Common sense must win on prohi

Common sense must win on prohibition FRANCESCO ALBERONI

Anew adventure just a few months from turnin 90. The sociologist Francesco Alberoni is among the many “excellent” candidates running for European elections on May, the 26th, in the Fratelli D’Italia party. A challenge that he explains as follow: “I entered the race against the type of political system existing in Italy at present. After the political elections of March, the 4th, the two relative majority parties drafted a common program and they rules following it. These parties are very different from each other: the Lega has a Swiss-type tradition, the Movimento 5 Stelle born from the utopia of Gianroberto Casaleggio of the anti-parliamentary vote, where one is equal to one, has an anarchist but also authoritarian manner. People thought they were together out of necessity, but my idea is that the leaders of lega and M5S have made a political continu

ity agreement. They want to rule for five years, reform the State institutions, bearing in mind that this is an anti-parliamentary group party and that the French extreme right of Marie Le Pen, that is a quite shady party, is among the alliances made by Matteo Salvini. The Movimento 5 stelle also has a referendum to propose a bill with no quorum in store, according to which 200 thousand signatures would be enough to propose a referendum and as many votes to approve it.... a bit like with online discussions done in the case of the power to proceed against the Minister of the Interior. This is a non-democratic regime, with people who change their minds without giving any justification and who deprived Parliament of its prerogatives. For this reason me, Francesco Alberoni, complained, and I did so by accepting the invitation of Fratelli d’Italia. I would have said yes to Silvio Berlusconi, to Matteo Renzi, and instead FdI did it, asking me to assume the cultural direction of the party of which I know both Giorgia Meloni and Guido Crosetto. It is a gesture to say that I don’t trust how the agreement between M5S and Lega is going”. In your opinion, do we need a strong Europe or a strong Italy in Europe? “I have a project for the European Union: it must be a federal state with very limited functions, but it must be strong with the great international powers. The future is made of the United States, Russia, India and China. How does Italy deal with Chi

The sociologist Francesco Alberoni faces the new adventure of the European elections: a means to say “no” to the Italian political system, while he gives a judgment of the yellow-green government provisions on the ban on gaming advertising

by Anna Maria Rengo

na? Alone, it could only obey, and in this regard, who knows what are the agreements that the government has taken on commercial matters with President Xi Jinping, when he visited Italy. Moreover, we have a small group of people in the government who tend not to inform the rest of the people and only make jokes, only saying that the agreements with China are good”. What do you think, as a sociologist as well as a politician, the provisions set by the yellow-green government regarding legal gaming, above all the total ban on advertising but also the increase in taxation? Are these measures useful to fight against pathological gaming and to protect minors? “I don’t like the fact that Las Vegas and Montecarlo have moved to Italy, filling the cities with sharks. Perhaps the government did well to ban gaming advertising. Of course, those who want to play will complain, but they can’t please everyone. However, it must be added that prohibition is a fanatic thing. Control, common sense, or to increase the price of what one would like to forbid are much better. Let’s think about the consequences that prohibition has had in the United States!”. According to many people, online gaming is the “real” danger, as it is less controlled and controllable. How can families and educational agencies, schools above all, face this risk? “The worst danger is not gaming but the drugs. When a country begins to take drugs means that it has lost the future and that the system is weak”.

OCTAVIAN GAMING A STAR IN THE GAMING SKY

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Octavian Gaming is a leading company in the design and production of gaming software specific to the gaming market, based in Bussolengo, Via del Lavoro 10, in the province of Verona. Gioco News had the opportunity to fully know the Verona software house, visiting the Octavian Gaming headquarters and meeting the team. The company that has also invested abroad for about 10 years and has three other offices in the world: in Russia, England and Taiwan, has its beating heart in Italy thanks to an international highly qualified development team of gaming software and always up with all the innovations on the market. A team with decades of programming experience on the Linux operating system and adopting the latest Arm and Intel x86 technologies, to offer product of excellence to the increasingly demanding market. Octavian products are distributed worldwide thanks to a careful selection of strategic partners and, in particular, in Italy thanks to a widespread distribution managed by the main device manufacturing companies. The goals set at Octavian are three: creating cutting-edge gaming content - prompt, high-quality services and customer satisfaction. “We take great care of graphic elements - Simone Pachera, Ceo of Octavian Gaming, explains - creating full hd games and record-breaking animations, thanks to super-performing graphic engines. We are committed to creating cuttingedge gaming content, with constant and in-depth research on product design and market trends. It is important to underline that the perfect product that we daily offer on the market is studied, designed and manufactured in every single aspect into Octavian. Each title is characterized by innovative game logic and sophisticated mathematical engines with constantly evolving random algorithms. Two words that best define the services we offer are quality and speed”. Among the Verona company’s missions there is also attention to the customer: in addition to the development of customized projects, Octavian offers a dynamic post-sales technical assistance service, aimed at minimizing the technical stops of the product, which can be monitored in real time by requesting the “Octavian Gls Remote” account. “Technical assistance department – Pachera continues - offers efficient and prompt technical support to its customers and partners, assuring the highest quality standards and repair times that don’t exceed three working days. All Octavian cards are equipped with a special menu related to the management of the renting, connected with our portal through a QR-code system. The “Octavian Gls Remote” service is active for some time, a web tool that allows access to the online support service for game cards. In fact, through this service, users can verify: repair times with real-time tracking of the status of the cards sent in processing; historical analysis relating to types of breakdown and repair times; real-time management of notifications via e-mail/ sms about alerts from our system as unconfirmed estimates, missing documents and autonomous management of the products supplied in renting as unlocks and charge cards”. Dreamset Volcano - Octavian has a huge portfolio, which includes more than 100 titles. During our visit to Octavian’s headquarters, we were able to try the latest 7-games card from the successful DreamSet line: Dreamset Volcano in the showroom located at the entrance of the venue. New homologation, DreamSet Volcano is the sequel to the DreamSet Galaxy and DreamSet Fever blockbuster cards, of which it shares the mathematical engine enriched with some concepts and the 10 cent bet. It contains three unreleased titles, two of the best titles from the previous series and two titles that have made the history of Octavian: Dragon’s Ring, Fireballs, Revenger, Cleopatra, Tarzan, King Neptun and King Mida, a title that allows 10 cent bet. DreamSet Volcanio is available for 19” and 22” cabinets and in regeneration on the Octavian MAX-2 card. To see all the technical specifications about DreamSet Volcano visit the portfolio: portfolio.octaviangaming.com. “The Octavian offer - the Ceo says again - is not limited only to the Awp market. In fact, Octavian has also been turning to the online gaming market for a couple of years. In partnership with WorldMatch, a company from Padua with great experience and professionalism, Octavian releases the very first suite of online games. This suite, consisting of 7 games, is developed using the most modern HTML5 technologies, fully responsive and with a gaming interface adaptable to any type of device (mobile, tablet or desktop) and to any type of screen (vertical or widescreen). Having strong in-house designer teams, Octavian is able to create titles with a unmatched graphic section in the industry and to offer games with simple, immediate, but always intriguing rules. For some time – Pachera ends - the titles are live on the main European operators and on Latin American area. Furthermore, from January 2019, the suite is available on Eurobet, Betpoint and Snai, with the intention of expanding the distribution channels. You can see the wide range of titles offered by Octavian in cooperation with WorldMatch at the following website: casino.octaviangaming.com.

GAMING THAT COMES FROM THE COLD

by Anna Maria Rengo

ZOLTÁN TŰNDIK, CO-FOUNDER AND HEAD OF BUSINESS OF EUROPEAN GAMING MEDIA AND EVENTS, ANALYZES THE BUSINESS PROSPECTS EXISTING IN THE BALTIC COUNTRIES AND BELIEVES THAT ITALY COULD FACILITATE ILLEGALITY, BY BANNING THE ADVERTISING OF DULY LICENSED OPERATORS: FOCUS IN MILAN IN OCTOBER.

Avantage point for observing the emerging and now established markets, but which could creak and no longer represent a reason for great business interests, as well as a regulatory starting point. This is the point of view of Zoltán Tűndik, co-founder and head of business of European Gaming Media and Events, who takes inspiration from the presentation of the second edition of the Mare Balticum Gaming Summit (scheduled for May, the 9th) to analyze the current trends of the gaming sector in Europe. But let us get things in the right order, starting from the second edition of the event which, he explains, “is a unique platform in the Baltic and Scandinavian region” and that comes “after a strong debut back in 2018. I would highlight 3 main news about conference: a new location (Vilnius, Lithuania), inaugural awards ceremony (BsgAwards), an even bigger speakers’ lineup with more regional representatives. The move to Vilnius is among the main news as the conference is designed to circulate in the region based on the request of attending or prospect delegates. The second main news about the 2019 edition is that we are adding an inaugural awards ceremony, which is titled the Baltic and Scandinavian Gaming Awards (BsgAwards) and aim to reward the companies in the region for their hard work and commitment to the industry in a total of 21 categories (10 categories for the Nordics and 11 categories for the Baltics). Once again we are putting the decision in the hands of the attending delegates, who will have the honor to decide the winners. The speakers’ list includes 30% more speakers from the region and we have more experts joining us from the operator’s side such as Betsson Group and Kindred Group, who have a large presence in both regions. The expectations are high and we expect to have once again a sold out event (even if we added more seats this year) where lots of quality information is shared, memorable moments are made and of course lots of networking and deals are done by the attending delegates”. What are Baltic countries that currently have the most interesting business prospects? “Based on our information, Estonia and Lithuania are much more evolved when it comes to online gambling while Latvia is currently facing some regulatory amendments in the land based sector due to some political decisions. We can’t really point out which country in the Baltics has more business prospects, however in terms of digital/online gambling, Estonia has been really proactive with the implementation of the e-Residency while also having one of ‘the most advanced digital society in the world’, name given by Wired. You will have to attend the conference to find out more about the investment possibilities in the Baltic region!. What do you think about the Italian gaming market, also in the light of the increase in taxation and the ban on advertising? Remains it an interesting market for foreign operators and an “example” at a regulatory level? “In my opinion, the current situation in Italy will not remain the same and amendment will surely even out the odds. The ban on advertising has a negative effect on the industry and tends to grow the black market and we all know that blacklisting is not an effective method to combat this from happening. Only having an increased exposure of the legal operators will help drive players

towards fair companies. Nevertheless, this is happening in many countries in Europe and it seems the current political climate tends to regulate everything and everywhere. In terms of being an interesting market for investor, I would say, yes! As far as I know, gambling in Italy has existed for centuries and dates back to the days of the Roman Empire. I don’t think that any Juventus, AC Milan, Siena or any football club’s fan will ever have a weekend on which he/she will not place any bets on their favorites or against their rivals. While online gambling is not all about betting, lottery, bingo and other forms of gambling will always remain a tradition for players, making the market attractive for operators and also for software suppliers to create more games. “Example”, with emphasis on the quote marks is the right way to put it when talking about the regulatory level. This is the perfect example of how not to regulate the market, but time will tell and of course it depends on the political agenda of some. We have been highlighting the Italian market and the recent changes at our latest conferences via special panel discussions and we are happy to announce that we are talking the discussion to its home this year by organizing the second edition of European Gaming Congress in Milan, Italy. This is also an open invitation for the regulator to join the conference as a speaker and share the information this October after the 3 months of gambling sponsor advertisement ban in Seria A and much more. The congress will take place on the 22nd of October and we look forward to seeing all of you there!”. What are the “hot” issues for the 2019 European industry and what are the challenges it has to face? “The European gambling industry has been under fire for the last 2 years and more and more issues are slowing it down. Without sounding very aggressive about some of the topics, I would point out responsible gaming, advertisement banning, US market opening and diversity. Responsible gaming and advertisement banning are

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going together and even if we usually approach the subject at most of our conference and news, I haven’t seen any real movement of implementing it effectively by regulation, rather than just having PR around it for brand awareness. The new wave of corporate responsibility has pushed many of the large operators to focus so much on spreading the news about how effective they are in dealing with gambling addiction, that they have mostly forgot to create analysis of the impact. While a good way out of creating gambling addiction is enforcing advertisement limitations. Governments are currently so focused on destroying the image of the industry that they forget how much innovation has done over the past decade and also forget about how much jobs the industry created, not to mention the taxes that go into the state ledgers every month. The opening of the US market for online gambling is also a hot topic for the European industry. Many of the large operators and software provider are aiming to enter the giant market over the ocean while sometimes losing out on innovation in Europe. Sure, large operators will be ok, however the US market will remain an “American Dream” for most of the peers interested into expanding into the demographic. Diversity is also a hot topic now everywhere and it’s not lacking interest in the industry. While most of the discrimination of women comes from the Western European society it will be a clash of East and West when it comes to Europe”. Does the European gaming industry have a know-how that can be exported to the big world capitals of gaming, such as Las Vegas and Macau? “Depends on how strong the Europeans want to export the know-how they’ve gained over the years when dealing with clients. In my opinion, Europeans want everything that is American and Asian, while Asian and Americans like the mixture of cultures in Europe. However, when it comes to regulations and innovation, it is a different aspect. Unfortunately, in quality, Europe lacks of both. Regulations are done drastically and most of them have negative effects on innovation and also push back the know-how. When referring to Las Vegas and Macau, most of the large European companies already have a huge presence there in both land-based and online. I guess, we will just have to sit back and see what happens in the next few years as the gaming industry is here to stay and it is certainly reaching new heights and being more visible in main stream media”.

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