actually it's a front. You're very considerate and loyal, loving person. You've had your struggles, which gives you a tough outer field as a shield. But underneath it all, you're very loving and caring."

I think that kindness and respect and honesty can sometimes be seen as a weakness, where people want to prompt a reaction from me or a response.

The big thing I'm working on at the moment is reaction and response—responding rather than reacting.

One final thing is people misunderstand that I do choose to live in Armenia. I'm not just here because my wife's Armenian or because of work. I do choose to live here because I like it. I have the ability to live anywhere I want, but I choose to live here.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: And you've gotten used to the culture, the social culture, the work culture?

 

Simon Westbury: Maybe not, based on my earlier answer.

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Narcis Gavrilescu: Simon, we have used up our time. I am very grateful. Thank you for doing this, and I very much look forward to adding to your legacy here on iGaming history.

For everybody who was watching, thank you very much and you will hear more from us.

I will leave Simon's details and 1xBet details in the description below. Take care.

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Simon Westbury: Take care. Thank you.​