Interviews
“Francisco Leiva: Forging the Future of the Gaming Industry in Chile”
In the vibrant gaming industry in Chile, Francisco Leiva’s figure emerges as a key reference. A trained industrial civil engineer, his professional journey spans 35 years, from his beginnings in the public sector to his prominent role as Superintendent of Casinos, and more recently as Corporate Manager of Strategic Development at Marina del Sol. His entry into this industry, marked by challenges and significant achievements, reflects his commitment to progress and innovation. In this interview, Francisco shares his vision, experience, and accumulated wisdom over the years.
Could you tell us a bit about your career, professional trajectory, and path to where you are today; What motivated you to enter the Gaming industry?
I am an industrial civil engineer, and my career started in the public sector 35 years ago. Initially, I worked at the Ministry of Health and then at the Ministry of Finance, where I was involved in the drafting and legislative processing of various bills, such as the anti-money laundering law and the gaming casinos law.
Given my work in the legislative process of the gaming casinos bill, after its enactment in February 2005, President Ricardo Lagos appointed me as the first Superintendent of Casinos to implement the law. It was a significant professional and personal challenge as it involved bringing an industry that was far behind similar developed countries as Chile up to date.
During your time as Superintendent of Casinos in Chile, what were the most challenging tasks you undertook, and what would you say was your legacy in the gaming industry?
The main challenge was implementing the new gaming casinos law, which involved setting up the Superintendency, hiring staff, and preparing all conditions for private investors to apply for new casino operation permits. This led to 52 projects being submitted for the 18 available casino permits, with investments exceeding US$ 755 million at the time. Foreign investment accounted for 55%, and national investment for 45%.
The result was the construction of 18 new casinos along with complementary facilities such as hotels, convention centers, restaurants, and other leisure facilities that turned these areas into tourist attractions in the cities where they were built.
Undoubtedly, the main challenge was meeting the tender requirements within a tight timeframe. We managed to have a competitive process with operators from around the world, radically changing Chile’s gaming casinos industry.
The legacy was transforming the gaming casinos industry from seven municipal casinos to a modern industry with 24 top-level casinos and facilities.
What significant lessons have you learned throughout your career? And what message would you like to leave for future generations?
One lesson is that ambitious goals can only be achieved through dedication and by building motivated teams with clear objectives. It’s impossible to do it alone in tasks like these.
I believe the message is to work with honesty, dedication, and without losing sight of the task entrusted to you.
Knowing you personally, not just professionally, what activity inspires you or helps you achieve balance in your life?
Since I was a child, I have been passionate about playing tennis, and I have tried to maintain this passion even as a senior player. In this sense, I think engaging in sports helps maintain a healthy mind and body, which is essential to counter the stress that comes with demanding and complex work.
Similarly, one cannot neglect family life, as they are the ones who will ultimately support you in difficult times.
In summary, the only way, although not easy, is to harmonize work demands with a balanced life.
Finally, what is your opinion on hosting such an important international event in your country? And in a way, being one of the hosts to such important international personalities.
It is very important for the country to host such events that allow interaction among different actors in the gaming industry. It facilitates the exchange of experiences and networking, allowing the industry to continue developing. It is also important for public authorities, especially regulatory ones, to participate so they can understand the industry’s reality and see where the industry is heading given technological and cultural changes.
Francisco Leiva’s story in the gaming industry in Chile is an inspiring testimony of determination and success. From his crucial role in implementing the gaming casinos law to his contribution to the industry’s growth and modernization, his legacy endures as a beacon of positive change. Beyond his professional achievements, Francisco reminds us of the importance of balancing work and personal life, as well as the need to stay focused on values such as honesty and dedication. His optimism and commitment to the future of the gaming industry in Chile are a reminder that success is achieved through effort, teamwork, and a clear vision.
GameplAI is harnessing the gains in automation seen in other tech sectors and bringing them to the sports betting industry, with more accurate pricing and automation which reduces the manual overhead of risk-management for trading teams. Its growing group of partners are benefiting from a series of never-before-seen, player-focused markets that engage fans both pre-game and in-play.
Gaming Americas caught up with their Co-Founder, Graham Savage, the man at the helm of a company on the road to becoming the premium supplier of automated and quantitative-driven sports solutions for the sector.
After GameplAI’s defining Q1 raise earlier this year, how have you been deploying the funds?
There are two core priorities for the deployment of our capital. The first is the expansion of our team. We have already doubled the size of the team since January and we are still looking to hire additional technology and sports-modelling expertise. The second strand is a focus on licensing. Given the global footprint of our expanding customer base, we are actively pursuing licences in multiple U.S. states in addition to emerging LatAm regions such as Peru and Argentina.
What does adding Marco Blume as an investor do for the company?
Marco provides fantastic insight and context in terms of what is most important to operators when assessing third-party products. Under his tenure, Pinnacle became a global leader in terms of sports product and pricing and this is the equivalent position that we are keen to assume within the suppliers’ sphere.
How do you see the supply market changing in the year ahead?
We see a strong emphasis being placed by operators on both in-play and props products. We feel this will be a dual responsibility to solve, with the onus being on companies like ourselves to create innovative products bolstered by compelling and accurate pricing, whilst our B2C partners will prioritise delivering intuitive and engaging front end UI to further embellish the product experience.
How were the Euros/Copa America for you and your recent operator deals?
We used both tournaments as a test bed. Betano, the premium online sports betting and gaming brand, launched a segment of the football player props product that we have developed in conjunction with Opta data. These markets proved to be hugely popular and we will roll out our extensive football props solution with Betano over the coming weeks.
In parallel, we launched a proof of concept of our football narrator product with a leading UK operator, which generates contextual markets in-play, relative to the most recent game state. These markets were really well-received by UK-based customers and we will look to broaden the scope of that collaboration, now that the domestic season has resumed.
What are the opportunities for GameplAI right now in the medium to long-term?
We have been very fortunate with the stature of partners with whom we are working. Their respective product and trading teams have been a fantastic support and resource for us – and working with people of that calibre will only serve to further enhance the quality of our product offering.
Broadening our international footprint is also hugely exciting and by the end of year we will be live with market-leading partners across three separate continents, which represents incredible progress in 12 months. We are hugely enthused at the prospects ahead and firmly believe GameplAI will be at the forefront of driving new product innovation in sports in 2025 and beyond.
Interviews
Allan Stone: Player retention – keeping players coming back in the age of sky-high acquisition costs
In your view, why do you think player acquisition costs are reaching record-high levels?
Allan Stone: We’re starting to see the impact of many of the privacy standards implemented. There is the Cookie deprecation that’s happened across both Google and iOS, as well as a lot of the ad identifiers being blocked by default, as opposed to as a setting that users can turn on. Operators haven’t been able to truly understand what the impact of this has been. They’re having to spend much more to achieve the same level of performance, simply because they don’t have a good understanding of the systems in place to hone in on where they are spending money to acquire players. As a result, operators are having to spend more money acquiring players that maybe aren’t the best quality and will likely churn.
From a regulatory perspective, especially in the US, there has been a bit of a slowdown in markets opening. We had an initial gold rush here in the US, but now, fewer states are coming online. We’re seeing a pullback on ad spend; even though it costs much more to acquire new players, operators aren’t spending as much as they used to. I think that’s an effect of over saturation in the market. Players have seen all these different products and different brands that are available to them. Essentially, the core products have become very commodotised. Every operator seems to offer pretty much the same slots as everyone else does.
What’s interesting is that if you’re to walk into a bunch of different casinos in Las Vegas, once you walk past the front doors, they all look and feel the same from a gaming perspective. Where they differ is through the experience that you get while in the casino; the design, the hospitality, etc. Those players that tend to play offline are starting to look towards those secondary offerings outside the core betting portfolio, they’re seeking more of an experience.
I think that we haven’t seen that in the digital space yet. There is very little differentiation in user experience on one betting app compared to the others. Operators need to take the time and energy to really personalise and customise their user experience to individual players. When that starts to happen, this is when you start to see an increase in acquisition costs. But then you will also see a consolidation in those costs – operators will start to become more efficient, cost savings will come into play, and that is when these brands can really differentiate themselves from one another.
What’s the secret to keeping players coming back in the long term?
Allan Stone: In a word, personalisation. It’s plain and simple. The more that brands can understand player behaviours and continue to create personalised experiences, the more they will keep players coming back in the long term.
I’ve heard a few different product people talk about how they can try personalise the experience further, and one idea was to emulate the experience that you get from apps such as Tinder where you swipe left or right to bet on different markets. What they realised was that the younger generation of players – who maybe weren’t as valuable – enjoyed that product feature, but their core betting customers weren’t as engaged. Operators are waking up to that now. If you want players to remain around, you’ve got to give them a reason to stay other than simply rolling out the same products as everyone else.
For a lot of the North American brands, they’ve done a great job of tying their iGaming and sports betting experience into their land-based properties. As time goes on, and the market continues to mature, you’ll see much more of that starting to happen. The land-based and digital experiences can complement each other really well, when done right; operators need to make sure they have that streamlined experience across all touchpoints. Brands should be going beyond the standard, core betting experience and instead delivering something much more holistic, and much more personalised to each customer.
Historically, we’ve beta tested location-based suggestions during NFL games, whereby if someone opened up a betting app while in a stadium, then that would be a good indicator of what markets they would be looking to bet on. They’re more than likely wanting to bet on the game that is taking place in front of them. Operators could use this opportunity to offer micro betting markets, or player props to that player. We know that the technology is there to do this.
How do these approaches balance the need for immediate engagement with long-term loyalty?
Allan Stone: A lot of the data and technologies that exist to support operators from an AdTech and MarTech perspective, at least from an acquisition side, has not been great. But we are starting to see that change. Operators can no longer leverage 20-year-old technology to solve a modern-day problem. They need to get granular with the data that they have at their disposal and understand where they can improve their media buying efforts. They need to find out how many players they acquired, what their lifetime value is, whether there are any similarities and trends between those players. From there, operators can then optimise their campaigns to focus on just acquiring those players.
There is much more that operators can be doing to leverage their data at scale and create massive efficiencies in their player acquisition – that, ultimately, would bring down costs. If you can create those efficiencies, you can theoretically reduce your costs by 20-30% which is a huge saving.
Can you give us a brief introduction to Rubystone?
Rubystone is a California-based provider of captivating, free-to-play social gameplay sites, powered by promotional sweepstakes, for the US and Canadian markets. PeakPlay, our flagship brand, is gearing up to launch in over 40 states and Canada, with the intention of shaking up the social sweepstakes industry and quickly establishing itself as a major player.
Our B2C brands lead with a player-centric focus, emphasizing the combination of responsible social gameplay with AAA content and exciting mobile gaming experiences.
In addition to our consumer brands, Rubystone also manages Scion, our B2B platform. This sets us apart by offering third-party brands a gateway into the US market with full compliance and access to premium content. The US audience is one of the most coveted in the world, and we provide operators with a distinctive opportunity to tap into this market, presenting significant growth possibilities for the right partners.
Can you tell us about Rubystone’s background, as well as your own background in the industry?
Rubystone has its roots on the other side of the Pacific in Christchurch, New Zealand. Gaming Rewards Group (GRG), our parent company, established the company to take over US operations, initially launched under their Ruby Play Network banner.
Rubystone and GRG believe firmly in the power of games to connect players and provide enthralling and exciting experiences.
My professional background includes working in and around the gaming industry for nearly two decades. I was SVP of Games & Marketing at Game Play Network and b spot, driving innovation in online horseracing for a decade. Before that, I was Senior Producer on the ABC gameshow Duel, a producer on The Real Deal, an interactive gambling show at the Venetian, adapted Deal or No Deal into an interactive real money stage show for cruise lines, and have launched more than 85 game titles, including some 70 real-money games and 15 apps.
My passion lies in bringing the company’s gaming visions to life, and Rubystone allows me to do that by leveraging all of my skills. I embarked on my journey with the company in early 2024. I strongly believe that together, we can revolutionize the social gameplay scene in the US and Canada in a manner that has never been seen before.
What inspired the foundation of Rubystone as the US-based counterpart for New Zealand’s Ruby Play Network?
The founders of GRG recognized the immense potential in the US social gaming market and were determined to tap into it as quickly as possible.
They believe their capabilities set them apart from other operators in the region. Establishing a strong presence on American soil and gaining a deep understanding of the market are vital components of their strategy. With a dedicated US team in place, they are poised to launch and eagerly anticipate partnering with established brands to shake up the North American social gaming and sweepstakes market.
Can you explain Rubystone’s core mission?
Our goal is simple: we aim to transform the social gaming scene in the US and Canada by offering players compelling brands that prioritize responsible social gameplay and place players’ interests first. This strategy involves two key components. Our consumer-facing websites will boast top-tier content from leading industry names, ensuring our players can access the latest and most exciting online casino offerings while providing top tier responsible gameplay support and fully compliant operations.
The second component is our Scion Rewarded Gameplay Platform. We envision opening up the US market to global brands, allowing them to captivate audiences with highly engaging content. We aim to foster innovation and empower brands to access the US market through a fully legal avenue. Through our full featured platform and trained live operations teams, brands gain entry to over 40 states and Canada, offering significant growth opportunities for all parties involved.
In an increasingly competitive sweepstakes market, how will Rubystone differentiate itself from its competitors?
The social games and sweepstakes market is insanely competitive, but we are well-positioned to tackle this. Our strategy pairs the expertise of our dedicated US-based management team with the innovation, proficiency and development strength of our New Zealand team. This approach positions us to enter the market aggressively and swiftly establish ourselves as key players.
One of our most powerful market differentiators is our Scion platform, built to run fully compliant operations in over 40 US states and all of Canada. This unique platform enables us to introduce new brands for various third-party partners, including those familiar with the US market but previously unable to launch here. Our capability to not only provide a platform, but run full white-glove live live operations for multiple brands gives us a unique market position.
What changes do you foresee for the social casino and sweepstakes industry’s future, and how is Rubystone positioned to handle them?
Right now, everybody is looking to grab a slice of the social sweepstakes pie. A whole wave of new entrants is competing to get into the market, and this will present a lot of challenges. Of course, the cream always rises to the top, and we are extremely confident we will do that.
Our experience in the industry and the powerful capabilities of the team backing us ensure we will be able to stay ahead of other operations as competition increases and user acquisition costs rise. We have access to AAA gaming content, industry-leading partners, and marketing channels many operators will struggle to get.
Rubystone’s plan is to establish itself quickly as a leading platform in the US market, integrating the best games and gamification tools on the market, some of which have never been launched in the US before. This, combined with strong marketing across a diverse range of platforms, will help us position ourselves strongly.
Right now, the social games and sweeps industry is under intense scrutiny, both from outside and within. However, skill gaming and fantasy sports have both come under similar pressure and have endured, and I see no reason why the outcome will be any different for social games and sweeps.
What are the long-term goals for Rubystone?
We are an extremely ambitious team at Rubystone, and we have laid out detailed plans for how we plan to succeed and where we plan to go in the coming years. Firstly, though, we must establish ourselves as a strong presence in the US and Canadian markets.
PeakPlay, our leading B2C brand, will play a major role in the early days of our journey, and we will utilize our extensive marketing capabilities to help establish it as a leading brand. We also want to set an example with responsible social gameplay and fully compliant operations.
2025 will be all about continuing that expansion and onboarding a handful of brands onto our Scion platform. We want to provide brands with an exciting and compliant route into the US market. There is also the possibility of working alongside brands in other sectors that may be considering the social games and sweeps market as a revenue stream but do not have the tools or industry knowledge to do so.
Our goal is to establish ourselves as an industry powerhouse and help power a new era for social gameplay in North America. Of course, we’re not going to give away all our secrets, but you can trust me when I say there are plenty of surprises and excitement in store.
Safety and compliance are at the core of everything the company does. Can you tell us a little bit more about how the company will continue to tackle the US’s increasingly complex regulatory landscape?
The social gaming market is crowded right now, and getting more crowded. The potential of the market may draw competitors who are less concerned about compliant operations. Despite the competition, we remain confident in our ability to stand out by prioritizing compliance and safety in everything we do. We’re not running fast and loose. We are here to stay. We’re setting up our operations to compete with the top players. With close collaboration between GRG’s core team in New Zealand, and our experienced US legal team, we ensure not only adherence to existing regulatory standards, but that we are prepared to adapt to new requirements as regulations evolve.
From our customers’ perspective, our commitment to their well-being will be evident in the comprehensive responsible social gameplay measures we implement. Our sites will provide players with access to a wide range of educational tools and resources, including time-outs, purchase limits, and self-exclusion. Our customer support teams will also be on hand to help players who feel they need access to further resources or support.
Can you give us more information about the company’s B2B platform and your future plans for it?
The Scion Rewarded Gameplay Platform is a cutting-edge social gameplay platform set to light up the industry in the US and Canada. This comprehensive platform offers both a full-featured-gameplay platform and comprehensive live operations support for third-party partners, ensuring a secure and compliant entry into the market with the potential for rapid growth.
Scion serves as a complete solution for our partners. It’s much more than a basic Player Account Management system. It encompasses branded website development, game acquisition and management, legal compliance, payment processing, player communications and engagement strategies, tools for responsible social gameplay, top-notch customer support, VIP programs, and much more. Whatever our partners require, the Scion platform delivers.
Everybody wants to enter the US market right now, and we have the capabilities to help the right brands do so.
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