Max Bet Media with Mike McKiski

Nick Hogan:

Howdy, Lucien. How are things three blocks away from my office today?

Lucien Wijsman:

Nick, it's raining here, how is it in your place?

Nick Hogan:

Oh, absolutely sunny. Actually, no we have a meter of snow outside. It's away. Okay, so here we are, late

May, and you and I are both back in Holland following a week in Slovenia at the Casino Operations Summit.

And following our last podcast, I actually received a couple of questions about the event, where it's held, who attends,

what it's all about, et cetera. So, I thought we could devote today's pre-interview banner to having you provide those

details and share some of your observations about this year's event.

Lucien Wijsman:

Cool. Yeah, well, I look back and I'm happy. Having 300 people in the same place with alcohol flowing and

all these type of things, I'm always afraid that something will happen. And this was the 14th time, I think.

So, if you add it all up, then it's thousands of people and, knock on wood, this year passed by,

nothing happened that was not positive. And on the positive side, I think the lineup of the speakers was great.

I enjoyed many of the discussions that were on stage after speakers spoke about topics. 300 people, so also it

was also 20% up from last year in Amsterdam, I think, the number of delegates. And it's growing, at the

end of each summit, the sponsors come and say, "Can you book us a spot for next year?" So yeah,

we're really, really happy with how this is growing.

And I think for the first time also we had people from Iceland and from South Africa attending. So this

was originally the focus is on land-based operators, or multi-channel operators from Europe, but yeah, slowly but surely we're starting

to attract people from outside Europe, and that makes it more interesting. The whole idea behind the summit was and

still is that in a very relaxed setting you can sit with your peers in the industry, and what I

noticed is that even though Europe is quite diverse, but bringing Iceland and South Africa in it creates a completely

different dynamic in the conversations that people have while they're having a drink, or while they're having food. It was

great, and I'm already really looking forward to next year to be honest.

Nick Hogan:

Yeah, it's lovely, and I also loved the speakers this year. And what I love about this format, I think

I've said it a few times, is it's basically three days, so it's three days of talks and various stuff,

and then in the evening you have these entertainment events and whatnot, and it's just the level of networking and

conversation that you can have. It's just so much better than what you find at traditional trade shows and stuff,

where it maybe is just a five to 10 minute meet and greet with somebody, versus having an hour long

conversation with somebody.

And yeah, I just love that format, I think it's a lot of fun. You get to know people you

can... And just really go deep on the topics that you're discussing. Yeah, personally I felt it was your best

yet, I really felt that way, I was really super engaged with all the talks and whatnot, and all the

networking was awesome. So, yeah, great job.

Lucien Wijsman:

I would agree with that, I think this was the best yet.

Nick Hogan:

Okay, cool, cool, cool. All right, well I think we can mosey on along here and introduce our guest here

for today. So, today's guest has been in the gaming industry, by my count, 17 years now, beginning with a

brief stint in PR with MGM Resorts, and then followed by 12 years of sales and marketing management roles with

Bally's, Sci Games, Interblock, AGS, LNW. And then back, I think it was in 2020, he co-founded Max Bet Media,

which is the company behind, if not the best known industry podcast, certainly one of the best known industry podcasts,

and you would know him as the co-host of that MaxBet podcast, Mr. Mike McKiski. So howdy, Mike, how are

things in Sin City this morning?

Mike McKiski:

Doing good. Been a fun week, so we'll get to it, but big announcements and lot of movement, so it's

been good. Thanks for having me on, appreciate you [inaudible 00:04:43] time.

Nick Hogan:

Happy to have you. And indeed, we did see some announcements this week, so there's some big news dropped yesterday,

so you want to open with that, Mike, what you're up to?

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, we can. So, I just joined over with Bluberi Gaming as their senior Vice president of sales, so for

me that's a fun opportunity, right people, right timing, I think was good. So they have a great leadership team

and I'm happy to join and be part of it. So yeah, it's been a fun week of getting my

feet back into, as you were talking about in the intro, the sales and leadership side, right? After chasing these

media dreams for so long.

Nick Hogan:

And you're joining a good crew there. I really like the folks there at Bluberi, and they've been doing some

very interesting stuff over the last few years. Well, congrats on that-

Mike McKiski:

Thank you.

Nick Hogan:

... gig and I wish you nothing but the best there. So, as I mentioned, it looks like we're going

back 17 years now, if I have that number correct.

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, round about.

Nick Hogan:

Okay. Can you walk us through that career and describe the path that took you to where you are now?

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, it's interesting. So, I grew up in Vegas, start there. My family was always involved in the casino business.

My grandma dealt cards, my mom dealt cards for a while, my dad was in purchasing for a lot of

the casinos. So, then I played football for UNLV, which is always interesting because then it leads to these alumni

mixers, and I think when you're doing that you have no idea what you're going to do. So, maybe I'll

play pro football, maybe I'll do, who knows? I went to school for journalism, and then I got a lady

that said, "Hey, I run public relations for MGM, have you ever thought about that?" And I said, "Well, honestly,

I slept through all the PR classes. It wasn't the most fun for me." I had visions in my head

before Mad Men was a show, I thought I could be Don Draper and just sit back and create ideas

and work 0% of the time. Right, and so-

Nick Hogan:

With a tumbler of scotch surgically implanted in your hand, right?

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, exactly. Turns out that wasn't a real job anymore in the 2007, and so she goes, "Yeah, maybe we

talk anyway." I'm like, "All right, fair enough." So, fortunately passed her interview test and worked for MGM PR. And

then I always laugh, I say from there it was just a series of fortunate conversations.

I had a friend that was working at Bally Technologies at the time and she said, "Hey, we need a

product manager, an associate product manager entry level." I said, "I don't even know what that means. I couldn't even

tell you what a [inaudible 00:07:13]." She goes, "You'll be great." I'm like, "Okay." So, I interview and it turns

out I got the job and did okay there, and in that role met some of the sales guys like,

"Hey, you got to be in sales." I'm like, "All right, how do I do that?"

They're like, "Well, just hold tight. We'll find out. We'll call you when there's a roll open." And was able

to join, when it was Bally, move over, sell their mobile apps, and to start interactive and followed that road,

and then it was just people calling you, you meet the right person at the right time and you grow.

So you go from selling mobile apps at Bally to my boss at the time was John Connelly, who's currently

the CEO of Interblock. Once Sci Games bought us out, he called, he goes, "Hey, listen, we'll talk to you

in a year basically with all the non-competes and legal stuff." And so, in a year and a day he

called me, he goes, "Hey, come over here." So, you help him, and then AGS called Andrew and that's when

I met him and had some fun going public and making some noise and having some fun at AGS for

almost five years.

And then left to chase some media dreams, like I said, so I left that to... We thought we could

start a TV network dedicated to gaming, turns out we were wrong. And then that's when Matt Wilson called and

said, "Hey, let's do some table games." And did that for a bit. Then last year I was able to

sit out, refocus, and now Andrew called back and said, "Let's go have another run at Bluberi." And so, here

we are. So, I know that's a speedball version, but it's been a fun series of just going working really

hard, trying to find people you like, and then the opportunities find me, is I've been lucky in that regard,

haven't had to fill out too many job applications.

Nick Hogan:

Okay, cool.

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, but it's been good. Yeah, and when you mentioned earlier you're saying, "Hey, Bluberi is exciting." I love hearing

the folks that have their fingers on the data say that, because it means the games are working and it's

a good... Not just the people are cool, but no, it's always fun to see that.

Nick Hogan:

Yeah. And I think just... And I know Andrew, and we had Mike and Casey on and talking to these

guys, and what I see there with just those three individuals are guys who have their eyes fully on the

ball. They're focused on the right things, they have the right priorities, they're just smart, together guys. So, yeah, definitely

a fan.

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, I think that's their personalities anyway. I think those three in particular just happened to be very detailed focused

gentlemen, but I think the nice part about a company like Bluberi is you don't have all the distractions of

five different lines of business and six continents worth of pressure. It's kind of refreshing to say, "Hey, we're going

to go do one thing and we're going to do it really, really well." Is a fun challenge. And so,

I think for us that's been good energy and a lot of fun to be a part of, even just

over the last couple of weeks.

Nick Hogan:

Yeah, a hundred percent.

Lucien Wijsman:

Well, congratulations with the new role.

Mike McKiski:

Thank you.

Lucien Wijsman:

But I do want to talk about MaxBets a little bit.

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, let's do it now [inaudible 00:10:07].

Lucien Wijsman:

I'm not even sure if you know that, but in Europe, if I would ask people what do you know

the name MaxBet off quite a few people would say the podcast, but an equal amount of people would probably

say, "Oh, isn't that huge operator in Eastern Europe?" So there is a gaming operator called MaxBet in Europe, which

is sizeable, at least.

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, we discovered that after we posted our shows, and so they've never had any issue. Early days, we LinkedIn

each other and it was like we would thumbs up each other's content, but I don't think... We weren't a

threat to them. I think once they realized, "Oh, these are just two guys talking gaming." It's like we're opening

a casino down the river, whatever, down the road. So, yeah, all good. It's funny though, I did know that.

Lucien Wijsman:

But being in Europe, I don't have any data to back this up, but I'm going to say that you're

probably the best known podcast in the industry. You're definitely the best known podcast to me. So, can you give

us a bit of a sense what led you to found MaxBets in the day? And what made you to

feel that the industry needed a podcast like that?

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, thank you. It's always fun to see, and we'll talk numbers in a second. You do give us too

much credit though, so I laugh, if Landon's listening to this, he's probably just chuckling going... We never thought anything

about what the industry wanted or needed. That didn't cross our minds ever.

We were two guys that we were running sales for the West for AGS, so I was the vice president,

he was running all of California, and so we had a lot of road trip time. There's a lot of

times you're just driving from casino to casino, and then fortunately we were able to go out and have really

fun late night conversations with people. You take your customers out, you have dinner, you're just shooting the breeze, telling

stories. And he actually had the idea, he said, "We should be doing this on camera, we should have a...

Somebody should be recording these conversations." Because everyone assumes they're scandalous, but 99% of the time you're not going to

get in trouble for anything you say. It's pretty innocent banter.

But it's an inside look on how does the VP of gaming speak or how does the GM think outside

of the boardroom? And so, he said, "Hey, we should do a podcast." And so, I guess he always laughs

about this, but he tried to find a host and no one wanted to do it with him, so he

told me about it out of frustration, and I go, "I'll do it." He goes, "What? You can't do it,

you're my boss."

I go, "Who cares? I don't have to be your boss on the show." And so then we brought that

to AGS and they did it, but we had no idea that it would be anything of what it is.

We just thought it would be fun to do, and I laugh in terms of... A lot of people ask

now, "Hey, well, how did you know it was going to be good?" Or, "How did you know?" And it's

like we didn't know anything, but we Googled, once we put our first episode out, we Googled like, "Hey, what

would be a good amount of downloads? How would you know it was any good?" And they said, "Hey, if

you can get 150 listens," Depending on the platform, downloads or views or whatever, "in the first 12 weeks, you'd

be in the top 20% of podcasts." That was the number five years ago. I don't know what it is

now.

And we had 153 overnight and we were like, "Oh, that's pretty cool." So, what we found out pretty quickly

is that between COVID and everybody in gaming being bored, a little bit of our personalities I think made it

fun, there was an appetite for people to just hear others talk about gaming and working in gaming, just while

not at work. They wanted to hear from guys like us just commenting on our experiences. Or we've been fortunate

to have, I think, almost a hundred pretty high profile guests come through, learning from people like that that most

folks don't get a chance to just sit down with and sip a coffee or shoot the breeze, right?

So, yeah, it's been good. So, that's how it started, but we had no idea what the industry would do

with this once we launched it. So, too much credit for us there at the beginning, I think, but otherwise

that's how it came to be.

Lucien Wijsman:

And then starting it's one thing, but that was the first season was 2020, so you've been doing this for

five years. And that's wow, that makes me wonder, so the initial objectives, well, you explained a little bit how

that worked, but how did you pick your guests and topics? Can you walk us through that a little bit?

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, the topics evolved I guess over time, but the first set of topics was very profile-based. So, we had...

Our first guests were, so we had David Lopez, who is then and now the CEO of AGS. We had

Matt Wilson who at the time I want to say had just moved over and was the CEO of gaming

for Light & Wonder. Now he's the CEO of all of Light and Wonder, obviously.

Nick Hogan:

I think back then he was with Aristocrat though, yeah?

Mike McKiski:

He might've been, I want to say he moved over right in the pandemic, so it's right around that time.

Nick Hogan:

Okay. Got you.

Mike McKiski:

And then Skyler Perkins, who runs all the gaming for Choctaw Casinos in Oklahoma. And so, what's interesting is those

are the guys we knew those are guys we could get to, and for us it was like we had

to beg, borrow and steal the first guests, because when you think about guys like that it was really about

who could we convince to lend their brand to this completely unknown platform? Once you put it on the internet,

none of those guys needed us, 0%. We probably didn't help them at all. Those guys were all going to

be successful without us.

But for us it was like, "Hey, if a guy like David Lopez will do an interview." And he's not

famous for doing a ton of interviews, or certainly wasn't back then, I think more and more as the company

has almost doubled in size basically from then till now, he's been more out front. But a lot of... There

was people like, "Oh man, David's talking." It's like, "Well, yeah, he did it for us as a favor." And

so, then when you get to the fifth and sixth episode, you call a guy like Gavin, who I want

to say was a round episode 10, Gavin Isaacs, we knew him, but then he was like, "What are we

doing?" I'm like, "Hey, don't worry, we did it with David." And he's like, "All right, if those guys have

done it." So, it becomes easier.

And then once the platform becomes... We get more guests that way, so the guests kind of evolve. And then

topic wise, we started out with profiles, "How'd you get into gaming? Tell us about your career. Walk through that."

And by maybe 10, 15 episodes in everybody's like, "We don't care about that. Unless there's a really fun story

about how did you get in? Were you just randomly on the right train and some guy recruited you?" They're

like, "It's boring. Just tell us what you're doing now. What are you working on? What are you learning?" So,

we've evolved it to be very present tense, but it started profiles and just whoever we could get.

Nick Hogan:

And I'm also, just because we went along, we had a similar trajectory, just creating a podcast out of nowhere

and threw it out there, and then of course, you start getting this feedback from listeners and stuff. So, just

beyond that, beyond the profile thing, what kind of things did you learn during that first season that really helped

with the show's evolution, and whatnot?

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, I think early on it was the importance of a good edit. So, I think for... I laugh, we

had not so good microphones. Because we didn't know what we were doing. We had the pretty cheap $99 microphone

to start, and then quickly thereafter, people were like, "Hey, we like it, but can you tighten that up?" All

right, so we bought the latest and greatest of Shore podcast microphones, which were all evolving at the time. So,

the audio quality was a big one. But then from a content perspective, it was really just keeping it real,

keeping authentic. Anytime we got into an interview that felt more journalistic, people were like, "Hey, we don't like that.

Just keep it conversational." For us. They wanted to believe these two younger knuckleheads were just talking to these super

important people as if we were having a beer.

I don't think... One time we had a beer on the show with Tim Minard, who's the CEO of Eclipse

Gaming, so he came in and we actually had beers, but it was the vibe was otherwise, it was always

non-drinking, but that same vibe. And so, it was just keeping it real. A lot of people were channel checking

us to keep us authentic. And then a lot of the feedback early was just giving us good questions, "Hey,

why don't you ask this type of thing? Why don't you do that?" And so, we would start to solicit...

We learned, hey, if we put out a feeler saying... Hey, I know, let's say Nick, if you were coming

on, I'd go, "Hey, who knows Nick? All right, give me some background questions." And then we would learn to

start with that to put you at ease, and just different things. But yeah, it was all just real time,

just two guys trying to run and keep it all going.

Nick Hogan:

And when you say you wanted to avoid being too journalistic, you mean you just didn't want the topics too

structured? Or you didn't want them to go into talking points, or what do you mean?

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, both. I think if you listen to... And I don't want to call people out specifically, but there's folks

in both our business and otherwise that are, what I'll say is more traditional journalists. And if you do a

print interview, let's start there, you'll normally get a list of eight to 10 questions and they'll say, "Hey, what's

your whatever? What's your next quarter's forecast? What do you think the future of gaming holds?" Blah, blah, blah.

And those are perfectly great questions. And when you do print interviews, that's normal, because then I'll answer them back

to you, and then the writer can pick and choose what he or she wants to include. But in spoken

word for people to listen it has to feel natural. So, a lot of times what you'll see is some

of these guys will go, "All right, question one is going to be, 'Mike, what was for breakfast today?'" And

then I could say something crazy like, "Hey..." Because there was a story one time where I ended up having

breakfast next to George Lucas and I could say, "Hey, I was going to this gaming show and I didn't

even know but breakfast today, the creator of Star Wars was six feet from me. But to answer your question,

I had bacon and eggs." And they'll go, "Great. Now tell us about the gaming show."

And it's like, "Wait a minute. I just gave you this giant dangler of a thing, and you didn't even

follow up on it." Because every single person in the car listening is going, "Wait, what was that? Tell me

that thing." And these guys will just go, "Well, that wasn't on my list, so I'm just going to move

to question two." And it was like, so that's where I feel like we tried to change the narrative and

go, "Look, I don't really care. We're going to have three things we try to cover, and if not, we're

going to have fun for 45 minutes and hopefully people like it."

And that's more and more what resonated, was we were asking the questions that popped into their head in the

car as they were listening because we didn't have a plan going in, which was a blessing and a curse

sometimes, but for the most part it worked out.

Nick Hogan:

And it is cool. That's a refreshing thing for the industry, because I think people who are not on the

supply side, they don't really realize how canned the written editorial is in the gaming industry. If you don't advertise

in a magazine, they do not give you editorial. And when you get editorial, oftentimes you're actually tweaking stuff that

they read. They will send you the written stuff in advance and you can tweak it, and it's just really

quite canned, I have to say.

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, or I don't think this is going to be a big secret, shocking revelation, but a lot of times

what'll happen is, so if I'm the executive, the marketing team will write my answers for me.

Nick Hogan:

A hundred percent.

Mike McKiski:

And they'll write it, I didn't do anything. They may call me and go, "Hey, what do you think?" And

then they'll write, and then they'll just send it to me, "Are you good if I put these words in

your mouth on print, are you..." "Yeah, sounds good. Tweak one word maybe." But very rarely did anything come straight

from the mouth of the person that said it. It was, to your point, vetted by... And if you get

to these really high profile people like global CEOs and others, it's probably vetted by both marketing and legal.

So, it's very, very scrubbed off. Whereas we were just saying, "Hey, we're the good guy podcast. We're not here

to expose anybody. We're not trying to make anybody look like an idiot, but let's hear it from you." And

then that's I think the voice that resonated.

Nick Hogan:

Yeah, [inaudible 00:21:44].

Lucien Wijsman:

And that's then about the people that you have in the podcast. So, who listens? What's the audience then?

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, it's interesting, so that evolved over time too. So it started with just people that knew us naturally. So

people that were linked to us. I think a lot of our first listeners were our friends. We joked because

we thought it was just going to be Landon and my's moms at the beginning, as it would be. So

they listened too, but we had others.

And then as we got going, what we figured out was the guest format was the right format. Because then

what we'd say is, so for example, you guys have me on, whenever this posts I'll share. So, now I'm

going to assume there's a healthy part of my network that's not dialed into your network, and as would be

true in reverse. So, then we started getting call it friends of the guests, that was the next evolution, and

then just grew from there. If you break down the demographics, though, what we found interesting was 70... Because on

LinkedIn, that's our biggest platform, because we're B2B conversation, so LinkedIn, we have over 75% of our listeners or of

our followers, we have about 3000 followers on LinkedIn, which are in a director and above position, and 50% of

those are vice president and above.

So, what we quickly realized was a lot of the folks listening were decision makers in the business. These are

the casino operators, yeah-

Nick Hogan:

Honestly, Mike, those numbers are so close to what we see. Yeah. Very, very, very close. Okay, sorry, I didn't

mean to interrupt you [inaudible 00:23:13] that's amazing to me.

Mike McKiski:

No, no, no, yeah, well, you got to think. So, here's what I learned from that. There's a couple groups

that surprised me. So three comments. So one, a lot of the finance guys, meaning the industry guys, I'll just

shout out Chad Beynon, because he was on the show, so Macquarie right here, but guys like that that are

always the ones asking questions on the earnings calls and those guys, they listened to the show and they actually,

at one point, a couple of guys thanked me. They go, "Hey, I'm really glad you asked that CEO that

question because we've been trying to get that information and he doesn't..." And it wasn't incriminating, but it was just

to get him to open up about his culture or his philosophy on team building.

Again, not scandalous information, but just things that maybe don't make it past all the filters into the earnings call.

They were like, "Oh, this is so good." And that time they go, "We actually feel better about investing in

that." So, it ended up being a net positive. So, it was interesting to think that audience listens, the investment

community. And then a lot of the operators would ping and go, "Oh man, I'm really glad we learned that.

I didn't know about..." For example, one of the companies that had a really strong response for us was a

company called Gift and Go, so we had those guys on. They're basically trying to make a gifting experience like

an Amazon, so you don't have to carry your quesadilla maker out, you just have it sent to your house

type of thing. And so, a lot of customers like, "Hey, we didn't know they existed. Can you connect us?"

So you get those groups actively trying to buy, and I'm guessing it's similar for you guys.

Those guys listening to you are going, "Well, how do I know what games to add?" I just listened to

your show with Aaron Gomes and you guys were talking about theme saturation, and there's some really cool stuff you

guys are breaking down that guys and gals running casinos, "I want to know more about this, but I don't

have anyone in the building to talk to about it." So, that's probably your audience.

And then the last one, and I'm guessing you'll get this if you don't have it already, was we became

a reference point for new entrants to the business. So, what'll happen is you get some college graduate or some

young kid that joins a company and their boss happens to listen or have heard of the show and go,

"Hey, you know what? Just listen to this podcast and you'll catch up in a hurry on what this industry

is all about." And so, those were our three buckets. You still have our friends, but I think for the

most part we found it's people that are just interested in learning more, people that like one of the people

on the show, or people that are trying to invest and make some money.

Lucien Wijsman:

And then so you know who listens, but I think if you look at platforms like LinkedIn you get thumbs

up and all these type of things, but how do you really get feedback on the topics that you had

and how it was being discussed?

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, so we track it a couple ways. So obviously there's direct feedback. So we'll get every episode that goes

out, I'll wake up to text messages from people. There's probably a steady dozen or two people that are like

probably... I call them diehards, they've been listening since the beginning, know us well enough to give us feedback. So,

we get direct feedback that way.

YouTube, there's tons to [inaudible 00:26:00]... I know we're going to talk about video in a minute, but we get

comments and messages on YouTube from some of the videos. But really a lot of it we judge based on

engagement and then listening. So, the metrics-wise, I know you guys are big metrics guys, so we'll get engagement rates

on our posts usually double digits. So we're looking like 11, 12% engagement, but if that dips or goes up,

then we'll know, "Hey, that particular either guest or topic was important." And so, we'll maybe go back to him

or her or the topic later.

Or listens obviously is the natural one. So if we have an episode that just wildly outperforms on downloads and

views then we'll know that was a [inaudible 00:26:39], so we try to base it in metrics, but a lot

of times feedback just comes from people sending comments and notes.

Lucien Wijsman:

So, what's the most important platform for you? Is it YouTube, or is it any of the podcasting services like

Apple Podcast or Spotify, iHeart radio, whatever?

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, we're still about three times larger in audio only than we are in video. So, we have our YouTube,

and that breaks down mostly Apple Podcast is still the winner for us. Part of me thinks that's an inertia

game because that started off as our biggest one, Apple, and then it's maintained its lead. So, I don't know

enough about the broader market to say, "Well, that's just what everybody's doing."

Spotify's grown quite a bit recently because I know they've been more and more into podcasting. But audio only, we

use a platform, and I don't know what your platforms are, we use a platform called Libsyn that just sends

it out to all the platforms, and so we get it from there audio-wise. But that's probably three and a

half, almost four times the size of our view count on YouTube. So, if you see our videos on YouTube,

you could just times it by three or four and that's what we're getting in audio.

Nick Hogan:

And what are you finding, we are always interested in this and how people are listening, do you know when

they're listening and has anybody shared with you? Because what we hear a lot is a lot of weekend listens,

while people are doing chores around the house. And I also hear a lot from more on the executive side,

it's always in the car going to work. We get a lot of commute listen.

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, we don't get a ton of weekend playing, which weirdly, I don't know why that makes me comfortable, but

I'm like, "I don't need to take up your weekend." Is kind my feeling, right? So, we get some, but

we're mostly Monday to Friday.

We try to release now on Tuesday mornings. We just found out statistically that seems to be the biggest time

of engagement. Because people are in the work week, they've gotten past all their Monday catch-up stuff, now they have

room to engage with us. So Tuesday's been a good day, so we see a pretty heavy Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

each week. And then there's obviously trickle down, but that's been our biggest platform, or our biggest time since... But

yeah, we get the feedback saying, "It's in the car, so you're my drive." And that actually informed us to

go shorter.

So, we started off and we were hour-long episodes, then we squeezed to about 40 minutes, because what we figured

out is everybody's drives about 20 minutes, so if we can get them one day there and back, then that's

enough. They'll move on from there. Now we're even tighter than that, which has been good feedback, so we're probably

between 20 and 30, with Hillary's stint in the last six months. And so, yeah, it's been good, but it

evolved all based on that feedback.

Nick Hogan:

Okay, and now, so you mentioned that you have all this, that it's a three to four X listen, or

audio only versus video, but of course you guys do video. And as somebody who's done a bit of podcasting

here, we did it first couple times and I got done with that and said, "Man, this is an [inaudible

00:29:27] to edit. This is a real [inaudible 00:29:30]." So tell me a little bit about that, because you mentioned

that a big thing for you is you found that good edits are key, and with video it's 10 times

the work. So yeah, can you break that down a little bit?

Mike McKiski:

It is. I'm going to shout out both of my partners, because both Landon and Hillary over the last five

years, I have edited nothing. So, I know this is going to sound weird, but in division of labor for

us, I handled, with Landon, I took care of all the formalities, the company formation, all the taxes, financials, we

have sponsorships. Most of that stuff was me. And I would say I was probably... I don't think he'd be

upset with this, I was probably the heavier guest recruitment guy.

So, it's more me saying, "Hey." We picked on David and Matt and these guys, "Hey, can you come on?"

It's more likely me calling them, maybe 80/20, 90/10, somewhere in that range. So that was my responsibility. And Landon,

when we started, he really wanted to do... He's a very creative individual, and so he said, "I want to

do the editing." I said, "Great, I'm not going to fight you on it."

And so, he took it on and he edited everything. When we moved to video, we just did it, I

don't know why, I can't think of a moment where we sat down intelligently and said, "Financially if we did..."

It was just like, "We should be on video." Why not, right? And so, we built the studio, and again,

I don't know if we needed it, I don't know that we're... But what I'll say is now, with Hillary,

what she's taught me is the power of the reel.

So, when you have, for us, we now post LinkedIn reels of our shows, and I say we, but she

does the work, where it's a 30-second clip of an interview. Like we just had last week, we did an

IGT partnership episode with Jean Venneman talking about almost the 30th birthday of Wheel of Fortune, and so those reels

go nuts. And I think that's been a good platform for people to go, "Oh, they like the reel and

then they'll listen." It's been more... I don't know that the video episodes on YouTube are doing us a ton

of favors, but it's really the clips that we get from them that are driving followers or engagements or just

more listens back to the show.

Yeah, it's been a bear, to your point. I think once you get into it now, again, there's different tools

that you can use that are made to make this much easier. So, Landon used to say it took him

20 hours to edit one episode. Thank God we were in a pandemic, didn't have anything going on, so it

wasn't a big deal. That would be unsustainable today. Whereas now part of it is our style has evolved, we

don't have as many edits, we didn't mess up as much. We don't now.

And part of it is the technology, and then Hilary's skill set, she says, "Look, maybe an hour." She'll sit

down and chop it up, it's not overbearing, right? So, it's been good, so now video is kind of the

[inaudible 00:32:11].

Nick Hogan:

And it's funny that you mention this to me, because right away I know the reel you're talking about, which

is Jean talking about the number of million, I think it was 1200 million [inaudible 00:32:23] they've created.

Mike McKiski:

Yeah.

Nick Hogan:

It sticks in my head, so it's absolutely that. And the other one was, I think Ari Mizrachi from Tangam

talking about seeing players that were winning consistently.

These are just two reels that I recall entirely off the top of my head, so I can definitely understand

how that sticks.

Mike McKiski:

Yeah.

Nick Hogan:

Well, I'm talking myself into doing some video and now I need to talk myself back out of that.

Mike McKiski:

Well, there's a world... So what could be interesting, and again, not to tell you how to run it, but

I think because we're here, so people listening don't know this, but we can see each other right now. So,

that's interesting. And I think if you took the platform and could record this, even if you're not going to

release it as an episode, and just turn reels out of it, you'd probably see a benefit.

And I don't know if that's actually more or less work, I probably should ask Hillary that, but there's probably

a benefit for people when they see your LinkedIn posts, because I'm assuming that's still your main driver of [inaudible

00:33:20].

Nick Hogan:

Oh, for sure, a hundred percent.

Mike McKiski:

And so what we found, and again, for anyone listening, I guess this is my lessons learned, or what we

noticed, is that for us in our world, pictures do the best. So, anytime it was Landon and I would

post a picture of ourselves, or Hillary and I, or we did one it was Landon, Hillary, and I at

IGA this year, those posts get far and away the most... We're talking like Hillary and I were at the

[inaudible 00:33:44] Awards this year, I think that post has almost 300 likes and 40,000... It's unbelievable. There are pages

that do that in an hour, but for us, that was a massive engagement, right?

So, pictures are always better, followed second by video. So the reels get the most engagement because, again, people like

seeing faces. And then anytime we've posted a, I don't know, just a stagnant episode release, or an infographic type

of thing, people just like that, they just tune it out because it's like an advertisement for them.

Nick Hogan:

Sure.

Mike McKiski:

So, content-wise, again, I don't know how you're going, because you do put faces on your posts in terms of

the releases, but those are just things we've learned. So yeah, I think for us, the video could help you

if you got into just a teaser video, even if you don't do the whole thing.

Nick Hogan:

Damn it, man, you're making my life harder here.

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, I don't want to give you homework here. It's like the worst guest ever, you made me have to

do 20 more hours of work.

Lucien Wijsman:

I'm listening to this and it's a bit of a side jump here, but so you've been around in the

industry for quite a while, and then you've done these, what is it? Hundreds of interviews, I'm guessing, with real

names in the industry.

Mike McKiski:

About 100. Yeah.

Lucien Wijsman:

So, were there any big things that you learned about the gaming business while doing the podcast and the rest?

And if so, which were those?

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, I think there was two lessons in there, weirdly an opposite spirit. So, first we learned very quickly how

much we didn't know about this industry. I think we're, five years ago, not that we're old now, but we

were five years younger then, and we were sitting there going, "Hey, we're a couple young guys." And we've been

running slots and we're having all the success with AGS, and you mentioned Mike [inaudible 00:35:28] Interblock and Bally, which

was back then one of the top companies. And so, you feel like you've seen a lot, you know a

lot, you're like, "I got this figured out."

And then you have one about FinTech and you go, "I don't know anything." And then you realize, oh, game

security, I've never thought about up until this podcast that the surveillance guys have very strong opinions on your product,

based on whether their camera can see it or not, or how the screens affect... And you're going, oh, there's

thousands and thousands of people in this industry that from our viewpoint we'd never heard of, probably didn't know their

roles existed, that without them the whole industry collapses.

So I think for us it just became this, the analogy I use is the Wonkavator at the end of

Willy Wonka, where you feel like you haven't figured out you're in this building, and you go, "Okay, I got

to land." And then you shoot out the sky and you go, "Oh no, we were only in a microcosm

of this whole thing." And when you really zoom out and look at the size of the industry, it is

so amazingly complicated, and there are so many different nuances that if any one of them falls apart, the industry

would have real problems, between security, or FinTech, or systems and data and games, table games, slot games, online games.

There's just so much innovation happening and all those pieces are really trying to talk together. So I think for

us it was just really overwhelming sense of, "Oh, we don't know anything." We never felt like we were important,

we felt like we probably knew a lot, and it was like, "Well, we're not important, we don't know anything."

So, that was the biggest realization.

And then I think from doing the interviews over time, something I found really fascinating, I don't know if anyone's

expressed this to you, but to your point, we had some really big names. These are guys that are chief

officers of massive companies that have all done, maybe not all, but I'm going to say most have done interviews

on platforms much bigger than ours, especially over time. We're bigger now than we were, but these are guys who

have been on CNBC and whatever, and they'll come on and go, "I'm so nervous to talk to you."

It's like, "Well, why?" And it's like, so just the idea that sometimes you zoom out and you go, "Oh

man, he or she, she's the CEO of this, and he's the CEO of that, the board member, owner..." And

they're all just people, man. We're all fighting the same fight.

And so, it was interesting to sit there from a human perspective and go, "Well, yeah, you might be responsible

to oversee a $17 billion market cap company, but guess what? You're still shaking a little talking to me on

the podcast. We'll put you at ease in a hurry, but it's just interesting, you're still human." They don't become

robots all of a sudden.

So, I always thought that was interesting. Why you nervous to talk to us? We're the least intimidating, but just

people are people, and I thought that was always something I couldn't forget once I learned that. It helped me

be a better interviewer, I think, but it's also something I didn't expect.

Nick Hogan:

We've had a little bit of it, but I think it's more along the lines of it was, "Yeah, well,

I've been interviewed elsewhere where I'm the authority, now I'm a little bit nervous that you guys are going to

cut me up here." So, that was more the thing.

Mike McKiski:

Yeah. They don't know their data going into your interview, that's going to be tough, right? Yeah, that's right.

Nick Hogan:

We always assure them that we play nice. Yeah, but I hear you indeed, that is an interesting... I think

as they get a little bit closer to home, it's they feel that there may be a little more scrutiny

on things that they say and all that.

Mike McKiski:

Well, maybe it's because they lost the benefit of that filter. So, normally everything's filtered through two layers, and now

they're just going to say it. And we would let them say, "Hey, look, if you want to take a

time out and re-say it or tell us to cut it." In the history of the show, we've bleeped exactly

one thing. It's not like people are messing up all the time, but there's just one guy said something we

probably shouldn't have, and so we left it in and bleeped it because with that it was just one bad

word, but we're like, "Eh, it's a dicey word, so we'll bleep it, because the rest of the story is

pretty good." But otherwise, these guys are all pros, and so their nerves were understandable but unnecessary.

They all aced it. But yeah, no, that was just an interesting takeaway I found.

Lucien Wijsman:

And then there were these very well-known people in the industry and lesser known people in the industry, and you've

done many episodes, and I assume that you will remember a lot of them, but I'm going to put you

on the spot here, I would like to know for you-

Mike McKiski:

Please do.

Lucien Wijsman:

... tell me what in your memory the best two episodes were and why.

Mike McKiski:

Best two. Man, I'm going to offend about 98 other people, but that's okay. All right, so in your world

of metrics, let's use metrics for one of them. So, metrics-wise, the best interview we did was with Todd Haushalter,

who is then and is now the Chief Product Officer for Evolution Game.

So, he came on and we had a great chat. Because we knew him, Landon knew him better than I

did because they both worked together at Shuffle Mater, but I had known him off air, which always helps the

dynamic. And then we had just how they innovate products and different things. Well, metrics-wise, that shot us up to...

We got an email saying, "Congratulations, you're the number two podcast in all of Sweden this week." So we did

his... And I said, "Sweden, that's weird. They're based in Latvia." Well, it turns out a lot of the investment

groups that either invested in or looking at Evolution, or a lot of the European, I guess, financial mindset was

in Sweden at the time, or maybe still is. And so, we had gotten this... And I guess it was

specific to the news and entertainment category, I think that's what we were in over there.

And so I was like, "Oh, that's kind of interesting." So we looked and his downloads were unreal. You had

to create the whole new chart just to keep his on the page, which was fun. So, I think a

lot of people at the time were obviously a fan of his, fan of Evo, fan of that whole space.

So, that always stands out because it was like, "Whoa." And that's, I think it added 30 new countries to

our list, because we... And you can probably see it too. Oh, you have listeners in X amount of countries,

and I think we were hovering around 60, and then after that it was 95.

It was like, "Oh man, Todd really juiced us onto the map there." So, shout out him for that. And

then one I'm proud of, and it's funny because I would've said this even a month ago, before I knew

where I was going to work, but one I was really proud of recently was our conversation, Hillary and I

did, with Andrew Burke on culture. And so it probably feels like, hey, now you're shouting out the boss, but

that's actually not. Him and I had talked a lot about that script, not script, but that flow of conversation,

those topics, and so it was probably the most prepared interview we've done. And I just feel like the way

we were able to step through that, the feedback we got on that episode, and just in terms of like,

wow, I really learned a lot, the insights, that stands out for me.

Probably a little bit of recency bias, but I think that one stands out for me in just terms of

just overall quality and feeling like we really nailed it as interviewers. And he brought his A game and really

nailed it as an expert, or the guy in the chair, so to speak. And so, I think those two

on the spot jump out. And then obviously I already shouted out the first three, because without them you get

nothing. So, those are the ones I think that come to mind just on the spot here.

Nick Hogan:

Well, and with Andrew you have it, and you would certainly have this with David Lopez as well, two guys

who I think put a ton of thought into that particular topic, right? Into company culture. They're serious about it,

they can articulate it well. What I've always found, of course, is if you're touching on something that your guest

is truly passionate about, it's going to be great, and I can certainly see that that one being fantastic, no

doubt.

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, for sure.

Nick Hogan:

Now we know you did do some shows. I know that you and I bumped into each other in Barcelona

in January, and we were talking a little bit about those shows that you had done on Persistence product, and

you had mentioned to me that it was a pretty hot topic, and that generated quite a bit of interest.

And then at the Casino Operations Summit in Slovenia, we had a panel on this just two weeks back.

Lou Shen was on that panel, Maulin Gandhi from Tangam Systems, Peter Post from IGT and myself. So, it's all

fresh in our heads here. So, I know you've done some interviews on topic. I'm curious, first of all, to

hear where your head is on Persistence product, really more the true Persistence stuff. So after the interviews you've done,

where are you landing on it now?

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, it's interesting because the whole opinion I have has been formed via these interviews. That's the benefit of, for

me, having the conversations, or at least folks being able to listen to them. So, my sense is that there's

probably a sweet spot of true Persistence as a feature, without the overly advertised inclusion that... So for example, you

have, what's the one right now? Phoenix Link's getting a little bit of heat, not a ton, I think that

game probably would've done well regardless, just Scotty Olive swings a hot bat. But I think with... The issue they

have is like, well, it must hit by this number of symbols collected, and if you get it, what is

it? 1888, or whatever it's got to hit, must hit by that.

Well, that's the piece that makes it controversial, right? Because players are looking at that going, "Well, it's closer or

not so close to that." Or in some of these games, the screen is evolved. I know Incredible has some

of these games where the screen grows, and you know at a certain point it's just due, not if it's

when, and it's pretty soon. And so, my sense is I think those features are really cool.

I think the advertisement of those features and saying, "Hey, this is what's going to happen next." Is where we

go sideways. So, I think you could probably re-engineer some of these games to say, "Look, if you just had

the same math but didn't talk about it, it might be more fun and less preyed upon." I guess is

the way to say it from these guys. So, that's my two cents on the game. I don't want to

take away innovation and fun game mechanics, but at the same time I don't like the idea that everyone's just

out there taking advantage of players that don't know, or some of these, I don't know, bully behaviors you hear,

where they start blowing smoke in people's face or whatever, that's no good.

Nick Hogan:

Yeah.

Mike McKiski:

But longer term I think-

Nick Hogan:

That's the displacement. When you did the interview with Oliver Shoemaker, I really liked that Oliver stuck on that displacement

thing so heavily, and really talked about, yeah, if they're intimidating your regulars and stuff, this is a liability. And

I thought he was absolutely spot on to focus on that point.

Mike McKiski:

For sure. And there's no room for that really anywhere, but certainly in this particular vertical. And so, I'm not

a big fan of bullies, so let's get rid of them. But then I think now just more strategically, you

say, "Look..." I think I told Oliver this, I've told a few operators offline, it's like, "Look, it's really up

to the operator, because here's what's going to happen..."

And Ari's point was the data will show that the games aren't as successful as you think, but they're basically

going to say... Look, if I put a game on the floor that's true Persistence, and that operator goes, "Wow,

that game's doing three times house average." Or three times whatever the... Some massive outperform of the index, whichever index

they look at, they're likely going to say, "I want more of those games."

And as a vendor, if you're going to buy something, I want to build it and sell to. It's not

a secret. So, that's where it starts. But the problem is, I think that happened and then no one realized

how out of control this would get, and it feels like it's reached a point where I talk to some

GMs and leaders at the iGO trade show, and they're like, "These guys are getting banned, we're 86ing them, points

are getting stripped." Because they're realizing it's not a healthy play. It's not saying, "Hey..." Let's presume they're not bullying

people physically, they are... I think Ari used the phrase from Tangam, he's like, "They're just treating it like an

ATM. They don't play. They wait. They know exactly when it's going to hit. They get in, they get out

and they leave."

They're not in the old cycle where you're just trying your luck and you get lucky and you leave some

and you take some, and everybody wins, right? It's a different part of the deal. So, I think... I feel

like I'm rambling a bit, but I think there's probably a world where if the operators don't want it, they'll

go away in overnight almost. But if we want it as a math model, I think we just got to

try to find a way to make it maybe less obvious, keep the fun, but take away all the advertisements,

so that you get the ride and you get the thrill of like, hey, that pot is filling, and how

would I know if it's really filling, versus the four next to it that are just perceived to be filling?

I still think there's a ride there. I don't think you're going to lose gameplay. For example, I think if

you hid that little square on, I'll just talk about Phoenix for a second, I don't think that game performance

is going down. I think that game was going to be a monster regardless. So, if you take that little

piece away, does it really hurt it? I think you're just opening up problems. So, that's my two cents, I

guess, on that. But yeah, we'll see. Innovation's always good, so now we're just in the part of how do

we release what we built? How do we make sure the AI doesn't beat us kind of thing, or the

robots don't take over type of adjustment? But-

Nick Hogan:

Yeah. Well, it was an interesting thing for us in Slovenia during this panel, because one of the things that's

very different, let's say, with the European operators, or just operators outside of the United States I think generally, is

that for 25, 30 years, they have been utilizing heavily standalone bank level and floor wide mysteries, all over the

place all the time.

So for them, there was a bit of blank staring going on, looking up at the audience because they're saying,

"Why are these guys so bent out of shape about these?" And we break it down as do you have

a direct financial liability out of these games, in terms of a massive security hole? We'd say that based on

the audits that we've done, we've done a lot of the audits on this, we didn't see that.

However, those indirect liabilities are totally real. And this idea of displacing players, and these vultures, or fleas, or advantage

players, whatever you want to call them, doing things to pester your locals, that's a very real liability. So it's

just trying to dispel some of that, or to cut through some of the noise on this is really tough

sometimes. But I'm really curious about it, because you had mentioned the polarization over that topic, so I'm curious, were

you getting feedback from your listeners on those interviews?

Mike McKiski:

Yes. So, direct to me, I'll get it from folks in the industry like slot operators, or a couple of

the vendor guys. Most of the operation side we're saying, "Hey, here's what I think." And they don't all share

the same opinion, but I think they're going that same route. We have to have eyes on these games, we

have to understand what we're doing.

Some folks are going to say, "Well, I don't want them." And they're just all coming out. Some folks are

maybe a little less extreme. Some folks are like, "I don't care. Bring it on. Let's see." So the viewpoints

vary. The feedback and the controversy for me, and where I think I softened up from an hard line industry,

let's ban all these guys' perspective, which is I think what you start with if you're, you mentioned, almost 20

years in the business. But then you read the comments from players, because that interview with Ari on YouTube got

shared out to all these Discord channels and things where advantage players talk to each other.

There's networks of these guys talk [inaudible 00:50:48]-

Nick Hogan:

Yeah, for sure.

Mike McKiski:

... "Here's the game." So, that interview got shared out and they... Selfishly, I was happy because they commented. We

stayed pretty, or I stayed pretty neutral, but they were like, "Ari, man, you don't understand." And so, Ari's looking

at it from a data, but they're like, "We also lost a lot that day. Just because I walked over

and popped X game doesn't mean I didn't give it back to you chasing these other things."

And so, there was a lot of folks that were advantage players reaching out to us through YouTube and even

commenting on that video saying, "Listen, I know it sounds like we're just treating... We're all not wealthy here. Yes,

we're grinding, yes, we're going after it. Maybe we're trying to give ourselves an advantage. Obviously, that's why it's called

Advantage Play, but it's not like we're walking in with a thousand bucks walking out with a hundred thousand every

time. We're putting real money through these games. Most of the time when we win, we win 5%, 10% of

what we started with. It wasn't like we had some massive double up, triple up."

So that started giving me more sympathy for those guys. So, then I took the Wild West view. The casino

is supposed to put the games out, the players are supposed to try to beat them. That's the nature of

the game. And you're not supposed to cheat, you don't want to break the law, so obviously you want to

try to beat them quote, unquote, within the realm of reality. But that's where it's like, "Hey, if those games

are unfair, if the casinos don't like that they can be positioned as an advantage, then just take the games

off." There's so many good games. That's the thing now, if you look at your Real Metrics report or some

of the competitive reports, you have so many manufacturers that are in the top 25, or in the top this,

or the brand new debut of a company, you're like, "Who is that company? They're number four. How is that

even... Wow."

It's not just you're beholden to one game, one company anymore. You have dozens of companies produce the top content,

so if you don't like Advantage, just switch it out. Chances are the same company has a great game, or

if not there's a competitor. But yeah, I don't know, I think the controversy came for me mostly when I

started listening to the players and hearing the human side of it going, "Oh, that's a good point." Started with

50 grand, cycled it all through, walked out with 55. Did he win? Yeah. But it's not like he's going

home to pay off his mortgage, right?

Nick Hogan:

Yeah, and that's kind of the-

Mike McKiski:

[inaudible 00:52:56] back tomorrow.

Nick Hogan:

I hear exactly what you're saying, and I certainly hear what these players are saying. And when you talk to

operators we encounter this topic fairly frequently. Say, first of all, okay, so the displacement thing, we've found one of

the best ways to manage this is to first of all just cluster those products together physically, and then you

have them in one place, and then you're basically putting these people on notice that people are watching. We found

that this is a very, very effective way to deal with this. And it's also where those people that you

don't want, who are bringing you nothing good, and bothering your regulars, et cetera, that is just a great way

to corral them and then get rid of them, for sure.

Secondly, to your point, there's so much product coming out and these Persistence Games are, it's not a huge percentage

of the overall design that's hitting it, they do tend to work very well. And then, but the other thing

to really mention that I always say to operators is that having a game in the mix that a lot

of players believe they can beat is not a bad thing. It is just not a bad thing to have

out there and because, also to your point, they don't, really don't need it over time. You see these things

doing typically 125, 150% of floor and just chugging along at those numbers, so it tends to be pretty solid

stuff.

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, no, I think that makes sense. And I think that's where... That goes back to basic banking strategy. I

mentioned when I started I was in product management, and Jean Venneman, oddly enough, was talking about banking strategy. And

it's like, "Well, why does it matter that we put four of the same game in a [inaudible 00:54:39]." And

he's like, "Well, because you might not believe you can win on your game, but when you look over and

your neighbor's playing the same game and he or she just hit the bonus, it makes you go, 'Well, my

bonus is coming.'" So it's that believability factor.

And so, to your point about having these games, people go, "Look, I'm going in. I know that game's going

to win." I don't want to make this an Aristocrat fanboy podcast, but I grew up, my mom was a

big Buffalo player, and so I go, "Mom, why do you play Buffalo?" She goes, "That's because I know the

Buffalos are coming." She goes, "They're coming. I know." It's like, okay, well there we go.

And so, luckily it paid her more than it took from her, so it was helpful, but it's, yeah, that

believability factor is massive. So, to your point, if we can [inaudible 00:55:15] games that people are going, "Look, I'm

going to go there to beat whatever game, and then while I'm there I'll probably lose on some others." It's

probably just good for everybody, but...

Nick Hogan:

Yeah, we had this, when I was back at Mikohn in the nineties, we were doing a lot on the

table automation front, and we were studying, as part of what we were doing there, we had massive samples of

live blackjack play from the Las Vegas strip. And it was, we had every decision made, every bet made, et

cetera, et cetera. And so, one of the things we'd do is we are trying to determine what do they

perceive to be the player's skill level versus what is it actually, right?

And so, we went in there, those games had an inherent statistical edge of 0.5%. Okay? That was where they

would. So where it panned out just all the errors in basic strategy, and don't even get me started on

the people who are counting, those errors were the most ridiculous that I've seen. So it came out with the

actual edge of 3%, so it wasn't even close to the assumptions. And half the folks were convinced that the

games are getting killed all the time by people who are playing basic strategy, or more specifically card counters. But

when we watch card counters, it's just like, "Come on, really? You're doing that? That's your decision?" That kind of

thing.

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, you just hit on 18, that's crazy. Yeah, but I think card counting and all this aside, what's interesting,

and tying it back to I think some of the things I heard you guys talking about recently was this

topic has become, whatever side you land on, whether you should have the games, or not have the games, or

ban everybody, or [inaudible 00:56:52] everywhere, who cares? What it's done for the business is it's opened up this level

of dialogue about going after data a level deeper.

And Lucien, I think it was you talking about it saying, "Hey, look..." The number might be wrong, but for

whatever reason sticks out to me, it's like 85% of your games are mostly played by just your players you're

not really going to miss if they left. The guy that comes in with a hundred bucks and, yeah, he

plays this game, but who cares? And then you can segment all the way and go, "These whales, they play

four games. So keep those, maybe..."

And then you guys are talking about theme saturation, but I think now what you're starting to say is... And

again, I've never been an operator, so maybe these guys have been doing this for years, but what it seems

like is it's now spilling into the main conversation of, "Oh, we're going to go look at who's playing that

game. Oh yeah, you had this great game and it was going gangbusters for you? Let's see how real that

is." And then they dig all the in and go, "You know what? That game's actually not that great, that

game had three guys come in from vacation because they saw it on YouTube, beat the wheels off of it

for four days, make the numbers look fantastic, but now it's done."

And so, I think, and again, maybe they've been doing that for a while, but now the conversation is like,

"Oh, now they're going to look at that." So, now when you're going in talking about your game, you go,

"Well, who's playing it?" And you go, "Oh, actually it's my regulars. Actually this is a popular game with my

people, so I need to keep it or more." Versus that game that just looks really good first 90 days

and actually doesn't have a future, because it wasn't real repetitive players going after. So, I think the data conversation

has probably been the biggest benefit from some of these advantage play, and different kind of game conversations or controversies

right now.

Nick Hogan:

And this is, we recently, back in March, we relaunched our Real Hot Index, and that's the way we break

it down now is we're really interested in a metrified performance by segment. That's where we're really focusing now. Because

what we see is floors are just ridiculously over diversified, there's just too many titles out on the floor.

You'll see a joint with a 1000 boxes on the floor, and they've got 600 titles, and it just doesn't

work. And so, what we find is where it hits in terms of the segmentation is so incredibly important, just

really understanding that demand. Okay, so now I guess, Mike, I'm not sufficiently arrogant to assume that you've spent a

whole time listening to our little dinky podcast here, but I'm curious, as somebody who's been around the block a

little bit longer than we have with this, what tips would you have for us?

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, you guys have been... It seems pretty consistent, so that was a thing. So as long as you're... If

people know when you're coming, they'll plan to listen. If you tell them you're coming, you don't go, so that's

always the first thing.

Nick Hogan:

Yeah.

Mike McKiski:

You self-term nerds, so I think we can say that lovingly, you're definitely nerds, and I think you got to

stay with that, right? Because the thing, it's tempting to try to be whatever you think is going to be

cool. So, for [inaudible 00:59:58] to go, "Well, if..." Again, obviously Joe Rogan, well, you're not going to be him,

for better or for worse, whatever your thoughts are on that person, or Alex Cooper, some of these comedians that

now have the top podcasts in the world, you go, "Well, that works for them, but we're not interviewing the

celebrities and all these guys, so we're not going to be that."

What you have found is a pretty interesting niche where you talk data, you're living it, you're breaking it open,

and it's a little academic. I don't mean that necessarily as a negative.

Nick Hogan:

There's somebody else on this interview, or on this show, who said the same thing to me a couple of

weeks ago, so yeah.

Mike McKiski:

Well, but I appreciated that. Yeah, you're right. You start jumping in all these phrases and things, and so I

think that's good news, right? Because I think what you'll find is the folks that are listening that are... It

sounds like you already know, these are folks operating casinos or working in the game. They're probably coming to you

for some level of education. Going out, "You know what? I don't have time to break into data, but guess

what? This is what Nick lives and breathes, I'm going to go learn how he segments the thing, or how

Lucian was segmenting the thing."

You didn't need this advice on the episode that I listened to recently, so it may not be warranted, but

what I'll tell you is this, just make sure you stop and break down the abbreviations. Because I think, I

can't remember what it was, it was like ISC, or there was a phrasing that you just jumped into, "Hey,

we're going to have this." And it was saturation of titles or something, so maybe it was TSE, whatever it

was, but it was like, I've been in business a long time, and I'm like, I don't know what that

means. So, I'm just waiting-

Nick Hogan:

It's ISR, Inner Segment Resonance.

Mike McKiski:

[inaudible 01:01:25].

Nick Hogan:

Yep.

Mike McKiski:

That's what it [inaudible 01:01:26].

Nick Hogan:

You haven't heard it, because we made it up. Yeah.

Mike McKiski:

Well, okay. So, if you're making it up, even more important to break it down. But it was just one

of those where it was like, "All right, so ISR, okay, what is that?" And I'm sitting there going, "All

right, we'll get to what that means." And then I think to your point, it was Lucien who said, "Hey,

here's what that stands for." And I was like, "Oh, thank God for you, bud." Because I was sitting there

feeling like, what an idiot.

So I don't think you should be less academic. I think you should absolutely lean in because that's likely what

people are coming for, that's the appeal. But when you're in the deep end of the pool, you got to

probably leave a little lifeline for those that can't swim that well and go, "Hey, here's what ISR stands for.

Here's a quick breakdown of that." Have you seen the movie Big Short?

Nick Hogan:

Honestly, I think this sounds like every job performance review I've ever had, for me personally. People always say this

to me.

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, that's it. You're like, "All right, bud. We know you're smart. You got to dumb it down for the

rest of us." My favorite quote is from a show, The Office, which is just, "Explain it to me like

I'm five." Right? Just pretend for a second that I don't have advanced mathematics degree, or I haven't spent my

life in metrics, and because most of us that are listening probably haven't.

So, that was it. Yeah, just taking the time to break it down. But I say that, but I don't

want you to change. I think the magic and the appeal and the draw of the show and the brand

that you guys have built is that we know you're these advanced math guys, that you're big metrics data... We

know that. We all come into the show going, "You're better at us than metrics. That's why we're here." You

just got to make sure you can give it to us in a way that we can take it and

sound cool at a party.

Because now I go, "Hey, did you hear about the ISR? Let me [inaudible 01:03:02]." And it's like, I'm going

to try to quote that. Give me something I can sound smart within my office here, bud, that's I think

what we're looking for.

Nick Hogan:

Well, cool. Thank you very much for [inaudible 01:03:13]-

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, no worries.

Nick Hogan:

I will most certainly take this on board, because this is great [inaudible 01:03:19]-

Lucien Wijsman:

And the other one would be to change your co-host frequently, by the way. The one that you use now

is getting a bit stale.

Mike McKiski:

[inaudible 01:03:27] yeah, exactly. That's it.

Lucien Wijsman:

I just looked on the clock, and the time is flying when you're having fun.

Mike McKiski:

Goes quick.

Lucien Wijsman:

So, I think today we opened with the news of your wonderful appointment at Bluberi, but like many of us

listening, we now wonder what's going to happen to the future of MaxBet? Do you intend to shut it all

down, or will you continue going in another form or what have you?

Mike McKiski:

Yeah, I think just to cut to it, MaxBet will live on, right? So, that's the good news, I think,

for hopefully people view that as good news. The details and how that goes, I guess I'll force everyone to

come listen to my... Hillary and I are going to do an episode on that here in the next few

weeks to talk through exactly what'll happen.

Part of it is we don't know yet. So a little bit I'm playing coy a little bit is we're

still on the fly writing this whole story, but the one thing I'll say, and to quote one of my

favorite fictional coaches, Ted Lasso, the idea here is MaxBet was never about me. It was always about MaxBet and

the show and what it could be for others. And so, it will live on, we'll see how much involvement

I have or get to have moving forward, but I think the show will go on and we'll see how

that evolves from here.

Nick Hogan:

Very good. And I think on that note then, so we have a bit of a cliffhanger for our listeners-

Mike McKiski:

Yeah. Exactly.

Nick Hogan:

... [inaudible 01:04:54] can tune into MaxBet and check that out. So Lucien, did you have any other questions today

for Mike?

Lucien Wijsman:

No, this was a very smooth conversation again.

Nick Hogan:

Yeah, we're not going to have any edits here, which is totally cool.

Mike McKiski:

That's good, I saved you a bunch of time in the post, that's always helpful. Yeah, I think... Well, yeah,

that's the benefit of talking to somebody who does this, so all good. Well, I do appreciate you having me

on and sharing your time with me. This has been fun, and I wish you continued success and if I

could be helpful in the future, let me know.

Nick Hogan:

Likewise on all accounts. So, thank you so much for your time today, Mike, and thank you Lucien.

Lucien Wijsman:

[inaudible 01:05:35].

Nick Hogan:

And I think we can close her up there, so thanks guys.

Mike McKiski:

Yep, sounds good, cheers guys.

Nick Hogan:

All right, [inaudible 01:05:40] bye-bye.