hello everyone and welcome to the 15th episode of the igaming show presented by Paramount Commerce I'm your host Ved meta and in this podcast we analyze gaming industry Trends with experts from various gaming organizations in today's episode we will explore the impact of the second March Madness tournament in Ontario's regulated igaming market with Zach slovic the director of sports book operations for rust Street interactive so without further Ado let's get the show rolling uh okay so Zach how
we start this podcast as always is by asking you a few fun questions so I have a couple lined up for you before we go into the topic of discussion the first one is um a good teacher always leaves something amazing for you through who they are or what they taught you or how they encouraged you um can you tell us about Miss maryn and the spring swing if you know what I'm referring to yeah that's that that was very very unexpected um yes no Miss Marilyn from the spring swing was actually a uh a dan
ce instructor from my time being in theater programs throughout High School um so she was super influential on me because you know I wasn't naturally inclined to be a dancer coming into those activities through High School very much participated my or uh appreciated my participation in all the music programs but but when I got involved in theater um you could say I had two left feet at first so miss miss Marilyn was very um influential and taking her time and being patient with me and showing me
how to uh tap dance specifically in the first show that I was in which was 42nd Street um so from a very very early age she she taught me the import the importance of being patient with the people that you're leading because there were very very many folks uh who probably had exceeding skill sets far beyond myself when it came to dancing like that going into it um so uh she definitely gave me the confidence to to know in that moment that I would be able to you know ultimately get better at some
thing I'd never done before because the the acting and the singing pieces things came a little bit more naturally to me than that aspect um but yeah no uh great lady and may she rest in peace actually great one um my next question for you Zach would be have you ever visited the reading uh Pagoda is how you say it reading pagod and can you tell us what that is basically sure yeah so the reading pagota is it's essentially a structure uh on the hill that's lit up at night um it's an area where a lo
t of people in the Burks County Reading Pennsylvania community um gather meet there's walking trails around it um so it's just a a very nice vantage point of the entirety of the city of reading um growing up around here I know you know it's the type of thing you go to on Elementary School field trips and things like that and then once you get a little bit more independent um you can go up there on your own time and just enjoy it you know it's a little bit of a respit from the the craziness of th
e the city that is reading um so just a nice cultural tourist area within within the area that I grew up love it love it uh my next one just two more uh my next my next one is if you had the job of introducing f fighters to someone who hasn't heard them before what are three songs you would pick for them to listen to oh no come on just three no uh no probably the three that I would go with is uh learn to fly to start um I I I like that song because I'm an Eagles fan as well so you know there's t
here's a bit of a tie in there that one um my hero is another good song and then the classic uh arguably but not in my opinion the best song of the 1990s ever long um so yeah that would that would that's the staple that's the one that you have to probably start with so I probably listed those in reverse order but um definitely an easy power three there yes that that's a pretty good one um and my last question is you yourself know some great musical people um I think you know someone technical Se
rgeant Seth ebersol who's also a jazz saxophonist so did you play saxophone and how do you know these many musical people I did play saxophone for several years I was a uh a District in All Region sax player in high school um now granted I say that but the individual you just asked me about Seth evera is a very accomplished saxophonist as you I'm sure you were able to see um he's he was a great friend of mine growing up um I was very fortunate to get to sit alongside two who have gone on to beco
me professional musicians who uh gig professionally today Seth and then another Nathan bot who who plays in New York City um Seth particularly actually it's funny bring him up I just had the the fortune of getting to see him play for the first time in a while a few weeks back um with my family he actually came back around the area living playing in the Air Force he you know he's living down outside Washington DC at this point um so he was able to be back around and we got to see those two indivi
duals that I mentioned uh play together actually kind of as a reunion show around here um so yeah so just from being involved in all those music programs as I alluded to earlier um you know I've been able to keep some connections with those folks some of which you know we able to take it to that next level and go professional playing playing music in a way that I wasn't able to uh to necessarily do no that's amazing still you know I'm sure you pick up the saxophone or any musical instrument stil
l gives you peace right so that's that's what matters I love that and I love that you know beyond whatever we're here to talk about Zach is so appreciative of you know his teachers music there's so much uh there so yeah um now going to the topic of discussion we're here to talk about March Madness and it's it's uh possible impact in Ontario Canada and uh what it's going to bring this year versus what it was last year probably um so my first question Zach is that uh during the Super Bowl this yea
r we saw that there was U you know a huge rise or huge interest in uh sports betting possibly more than it was the previous year in Ontario there was also that same experience so how do you think this year's March Madness Tournament will be and how will it kind of impact Ontario's regul gaming industry I mean transparently off the bat I mean we operate in several States right there's no Market that we are operating in from an online sports betting standpoint that I'm more excited for going into
this tournament than Ontario and that's just because of the growth that we have seen in the sport in general in that market you know it's no secret and it's something that we'll get to a little bit later as far as they not being local local Canadian teams involved so it's taken a little bit more of a ramp up for people to become acclimated to the sport to understand the you know there's a million teams right there's a lot of teams a lot of different players so it takes a little bit for people to
become you know uh get their preferences for wager types get their preferences for teams for players that they're looking to bet on um so I think because a lot of that has happened this year in a new way um somewhat which I'll get into a bit because of the state of the game itself and sometimes BEC some of it due to the maturity of the overall Ontario Market um I think players have just been in a unique position to try and a check out different betting products than what they were accustomed to
up front you know of course we've seen a lot of popularity with with hockey and with your professional sports as you alluded to the NFL we just came off of a record a record uh month of January and playoffs particularly um definitely see and expect this to happen some of the trends that I would uh expect us to see that will probably push us to increased performance versus last year would be continued expansion of live wagering players players in Ontario and and really across the board um now th
at they are starting to understand and follow teams and there's you know a cast of characters star players um there's that desire to place pre-match Wagers but then stay close throughout the entirety of the game because of the convenience of the products that are being offered um you know via the mobile phone so I think that it's it's kind of a perfect storm if you will right of all those things there's been a discovery period over the past year which I think is probably what's going to push thi
ngs um even further but uh it'll be it'll be very interesting to see with the way the teams you know the team shook out the way the bracket bracket took shape there's a lot of compelling matchups that I think um will suit well to the preferences from a team standpoint that we saw you know Canadians really really turn to throughout the season particularly the past month yeah and maybe apart from the competition itself uh you mentioned something really interesting there that you know last year was
a discovery phase for better inside of Ontario so now that they possibly you know picked the favorite sports book or an operator that they're comfortable betting with um did you notice any Trends apart from that during the discovery phase in Ontario that you feel um might be noteworthy in this year's tournament or something you saw during the Super Bowl that you think might continue in this uh March Madness Tournament yeah so I was talking about the different Market types and just honing in on
the live wagering aspect of things there's a there's a huge appetite for placing Wagers on markets that happen quickly started the game you know the the type of the first first field goal type right a two-pointer versus a three-pointer someone to win the first quarter and the convenience of the you know the products that we offer at bet rivers with our same game parlay tool is you can combine a lot of those bets into you know one single wager and you have that gratification early in the game and
then you can set it up so you have different different parts of the wager that take place and result at different point points of the game so that I think was a very big thing that Ontario residents particularly tried out if you will um because NFL provided a great springboard because you know again the players are are of higher profile there's overall on a per game basis going to be more bets for an NFL game so it gave that opportunity for True discovery of you know the depths of everything at
the BET offer so I think particularly something that I'll be interested to follow over the next couple weeks are those you know those quick hitters is the best way to put it those type of markets um and how people engage with those both from a single betting and you know parlay parlay wagering standpoint and you mentioned something interesting during your first um answer is that there there aren't any Canadian teams involved but yet there's so much uh you know interest and love for this tournam
ent so um Are there specific you know strategies or plans that you um you know try out to make sure that Canadians kind of engage with this event more on on a betting side I'm sure from a viewing standpoint it's different but do you also do that from like an online gaming experience way yeah I think it's all about the way that you know you present content to the users right like it's no secret who your your blue blood teams are in the United States and the same the same Trends F have followed in
to Canada you know your dukes your North Carolina it's Kansas Kentucky those teams are always going to be more popular in the grand scheme of things just because of their history so finding creative ways to present that content to users um when they're first coming into the site when we know those games are going on in a crowded space right especially Thursday and Friday there's a bunch of games going on at one time so finding ways to cut through the noise to really find those events to showcase
the teams that have a particular um a heightened betting interest versus some others is one thing that we're super intentional about and that goes you know that goes to some of our marketing efforts too off the sports books reaching out to our customers reminding people the teams that are involved that have been popular for them from a wagering standpoint throughout the year you know someone took a liking to Houston earlier in the season because they play really great defense um you know remind
ing them that they're involved what the way their matchups are going to line up um just it's it becomes in a crowded space when a lot of Gaming compan are sending a lot of messaging around it's trying to be personal and remind people of the stuff that cut the noise essentially is the strategy that we take for trying to appeal to the to the widest range of people that's a good one and how do you sort of use um content and uh specific you know marketing strategies to engage with uh Canadians becau
se that that's that's an unique way that hey we're not possibly you know sending out an ad but hey here's a interesting content piece about these are XYZ teams within March Madness and you know your stats or something like that are you using some of those things as well yeah I think particularly what we try to do with some of those uh San parlay offerings um if you go to our websites we have uh they function like carousels that sit at the top of each of our pages that feature some of this conten
t with as you're alluding to some narrative narrative information you know X player scored 20 plus in the past five five games um so to position the information so it can become a bit of a fact finding mission for folks and then they still have the opportunity to place the wager again it should they so choose and then when you're presenting that you know understanding that not everybody's going to want to take that one wager so providing convenient means for people to go and be able to manipulat
e whatever you're presenting to them as well um I think another thing that will be interesting you know crossboard opportunities right there's still major major sports going on during March Madness and we know that's the event but how you know how are there opportunities to take core hockey betters or you know core NBA betters and try and bring them across and you know while we know it's the end of the season and there's not a ton of volume left from college basketball this year um you know buil
ding that into their repertoire because as we know Sports gaming in general is is a seasonal activity that's a good one and um you know as a online gaming operator uh responsible gaming is so important to whatever um that you do uh so are you more cautious about responsible gaming initiatives and efforts during major sporting events such as Mark mes Mark Madness or Super Bowl something like that yeah you know I truthfully I think the key to having a robust and effective responsible gaming progra
m throughout the year is not needing to force yourself to have greater heightened greater Consciousness on it during these Marquee events so that's all to say you know I wouldn't necessarily say that it stands out because we're we're very heightened and conscious of it throughout the year uh just the same in the summer months when it's the dog days of baseball as we are during during these times now from again you talk about featuring proper areas of our product and making sure our customers are
aware of what we have out there um of course it's a messaging piece it's something that we're going to include in all our Communications leading into the tournament um want to make sure that people people understand a all the tools we do have available how easy they are to use and the fact that we have a support team to them to put them in place you know should they need it at 24 hours a day um so it's a preserving the fun and control nature of what we do is a 247 365 exercise it's not just dur
ing the Super Bowl or during March Madness it's not it's not a one day thing right exactly exactly that's a good one that's a good one and my last question for you Zach would be um whenever you look at these big because you know you're heavily involved in the Sports booking operation um what future Trends do you see uh you know when we talk about Ontario and when we talk about major sporting events such as March Madness or Super Bowl or you know some NBA final um are there Trends or something yo
u're looking forward to when it comes to these big like you said uh you know live wagering um are you looking at you know incorporating some live streaming aspect what are you looking forward to that um you want to deliver to the industry as well as to Consumers well it's funny you say that because I think the streaming is a great is a great point you know the watch and wager concept is gaining huge popularity right and I think what we as an industry will will continue to understand as the J too
s between watching and wagering events that you can find on normal television versus the ones that are a bit harder right some of you're deeper we see a lot of success and popularity of streaming Sports such as soccer tennis even things like darts which are Super popular among our Ontario betters um how does that translate to some of the higher profile core sports we're always you know investigating those opportunities and trying to find the strongest Synergy between wagering and watching and br
inging that experience as close as possible because it's one thing to have a stream on there but if it's not super convenient from a user experience standpoint to find the bets and place them we're not really accomplishing much so I think those are continued opportunities that we'll see as we move forward here um you know the goal is always finding the way to properly Bridge being the operator of the sports wagering content versus providing the companion media content statistical content and how
can those things kind of coexist within One Singular platform um I think we're going to see see that occur a lot more across really every Sports property as we move things forward that's a good one um Zach I want to thank you for your time you know you joined us uh I think today yeah the March Madness K kicks off so what a fantastic day to you know interview you um thank you so much Z for your expertise um and yeah I hope whoever listens to this can understand uh the trends consumer behavior an
d whatever else amazing information that Zach shared with us thank you so much again Zach I appreciate it thanks for your time this year's March Madness Tournament is set to be a record set one for Ontario's regulated ey gaming Market with so many sports betters interested in major sporting events I want to thank Our Guest today's Zach slovik the director of Sportsbook operations from Rush Street interactor for joining us today and providing his expertise if you have any questions for us or Zach
then please do comment them down below please don't forget to like share and subscribe to our YouTube channel for the episode transcript and more content please visit our website paramont commerce.com or check out the description thank you so much for tuning in the igaming show presented by Paramount Commerce I'm your host vad meta and until next time keep gaming
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