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Speaker 1: From Monday to Friday from nine am. This is Fews

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Speaker 1: and News with Clarence Ford only on KAPE Talk.

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Speaker 2: Well come back, it is ten forty four very special

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Speaker 2: guests at a time when we've identified the challenge as significant,

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Speaker 2: not just in South Africa but in the world. Technology

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Speaker 2: actually got us into this problem that we have at

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Speaker 2: this moment in time. But technology may be able to

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Speaker 2: get us out of the problem that we have. Africa's

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Speaker 2: gaming market is growing and managing risks brings complexity. So

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Speaker 2: our guest is Ricky Emma and a recent panel conversation.

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Speaker 2: In fact, Ricky is a leading voice in the AI

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Speaker 2: for Good that space in Africa where it's necessary, specifically

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Speaker 2: as the regional direction director for SAM sub North and

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Speaker 2: West Africa, has recently been vocal about how twenty twenty

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Speaker 2: six is a tipping point for the continent's gaming industry.

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Speaker 1: This is via via zoom. Welcome Rickie. Great to have you.

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Speaker 3: Hi there, It's nice to have you to thank you

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Speaker 3: for having me.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the gaming gambling industry has seen really

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Speaker 2: significant exponential growth. You are now threatening that gross Are

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Speaker 2: they working with you?

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Speaker 1: Do they love you or not? Yeah?

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Speaker 3: We are not threatening the growth that we are what

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Speaker 3: we are advocating for is an environment where players you know,

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Speaker 3: Septinus is that is that paramount you know level, and

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Speaker 3: they're you know, we we you know, the scale of

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Speaker 3: online gambling, especially if we're talking about in South Africa,

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Speaker 3: is increasing increasingly of course across Africa. It's no longer

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Speaker 3: kind of it's no longer kind of just growing. It

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Speaker 3: has reached a level where I believe regulators and banks

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Speaker 3: and the public health bodies, uh, you know, starting to

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Speaker 3: treat it as a systemic Greeks issue.

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Speaker 1: Not just an entertainment sector.

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Speaker 3: And for that reason, you know, even if we look

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Speaker 3: when we look at their you know, statistics from an

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Speaker 3: example Statistics Africa STASTA, it clearly shows an increase in

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Speaker 3: gambling participation and spending and of course, reflecting on a

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Speaker 3: brother you know, shifts towards more accessible, mobile driven engagement.

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Speaker 3: It is very important that we we save, guide the players,

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Speaker 3: the environments, and you know, you know, advocate for responsible gaming.

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Speaker 1: I get that, and for.

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Speaker 2: The very first time, in fact, I guess Ricky Emma's

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Speaker 2: core thesis is around predictive prevention, so pro action.

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Speaker 1: Of course, it replaces the old.

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Speaker 2: Reactive models where you've got to call in and say

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Speaker 2: I have a problem, and by that time there's probably

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Speaker 2: a lot of water down, you know, under the bridge.

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Speaker 2: So let's understand you've mentioned twenty twenty six marks that

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Speaker 2: shift from reactive to predictive prevention.

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Speaker 1: Walk us through those behavioral.

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Speaker 2: Red flags that your AI can now spot before a

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Speaker 2: player even realizes they are problem.

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Speaker 3: Right, you see, traditionally, you know, maybe I would start

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Speaker 3: with saying that when we say the industry has been

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Speaker 3: reactive for so long, it absolutely means that operators typically

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Speaker 3: and at only after a problem a problem has been

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Speaker 3: has already occurred, you know, rather than preventing it early.

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Speaker 3: And I love to say this quote that prevention is

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Speaker 3: always better than cure. And they're historically a responsible gaming

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Speaker 3: has been reactive, as I already mentioned, meaning operators intervene

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Speaker 3: wants a clear signs of harm have.

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Speaker 1: Already occurred a bit.

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Speaker 3: With the use of AI and behavioral rised analysis monitoring

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Speaker 3: of players behavior, real time, real time reporting, we are

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Speaker 3: now shifting from reactive to preventive, meaning we can identify

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Speaker 3: a risky signal based on the behavior of the player,

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Speaker 3: based on the stirical data of the player. UH the

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Speaker 3: frequency of the depositing loss chasing wish pretty much it

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Speaker 3: is a significant you know behavior or you know fight

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Speaker 3: against direct compliance. The challenge is that by the stage,

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Speaker 3: you know, the damage has already been done. So you

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Speaker 3: have a player that maybe lost money and then you know,

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Speaker 3: go into that loss chasing. And for that reason, we can,

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Speaker 3: with any you know help over an AI, we can

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Speaker 3: pretty much detect all these signals beforehand and you can

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Speaker 3: build a robust system in channeling that will trigger whenever

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Speaker 3: these signals are I've been you know, put into into

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Speaker 3: into practice, and then the system can then for example

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Speaker 3: maybe soft softly reminded player to maybe back down a

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Speaker 3: little bit, maybe take a break, maybe need someone to

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Speaker 3: talk to. So you can build those those systems in places.

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Speaker 3: The bottom line is not always to kind of put

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Speaker 3: the player in a tight corner where you control them,

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Speaker 3: but rather to make them feel safe. And and this

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Speaker 3: is something that I talked two weeks or three weeks

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Speaker 3: ago in Nigeria. Also, I think it's very important for

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Speaker 3: operators to educate players of the measures. Reason behind the

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Speaker 3: measures that have been put in place. It's not to

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Speaker 3: restrict to control, but rather to to give them that

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Speaker 3: save environment where they can gamble or our baits, but

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Speaker 3: at the same time not exceed, not go outside of

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Speaker 3: the limit allowed limits right for example, you know it's

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Speaker 3: it's emotional. You know, players playing, maybe they lose a

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Speaker 3: bait or whatever the case may, they become emotional and

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Speaker 3: they start bating just to make sure they can maybe

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Speaker 3: gain back their money up they have lost. So we

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Speaker 3: have to be able to control those kind of occurrencies

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Speaker 3: and tell the player, look, we aren't here for you.

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Speaker 3: We know that you've just lost, in a very soft,

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Speaker 3: kind of a soft personalized approach, and then the player,

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Speaker 3: you know, have that kind of sense of yeah, someone

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Speaker 3: cares about me. It's not just about restricting me from playing,

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Speaker 3: but rather really cares about me. And anyway, so.

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Speaker 2: While you logged on and locked on, maybe not knowing

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Speaker 2: where the world is at, this serves as a bit

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Speaker 2: of a reminder about the world out there.

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Speaker 1: I get that.

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Speaker 2: Let let's just understand that we were we're talking about

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Speaker 2: an AI arms race as well, we're talking about defake

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Speaker 2: linked fraud, we're talking about synthetic identity. So at the

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Speaker 2: same time fraudsters are trying to exploit the system. You,

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Speaker 2: on the other hand, and are trying to remind the

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Speaker 2: people just maybe tell us about AI that that to

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Speaker 2: what extent can it protect vulnerable players while the fruits

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Speaker 2: is are looking to exploit the system?

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Speaker 3: Right, My father used to say, in order to catch

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Speaker 3: a wolf, you need to be a wolf. And we've

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Speaker 3: seen the pros and cons of AI in our society.

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Speaker 3: You know, AI enables of course, enables continuous behavior or

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Speaker 3: analysis rather than relying on isolated events and early indicators.

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Speaker 3: Can help operates increase deposit frequency, loss chasing patterns, spikes

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Speaker 3: and season intensity and all the signal is a weeks

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Speaker 3: long before it excalates. Right, So when we are how

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Speaker 3: we can use AI here, we can use AI to

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Speaker 3: set up different rix metrics or parameters with a certainly

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Speaker 3: system where the system would be able to identify those

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Speaker 3: signals that we call them risky signals either for lost

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Speaker 3: chasing patterns, it a for you know, increase in deposit frequency,

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Speaker 3: it a for multi accounting. So all this thing can

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Speaker 3: be that I can really really help operators to target

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Speaker 3: this in real time and prevent and put the necessary

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Speaker 3: masures also to prevent this kind of thing from happening

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Speaker 3: once it happens. I mean it will always happen, but

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Speaker 3: they're the key thing is how to prevent it, because

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Speaker 3: I believe prevention is always better than cure. If we

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Speaker 3: can prevent it, we're already winning. So I can really

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Speaker 3: really facilitate and intervene in a much faster space compared

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Speaker 3: to the current processes that we currently have.

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Speaker 2: I really can't see how the operator can differentiate between

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Speaker 2: a high value player and a pro gambler. I'm sure

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Speaker 2: the algorithm is maybe going to arrive in the same form,

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Speaker 2: but I want you to to talk about your advocacy,

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Speaker 2: you know, your customer kind of advocacy as the foundation

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Speaker 2: for everything, because only if you know your customer would

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Speaker 2: you be able to differentiate.

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Speaker 1: An algorithm is not gonna help much, will it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So you know when we talk about KYC, you

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Speaker 3: know your customer.

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Speaker 1: We take it too hard. It's just not about ticking

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Speaker 1: the box anymore.

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Speaker 3: It's actually a complete assessment of the player at the

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Speaker 3: very beginning of the player's journey on your on the

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Speaker 3: operator's platform. So here you have tons of different metrics

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Speaker 3: that would allow you to use identifying a risky player

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Speaker 3: from the very ongoing right and and here again there's

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Speaker 3: always a thin line between what's possible to do and

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Speaker 3: what's not possible to do right and with the help

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Speaker 3: of AI, if we call back again, it will definitely

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Speaker 3: allow the operators to move from esthetic the reactive models

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Speaker 3: to continuous monitoring, because the key thing is not about

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Speaker 3: player on boarding, it's about continuous monitoring right. This will

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Speaker 3: definitely in our advocacy and what I really really stand

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Speaker 3: for is the fact that the continuous monitoring we enable

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Speaker 3: would allow operators to have that early signal and be

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Speaker 3: more proportionate, have more proportionate intervention, making it possible to

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Speaker 3: address risky behavior, which is again part of the continuous

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Speaker 3: monitoring before it becomes handful in practice, this significantly improves

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Speaker 3: the ability to reduce long term risks and most importantly,

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Speaker 3: you know who your players are when you have a

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Speaker 3: proper KYC process in place, and we've seen that with

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Speaker 3: the market like South Africa. South Africa AS is doing

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Speaker 3: an amazing job, but nevertheless, when it rains, it pause

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Speaker 3: right there the motive growth the moder risk. So we

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Speaker 3: have to make sure that we put a mechanism and

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Speaker 3: mechanism in place that target doos, that make sure that

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Speaker 3: there's a balance between who we can onboard and how

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Speaker 3: we can continuously monitor them and minimize the potential risk

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Speaker 3: from happening alleged.

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Speaker 2: Just because you're looking at a continental, a continent wide

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Speaker 2: challenge and a growing one as actually the continent of Africa,

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Speaker 2: we also know that the continent is not necessarily monolithic.

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Speaker 2: Do you perceive problem gangling differently in different African kind

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Speaker 2: of regions?

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Speaker 1: Yes?

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, I mean African market is a huge market. So

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Speaker 3: every single juridiction has its own specifics, has its own challenges, right,

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Speaker 3: so we have to That's why when we talk about

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Speaker 3: sums up and there, it's a very interesting thing to

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Speaker 3: know that every single country has its own way of

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Speaker 3: onboarding players. There are different regulatory requirements pay country, and

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Speaker 3: it is a paramount thing for any vendor out there

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Speaker 3: that is supporting the operators to be able to facilitate

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Speaker 3: those different requirements pay country. Because we're not building a

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Speaker 3: one feit, a one system feit all that is absolutely

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Speaker 3: out of the you know, something that is not dis

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Speaker 3: possible at all, right, so we have to build unique

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Speaker 3: solutions pay country, pay requirements, pay players behavior.

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Speaker 1: Can I just in this case.

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Speaker 2: Understand so would your service, your AI would you avail

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Speaker 2: it to the regulator.

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Speaker 1: Is that where you see a best position?

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Speaker 3: Definitely, I mean we have to we have to be

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Speaker 3: completely aligned with what regulators want and and by sotill doing,

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Speaker 3: we will be able to address the problem gambling properly

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Speaker 3: in line with regulatory requirements.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: And I think I think you can monotorate both.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you can monitor both, including responsibility of the operator.

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Speaker 1: To what extent exactly to what extent.

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Speaker 2: Do you think the us the the operators are are

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Speaker 2: not ethical?

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Speaker 3: Well, I think operators sometimes, I mean I might be

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Speaker 3: maybe a little bit subjective here, but I think it's

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Speaker 3: it's I think operators in most of the cases are

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Speaker 3: pretty much laid back in the sense that, you know,

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Speaker 3: there are things that the market is growing rapidly, but

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Speaker 3: when it comes to how the regulations are being implemented

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Speaker 3: or the guidelines.

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Speaker 1: At least that is necessary.

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Speaker 3: Got Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't align with the market growth.

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Speaker 1: We've got to wrap it up.

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Speaker 2: I'm sorry, That's why I'm bombarding you with so many

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Speaker 2: questions and thoughts. But Ricky, Emma, thank you very much

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Speaker 2: for bringing to our attention what you are doing.