GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 43 - February 2019

too many players. Russian-language players preferred to play in offline, land-based ca- sinos, but over the last several years almost all of them have moved online. There are some differences between Rus- sian-speaking players and the players I get on English sites. Most Russian-speaking players always want to win, which is almost impossible. But players from my English sites are looking for entertainment – they want to have a nice time. These differenc- es are very noticeable in sports betting. For many Russian-language players, sports betting is not a hobby; it’s their work. They practice in sports betting, they become professionals and they earn money. For example, one of my administrators has been a professional sports bettor for more than 20 years. Of course, working in Russian is easier for me, but two years ago I started an En- glish-language sports betting website. I can work in both languages if I have a strong, reliable team. All your sites are currently sports- book sites. Why did you choose to focus on sportsbooks? What are some of the biggest challenges of working in that vertical? I chose to focus on sportsbooks because this niche is more interesting for business. It was a challenge for me to create a useful website, not just for advertising, but also for players. Honestly, all my previous casino sites were only for advertising and for earning money. I didn’t think about players. But now I have other views, prin- ciples and aims for my business. I want my sites to be useful both for bettors and for sportsbooks. And with my team, we’ll do our best. One of the biggest challenges of working in that vertical is to provide visitors with fresh forecasts. Online casino sites do not require such daily fresh content, but here in sports betting, our site betunion24.ru must be like a newspaper, where new forecasts are published very frequently. When we last spoke, you mentioned that the internet in Belarus was very expensive. Is this still the case? Has anything else about working in Belarus changed over the past 10 years? Today the internet is very cheap in my country and available to everybody. Belarus has become one of the best places for working. Earlier I had some thoughts that maybe it was better to move to another country, but now I like everything in my country. It’s one of the first countries in the world where crypto business is officially allowed, and there are no taxes for crypto business for the first several years. Online gambling is also allowed here, there are low taxes, and there is no war or any mi- grants. Belarus is a very clean, beautiful, peaceful and civilized country where I really enjoy living. What trends in the iGaming industry are you most excited about? I’mmost excited about the legalization of online gambling in many countries, including Russia. During the last several years, the Russian government was blocking my web- sites, including my sports betting sites. It was almost impossible to work in such a situation. But now all the well-known sports- 53 G P W A t i m e s . o r g