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Exclusive Interview with Tomas Draksas (Co-founder of Edgeless.io) speaker at Vienna International Gaming Expo 2018
Reading Time: 5 minutes
Our latest interviewee has an impressive gambler background. Tomas Draksas is the Co-founder of Edgeless, Professional Poker Player & Gambler.
In 2008 – 2013, online poker was on the rise and a lot of new players were jumping into the game. At that time, Tomas decided to study the math of probability and poker. Later on, his direction changed to investing, cryptocurrency and digital marketing. He is the CEO of a conversion rate design company (Convi Design) which provides solutions to start-ups in the field of conversion rates and sales funnels. Additionally, he is investing into other start-ups. Right now Tomas is a Co-founder of Edgeless.io first fully transparent decentralised Ethereum casino.
Tomas will be among the speakers at the second edition of Vienna International Gaming Expo, held on the 31st of May at Melia Vienna. More details about the event can be found here.
Thank you very much for answering our questions. First I would like to ask you to shortly introduce yourself and tell us when and why you started working in this industry.
Tomas: Hey, I am Tomas, co-founder of Edgeless blockchain based casino. Well it’s not a coincidence for me to be in such an industry. In 2011 I used to play online poker professionally as my full time occupation. Even before my poker career, gambling was an activity which I love and have positive relationship with. So naturally I collected decent amount of knowledge on entire online gambling industry.
And what about blockchain?
Tomas: I am millennial. Personal computer was introduced to me in an early childhood. I got hooked immediately, spending tons of time learning how to use it. After my poker career, I launched an IT and digital marketing business which is still running up to day. It happened to be that most of my friends are into IT and computers too. So we tend to follow latest IT sector trends. In 2012 a friend of mine introduced me bitcoin as ‘something cool in IT”. Since then I follow everything related to blockchains up to day.
So here you go, that’s how I got into blockchain gambling industry.
You are the co-founder of Edgeless.io, a first fully transparent decentralised Ethereum casino. What makes this casino different and what services does it offer?
Tomas: There is a decent amount of online gambling customers who do not trust casinos they are playing at. And not without a reason – casino industry is full of cheating scandals. If player loses, they immediately assume that casino is cheating.
We solve this problem connecting our casino infrastructure to Ethereum ‘smart-contracts’. Using this system we entirely get rid of a ‘trust-problem’.
“Smart-contract” automatically uploads random number inputs a blockchain. That becomes publicly visible. After that people can take these inputs and recreate an outcome of past games.
That means our casino cannot cheat without being spotted on a blockchain. And that makes us incredibly transparent gambling service provider.
In a long run we aim to build most transparent and user-friendly online casino brand.
You are very much interested in investing, cryptocurrency and digital marketing. Please tell us more about the state of gambling industry in Europe considering these important issues you have experience in.
Tomas: In last 5 years, online gambling has its own peak/ prime moments. It expanded rapidly to almost every country making it incredibly profitable industry. However, more than half of an industry operates illegally breaching most gambling laws. That creates huge problems for local governments. So now the trend is: heavy regulations on gambling industry and no mercy for operators. Local governments create local gambling laws and prevent outsiders from entering the market.
As an operator I understand that, because most of these shady gambling platforms offer incredibly poor service, no transparency and allow minors gambling.
From tech perspective: gambling industry has many new interesting products such as fantasy sports and e-sports betting tournaments. There games have much more interesting gaming experience that classical casino games such as roulette. It seems like in the future we will have more advanced games and betting element.
It is believed that cryptocurrencies are digital gold. Sound money that is secure from political influence, money that promises to preserve and increase its value over time. Cryptocurrencies are also a fast and comfortable means of payment with a worldwide scope, and they are private and anonymous enough to serve as a means of payment for black markets and any other outlawed economic activity. Do you agree with this? How secure do you think is paying with cryptocurrency?
Tomas: It depends. As an industry insider, I can easily see that blockchain tech is just in its infant state. It’s not ready yet and still being under development. I think that it went viral slightly too early than it should.
So now it is NOT fast enough to fuel dapps at a large scale. It is not comfortable to use, crypto service payment infrastructure is not developed yet. It doesn’t provide the anonymity everyone thinks it has. And it is HEAVILY influenced by political environment.
However blockchain developers are addressing each issue and improving blockchains every day. Keep in mind that is incredibly complex programming challenge. My guess would be that after 2 – 3 years, we will have something more tangible which can have all benefits you mentioned.
Can this method of payment have huge effect on the gaming industry, either positive or negative?
Tomas: Yes, it gives incredible improvement on a service. Gambling operators tend to abuse payment methods to trick people into trapping their assets. Let’s say a player wins 10k USD. Most small operators would freeze their money and say something like “it might take 2 – 4 days to withdraw your money”.
Gladly with a cryptocurrency, we do not have this ‘2 – 4’ days’ withdrawal conditions for “some reasons”.
I would say now players will feel more secure depositing assets to an online casino.
What is your opinion about the perspectives the use of cryptocurrency can mean for the industry? What advantages would this bring to the industry?
Tomas: Most important: fast deposits/ withdrawal systems and casino transparency using ‘smart-contracts’.
If you could change anything in the world of gambling what would that be?
Tomas: Now gambling industry is living in some sort of a ‘shadow’; having incredibly negative outlook from environment, being blocked from banking services and marketing networks. Secondly gambling activities get tons of judgement from average citizens.
That’s pretty sad. I gamble from time to time, having no issues what’s so ever. That’s one of oldest forms of entertainment humankind enjoyed. Games combined with betting have existed since a start of human civilization. And it will not disappear.
I would love to change overall ‘image of a gambling’ industry into something more transparent, consumer orientated and capable of providing high quality entertainment products without being judged by environment.
Which were the most difficult periods in your career so far and what do you consider your biggest success and what are your future plans?
Tomas: Most difficult part was to program a scalable mass consumer product on a blockchain infrastructure. We launched our 1.0 version in 2018 Q1. As I mentioned before, today blockchain does not have the necessary functionality which we need to deliver our promise. During our journey, we had to make a ‘lot of work-arounds’ and compromises.
Gladly blockchain tech is improving allowing to move forward, even if that is just by small incremental steps.
I still laugh at other ICO promises and their ‘road-maps’. It seems like most newcomers have no idea at what state blockchain technology is and what problems it has.
If you want to meet Tomas in person or networking with the biggest names of the Sports betting, Casino, VR/AR, Marketing, eSports, DFS, Virtual Sports and Crypto industry, make sure your attend the Vienna International Gaming Expo.
Source: European Gaming Media and Events
Latest News
What makes Turbo Games’ provably fair games so special?
A partnership between game developer Turbo Games and iGaming solution provider and aggregator Slotegrator began in November 2022 via the APIgrator game integration solution. Since then, the collaboration has been developing successfully — and now it’s time to analyze what made it successful.
Turbo Games has noticed how the new technologies spreading throughout the industry can work for the good of brand transparency and player loyalty: “We can already see how blockchain technology has made it possible to make betting checks more accessible to players. All you need is a blockchain-hash and a decoder service. We think we will continue to move in this direction. Many traditional online casinos do not offer the possibility to check the bet. Sooner or later we all have to come to this. Perhaps the development of artificial intelligence will help here, because we are already seeing its involvement in all spheres of human life.”
Turbo Games specializes in provably fair games. Provable fairness is a concept where players can verify their wins or losses using blockchain technology — the outcome of the game is dictated by a smart contract and is absolutely random, barring the possibility of any human involvement. Using cryptographic hashing algorithms, the gambling site and the player’s device both generate seeds (random strings of numbers). Players receive a key that allows them to check the results; if the results are the same as the game round they witnessed, it proves that there was no foul play.
According to statistics from Turbo Games, the audience for provably fair games is mostly between 18 and 25 years old. However, there are also players aged 35-40 who prefer traditional games but would like to try something new, and have turned their attention to provably fair games.
There are good odds that the technology of provably fair games will become more popular, if not even commonplace, because it gives players a feeling of transparency and proves that the business is trustworthy without the need to search through dozens of reviews. Whereas many innovations in iGaming simply add entertainment, provable fairness addresses security concerns and reassures players that they’re not being exploited, which is invaluable.
Provably fair games are beneficial for both players and online casinos. Vadim Potapenko, Head of Sales at Turbo Games, comments: “It often happens that the users are not satisfied with the result, because gambling is not only about big wins, but also possible losses. By allowing them to check the fairness of a bet, we make life easier for platforms and players. Of course, this allows us to communicate with partners and users that we work honestly and that’s why they should trust our games.”
Ayvar Gabidullin, Business Development Manager at Slotegrator, adds that “this type of game is now becoming more and more popular and has great potential for both players and game providers in the future. On the part of the player, the advantage is that the player can always be sure that his game is fair and he can independently check any of his bets. And for the game provider, this also simplifies the process of implementing casino games, since now it will not be necessary to obtain the appropriate certificates from independent laboratories before launching new games, they can immediately enter the market with these games and where anyone can check the result and make sure that that there is no cheating with players. Many game providers are starting to look towards this type of game. And as far as I see, many operators are starting to think about adding these games.”
What do players in 2023 need? The iGaming industry is all about reputation and trust. Players have a huge number of platforms to choose from, making them pickier and pickier. There’s an abundance of forums where players leave reviews, so if players view a brand as untrustworthy, there are plenty of places they can share their opinion. Provable fairness not only stops that from happening, it provides evidence to the contrary, giving players something else to talk about.
Slotegrator also recommends investing time and effort into localization and creating an effective and detailed marketing strategy — before trying provably fair technology players need to get to the platform, and there is no acquisition without marketing.
ABOUT SLOTEGRATOR
Since 2012, Slotegrator has been one of the iGaming industry’s leading software and business solution providers for online casino and sportsbook operators.
The company’s main focus is software development and support for online casino platforms, as well as the integration of game content and payment systems.
The company works with licensed game developers and offers a vast portfolio of casino content: slots, live casino games, poker, virtual sports, table games, lotteries, casual games, and data feeds for betting.
Slotegrator also provides consulting services in gambling license acquisition and business incorporation.
More information: https://slotegrator.pro/
ABOUT TURBO GAMES
Turbo Games — a provably fair games provider that belongs to Turbo Stars company — has an ambitious goal to establish widespread recognition throughout the iGaming world. Even though it is young, the company consists of professionals who have been working on the brand for over five years and are even planning to introduce a new brand for a wider audience soon.
Turbo Games also works in Europe, India, and South Africa, where the company sees the most potential and expects the same “hype” as in Brazil.
The portfolio of Turbo Games consists of 21 titles, including well-known games like Mines, Crash X, DoubleRoll, Hi-Lo, and Plinko. The studio releases a game every month. However, not all games are developed from scratch. Wicket Blast and Spin Strike, the last two releases, are based on cricket and the Indian Premier League. Crash X remains the most popular fast game in the Turbo Games portfolio, and the studio reports that crash games enjoy stable levels of popularity. Overall, the main focus of the brand is provably fair games.
More information: https://turbogames.io/
Baltics
Games Factory Talents has teamed up with Nordic Game to bring you Nordic Game Talents.
Looking to take your career to the next level in the games industry? Then, Nordic Game Talents is the place to be! Games Factory Talents has teamed up with Nordic Game to bring you Nordic Game Talents.
From Oct 27-29, the online and interactive event is dedicated to recruitment and career building in the creative & games industry within the Nordic region. The event empowers participants to be part of a bigger community and motivates them to explore new paths in achieving their career goals.
Hiring creative & games studios – Supercell, Funcom, Panzerdog, Tactile Games, Gamecan, Fingersoft, Dazzle Rocks, Redhill Games to name a few from the Nordic region will be participating in the event. These studios will share information on their latest projects, work culture and what it takes to be part of their team. The individual games associations from Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Estonia will share insights through live sessions on the booming games industry in their respective countries. Career development topics pertinent to job seekers like – How to have a successful first interview, Creative Portfolio reviews will also be discussed.
Experienced game industry professionals and individuals beginning their careers from around the world are welcome to join the event. One-to-one interviews with the hiring studios can be scheduled through the event platform. A great opportunity to get to know the studios and network with game professionals from around the world.
Participating in the event
As a job seeker attending Nordic Game Talents, take a few minutes to fill out a simple registration form. After filling the registration form you will receive a link to the online event platform – PINE, to join the event on 27th October. Participants joining Nordic Game Talents will also receive a free-of-charge pass to the Nordic Game Conference.
To view the complete agenda, please click here and to learn more about the event please visit Games Job Fair
About Games Factory Talents
A Helsinki-based talent attraction agency dedicated to the games & creative industry. Our services include direct recruitment, organizing game job fairs and managing a community of game industry professionals through our GameDev Talent Board.
To learn more about Games Factory Talents visit – Games Factory Talents
810 THE SPREAD
Cumulus Media Launches 810 THE SPREAD, the Bay Area’s First Sports Station Focused on Sports Betting
Cumulus Media (NASDAQ: CMLS) announces that it has launched the Bay Area’s first Sports radio station focused on sports betting, 810 THE SPREAD. The new station brings sports and sports betting news, information, and insights to the burgeoning and underserved sports betting audience in San Francisco. 810 THE SPREAD will deliver behind-the-book perspectives from experts in a highly entertaining and engaging format. 810 THE SPREAD goes live today on the legendary 810am frequency that has been the 80-year home of historic Talk Radio KGO-AM. Cumulus San Francisco also launched the station’s new website at www.810thespread.com. Kevin Graham, Program Director of Cumulus’ sister sports stations KNBR 680AM/104.5FM and 1050 KTCT, adds Program Director duties for 810 THE SPREAD.
Larry Blumhagen, Vice President/Market Manager, Cumulus San Francisco, said: “810 THE SPREAD joins our sports brands KNBR 680AM/104.5FM and 1050 KTCT for a trifecta of dynamic sports content across four signals and streaming everywhere. We are excited about this new chapter and look forward to serving the Bay Area’s passionate sports fans in an incomparable way.”
Blumhagen added: “This is a bittersweet day for us, as it’s hard to say goodbye to the legendary KGO, which has been a part of listeners’ lives for so many years. We want to thank all the people who have been a part of KGO’s historic run these many years – and the listeners who loyally tuned in to the station. Times change, and we must change with them.”
Kevin Graham, Program Director, 810 THE SPREAD, said: “810 THE SPREAD will be the Bay Area’s best bet for sports fans and sports betting enthusiasts, and we are pleased to introduce sports-betting radio to our community. The station will feature a lineup of expert personalities that deliver unique sports talk and sports betting insights that entertain, inform, and engage, along with Cal Football and Basketball as well as select professional and college sports play-by-play events. While 810 THE SPREAD will feature specific gambling information, we believe our entertaining presentation will make it a favorite for all Bay area sports fans and a perfect complement to the legendary KNBR and KTCT. With its addition, it truly shows Cumulus’ commitment to the Bay area as ‘The Sports Leader’!”
The weekday programming lineup for 810 THE SPREAD includes:
6am-9am – Bet QL Daily – The must-consume show for sports fans and betting fans alike. Hosted by Joe Ostrowski, Joe Giglio, and Erin Hawksworth.
9am-12pm – Jim Rome - Aggressive, informed sports opinions, rapid-fire dialogue, and plenty of sports smack. As one of the most prolific sports talk hosts in America, Rome draws massive tune-in with legions of fans known as clones, who live for Rome’s take on the day’s largest issues in sports.
12pm-4pm – You Better You Bet – Nick Kostos and Ken Barkley have you covered for the best bets on the biggest matchups, the latest line movement and updates in the futures market. We’ll have up-to-the-minute coverage of backdoor covers and bad beats, and the cheers and tears that come with them. It’s sports betting conversation like you’ve never heard before.
4pm-8pm – Bet MGM Tonight – Live sports betting updates for all the night’s games as they happen – plus live “look-ins” for Major League Baseball games in progress. Get the latest scores, sides, totals, props, parlays, futures, and much more with hosts Quinton Mayo, Trysta Krick, and Ryan Horvat.
8pm-12 Midnight – CBS Sports Radio
BetQL Network programming is provided by Cumulus Media’s Westwood One through a partnership with Audacy.
For more information or to stream 810 THE SPREAD, visit: http://www.810thespread.com.
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