MY FOOTBALL TEAM OF LIKE-MINDERS

First one out: Rory Sutherland.

Why do I consider him a like-minder, and why do I think his thoughts are relevant to iGaming? (And, yes, I know that like-minder is not even a word. 😀)

Well, a lot of his thinking is about questioning things that seem perfectly logical at first glance. Looking at the same problem from a different angle, challenging conventional wisdom and sometimes finding that the irrational explanation makes more sense than the rational one.

That’s pretty close to how I like looking at our industry.

One of the concepts he often talks about is the Doorman Fallacy.

You have a doorman. Most of the time, he seems to be opening doors.

A machine can open doors. So you get rid of the doorman.

Only afterwards do you realise that he was also watching who came in, receiving packages, helping visitors, noticing when something was wrong, remembering people…

Basically, opening the door was just the most visible part of the job.

I think we’re already making the same mistake with AI in iGaming. Our industry is under quite a lot of pressure to cut costs and become more efficient. Regulation, taxation, saturation, tougher economics in many markets…

Then AI comes along and suddenly a content writer “can produce 5x more”. A CRM person can automate half of what they used to do. Support needs fewer people. SEO research takes minutes instead of hours…

The obvious conclusion is to calculate how many people we no longer need.

Yet I think this is where the doorman becomes interesting.

What else was that content writer doing? What did the CRM person know about the players? What was the support agent noticing? What did your SEO person understand about the business that wasn’t visible in their monthly task list?

I’m absolutely for using AI to replace tasks that machines can do better, faster and cheaper.

I’m just not sure task = job nearly as often as our spreadsheets would like it to.

Or at least that’s not how its supposed to be in a world where were all being told by HR and leaders that we matter.

Before removing the doorman, it’s probably worth checking what else he was doing.

#2 in my football team of like-minders: Scott Galloway. Another person whose way of thinking I highly regard.

Why is he on my team? Probably because he’s direct, comfortable with uncomfortable conclusions, doesn’t romanticise success too much, and likes reducing complicated things to relatively simple observations.

A few of his recurring ideas also made me realise something: They explain some of the reasons why I love iGaming.

1. Follow your talent, not your passion.

That’s basically iGaming. 😁Let’s be realistic. Very few people grew up dreaming of becoming a Head of Affiliates, CRM Manager or gambling compliance specialist.

We ended up here because we were good at something.

Then many of us became passionate about the industry around it.

2. Ride the waves.

This might be one of iGamings greatest strengths. Regulation changes. Markets close. Markets open. Google changes. Payment methods disappear. New ones appear.

We adapt.

3. Don’t confuse luck with talent.

This one is particularly funny in iGaming.

We’ve seen too much luck to pretend it doesn’t exist.

For instance, there have been enough exits in this industry where timing played an enormous role. And enough cases of people making one spectacular exit and becoming a little… eccentric afterwards. 😁

Perhaps thats why I don’t think we’re as jealous of success as some other industries.

We understand variance.

Someone can be extremely talented and extremely lucky.

The two aren’t mutually exclusive.

And maybe that’s another thing iGaming teaches you: Don’t deny luck. Learn how it works.

Put yourself in positions where it can find you more often.

Basically, play the game.

(And yes, were still jealous. Just a little.🙂 )

About the series: I’ve selected my football team of 11 personalities from outside iGaming whom I consider my like-minders. I’m picking some of their ideas and concepts and looking at how they relate to our industry – and sometimes why they explain how I think myself.

#3 in my football team of like-minders: Richard Feynman.

This one is about truth.

Feynman was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, yet what I like about him is his obsession with not fooling yourself.

His famous line: The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool.

Very applicable to iGaming.

We are exceptionally good at explaining success afterwards.

Great strategy. Great product. Great management.

Sometimes, yes. Sometimes you entered the right market at the right time and things worked.

Another Feynman concept is cargo cult science: copying what successful people do without understanding what actually made them successful.

We have plenty of that too.
Competitor enters a market – let’s enter. Competitor launches a product – let’s launch.
Successful company has a certain structure – let’s copy it.

Copying the visible part doesn’t mean you understand what made it work.
This applies to my LinkedIn success, too. 🙂

About this series: 11 personalities from outside iGaming whom I consider my like-minders – and some of their ideas applied to our industry.

Another person in my Football Team of Like-Minders is Zlatan Ibrahimović.

Probably the least surprising choice for anyone who knows Im from Sweden, considers Malmö my hometown, and knows I like football. 😁

But it’s not really about football.

What I recognise in Zlatan is the combination of self-belief, being comfortable with being different, and understanding that none of it matters unless you actually deliver.

A few things from his way of thinking that I think translate well to iGaming.

1. Don’t let others define who you’re supposed to be.

Zlatan never really adapted his personality to fit what people expected from him.

We talk endlessly about differentiation in iGaming, while companies – and increasingly people – often end up sounding remarkably similar.

Different isn’t necessarily better.

But constantly editing out whatever makes you different probably isn’t either.

2. You don’t need consensus to believe in something.

Some ideas will sound stupid before they sound obvious.

If you need everyone around you to agree before trying something, you’ll probably spend most of your time doing things that already feel safe.

Self-belief doesn’t mean assuming you’re right. It means being willing to find out.

3. Being an outsider can be useful.

Not completely fitting into an established environment can make it easier to notice its strange conventions.

Every industry eventually develops things that everyone does simply because everyone does them.

iGaming certainly has plenty. Sometimes not fitting perfectly into the system helps you question the system.

4. You still have to score the goals.

Probably the most important one.

Without the performance, the Zlatan persona wouldn’t work. Confidence without competence is just confidence. Being different doesn’t automatically make you interesting.

Being provocative doesn’t automatically make you right.

Eventually, you have to deliver.

Be different. Believe in what you’re doing. Don’t let other people define you.

But score the fucking goals.

PS: This is part of my Football Team of Like-Minders series – 11 people from completely different worlds whose ways of thinking I recognise in my own, and whose ideas I think can be interesting to apply to iGaming.

Once all 11 are on the pitch, I’ll reveal the full team. ⚽

Next in my Football Team of Like-Minders is Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

Another person whose way of looking at the world I find myself relating to quite a lot.

What I particularly like about Taleb is that instead of trying to become better at predicting everything, he asks a different question: What happens when you’re wrong?

That feels very relevant to iGaming.

1. We are worse at predicting things than we think.

Regulation changes. Markets close. Google changes. Payment providers disappear. Taxes increase. Technologies arrive faster than expected.

And afterwards, everyone can usually explain perfectly well why it happened. 😁

Taleb’s Black Swan thinking is a useful reminder that some of the events that matter most are precisely the ones we didn’t properly anticipate.

2. Don’t just survive uncertainty. Build for it.

A business can look incredibly strong while being surprisingly fragile.

One enormous client. One important market. One traffic source. One licence. One platform.

Everything works beautifully. Until that one thing doesn’t.

The goal shouldn’t necessarily be to predict which one will fail.

It should be to build a business that can handle being wrong.

3. Skin in the game matters.

I like this one particularly. Advice looks different when the person giving it shares some of the downside.

Consultants. Agencies. Executives. Investors. Regulators.

Whenever someone makes decisions affecting other people’s money, businesses or livelihoods, it’s worth asking: What happens to them if they’re wrong?

4. Keep your optionality.

Small experiments with limited downside and potentially large upside make a lot of sense in an uncertain world. And AI is making experimentation cheaper than ever.

Instead of spending months deciding whether something might work, we can increasingly just try it.

Perhaps one of the most useful lessons for iGaming isn’t to become better at predicting an unpredictable industry. It’s to become less dependent on being right.

PS: This is part of my Football Team of Like-Minders series – 11 people from completely different worlds whose ways of thinking I recognise in my own, and whose ideas I think can be interesting to apply to iGaming.

Once all 11 are on the pitch, I’ll reveal the full team. ⚽

Next in my Football Team of Like-Minders is Jeremy Clarkson.

This one is probably quite easy to understand. 😁

I like people who actually try things, form their own opinions and aren’t particularly interested in making those opinions sound more acceptable than they really are.

And Clarkson has built an entire career around doing exactly that.

A few things from his approach that I think translate quite well to iGaming.

1. Experience beats theory.

A product can look fantastic in a presentation.

A process can make perfect sense in a meeting.

A regulation can look completely reasonable on paper.

Then an actual human being tries it.

That’s often where things get interesting. I think we could benefit from experiencing more of what we discuss ourselves – actually playing, depositing, withdrawing, contacting support, using the tools we sell and attending the things we organise.

With my content here, I’m covering the iGaming B2B landscape, which makes my life a bit easier. 🙂

2. Common sense deserves a seat at the table.

Data matters. Research matters. Expertise matters.

But sometimes something simply doesn’t pass the “does this actually make sense?” test.

The longer we work inside an industry, the easier it becomes to accept things simply because that’s how they’re done. Occasionally you need someone to ask the stupid question.

It might not be stupid.

3. Information doesn’t have to be boring.

Top Gear wasn’t really successful because people desperately needed car specifications.

The information was wrapped in opinions, experiments, arguments, ridiculous challenges and entertainment.

iGaming is an entertainment industry.

Yet quite a lot of the content we produce about it is remarkably unentertaining.

4. Put yourself into the experiment.

Don’t just explain what might happen. Try it. See what happens.

And then tell the story.

Sometimes the best way to understand whether something works isn’t another presentation. It’s getting into the car and driving it.

PS: This is part of my Football Team of Like-Minders series – 11 people from completely different worlds whose ways of thinking I recognise in my own, and whose ideas I think can be interesting to apply to iGaming.

Once all 11 are on the pitch, I’ll reveal the full team. ⚽

Next in my Football Team of Like-Minders is George Carlin.

Another person whose way of looking at things I recognise quite a lot in myself.

What I particularly like about Carlin is his ability to take something everyone accepts as completely normal, look at it from a slightly different angle, and suddenly make you wonder why nobody questioned it before.

And very often, he did that through language.

1. Pay attention to the words people use.

Carlin talked a lot about soft language – replacing uncomfortable reality with words that make it sound nicer.

iGaming has plenty of its own.

Innovative. World-leading. Premium. High-Quality. AI-powered. Exclusive.

Sometimes they’re (somewhat) accurate.

Sometimes the word becomes a substitute for explaining what it actually is.

2. Normal doesn’t necessarily mean logical.

Every industry develops conventions that people eventually stop questioning.

How conferences work. How VIP works. How suppliers sell. How affiliates operate…

After enough repetition, something can start feeling completely natural even if nobody would design it that way from scratch today. I find myself questioning those things quite often.

3. Take things literally sometimes.

If something is player-centric, what exactly became better for the player?

If something is AI-powered, what exactly is the AI doing?

If an event is about networking, how much meaningful networking actually happens?

Remove the familiar label and look at whats underneath.

You might see something completely different.

4. Humour can be a serious analytical tool.

This is probably where I relate to Carlin the most.

Sometimes the easiest way to expose a contradiction isn’t a long argument.

It’s a joke.

Humour allows you to push an idea slightly further than normal and see where the logic eventually takes you. And sometimes you don’t even need to make the joke. You just need to describe what’s happening accurately enough. 😁

PS: This is part of my Football Team of Like-Minders series – 11 people from completely different worlds whose ways of thinking I recognise in my own, and whose ideas I think can be interesting to apply to iGaming.

Once all 11 are on the pitch, I’ll reveal the full team. ⚽

Next in my Football Team of Like-Minders is Adam Savage.

I’ve always liked the MythBusters approach to things.

Don’t spend forever arguing about whether something is true or whether an idea will work. Build something. Test it. See what happens.

That’s probably the part of Adam Savage’s way of thinking I recognise most in myself.

1. Making is a way of thinking.

Sometimes you don’t really understand an idea until you try to build it.

The prototype forces you to answer questions that remain conveniently unanswered in a presentation.

How would this actually work? What would it look like? Would anyone use it?

Suddenly the theoretical idea becomes real enough to examine.

2. Experiment instead of debating.

This feels increasingly relevant with AI.

Things that might previously have required a team, a budget and several months can sometimes now be prototyped in days.

A game. A tool. A media concept. A new service. An AI agent. A completely ridiculous idea.

At some point, discussing whether it might work becomes more expensive than simply trying it.

3. Failure is information.

A failed experiment isn’t necessarily wasted work.

You discovered something. Perhaps the idea was wrong. Perhaps the execution was wrong. Perhaps something completely unexpected turned out to be more interesting than what you originally wanted to build.

That’s still progress.

4. Curiosity is a perfectly good reason to start.

Not every experiment needs a business case before it exists.

Sometimes you build something simply because you want to know whether it can be done. And occasionally those experiments lead somewhere commercially useful. Sometimes they don’t.

I think we could use a little more of that mentality in iGaming.

Especially now that experimentation is becoming so cheap.

When building becomes cheap, meetings become comparatively expensive. 😁

PS: This is part of my Football Team of Like-Minders series – 11 people from completely different worlds whose ways of thinking I recognise in my own, and whose ideas I think can be interesting to apply to iGaming.

Once all 11 are on the pitch, I’ll reveal the full team. ⚽

Next in my Football Team of Like-Minders is Salvador Dalí.

This one might look like it’s simply about being weird. 😁 It isn’t.

What I particularly like about Dalí is the idea that irrational or ridiculous thoughts shouldn’t necessarily be dismissed. Sometimes they should be explored more seriously.

That’s something I recognise quite a lot in myself.

1. Look for connections that aren’t obvious.

Dalí developed what he called the Paranoiac-Critical Method – deliberately looking at reality in ways that allowed completely different interpretations and associations to appear.

I think there’s something useful in that far beyond art.

Take an ordinary iGaming problem. Connect it to something completely unrelated. Ask what would happen if you looked at it from that perspective instead.

Quite a few interesting ideas start exactly there.

2. Don’t kill an idea because it sounds ridiculous.

Most ridiculous ideas are probably ridiculous. 😁

But occasionally the strange idea contains something much more interesting than the sensible one.

Instead of immediately asking: Would anyone actually do this?, sometimes its worth asking: What would happen if someone did? Then investigate.

3. The medium is secondary to the idea.

Dalí didn’t restrict himself to paintings. He worked with film, photography, sculpture, jewellery, fashion, advertising and design. I increasingly think the same way about ideas.

A thought doesn’t necessarily need to become another LinkedIn post.

It could become an article. An image. A game. A ranking. A video. An event concept. Or something that doesn’t really have a category yet. Follow the idea into whatever format suits it.

4. Ridiculous ideas still deserve serious execution.

This might be my favourite part.

Dalí’s subject matter could be completely absurd.

His technical ability wasn’t. There’s a useful distinction there. Being unconventional isnt an excuse for doing something badly.

In fact, the stranger the idea is, the more seriously you might need to execute it.

The idea can be ridiculous. The execution shouldn’t be.

PS: This is part of my Football Team of Like-Minders series – 11 people from completely different worlds whose ways of thinking I recognise in my own, and whose ideas I think can be interesting to apply to iGaming.

Once all 11 are on the pitch, I’ll reveal the full team. ⚽

Next in my Football Team of Like-Minders is Frank Zappa. This one is mainly about independence.

I’ve always had a strong dislike of being told what I’m supposed to think, say or do simply because that’s what everyone else does. And that’s probably the part of Zappa’s philosophy I recognise most in myself.

1. Think independently.

Zappa was deeply sceptical of authority, censorship and accepted wisdom.

Not because conventional thinking is always wrong. But because something being widely accepted doesn’t make it true.

I think that’s particularly important in industries like ours, where certain opinions can quickly become accepted truths simply because enough people repeat them.

Sometimes you need to ask: Do I actually believe this myself?

2. Independence requires infrastructure.

This is perhaps the most interesting part.

Zappa didn’t just talk about creative independence.

He increasingly controlled the machinery around his work – production, ownership and distribution.

There’s an obvious business lesson there.

You can call yourself independent while depending completely on Google. Or one client. One market. One licence. One platform. One investor.

Real independence isn’t just an attitude.

It’s partly about reducing the number of people who can switch you off.

3. Weirdness and discipline aren’t opposites.

Zappa’s work could be extremely strange. But underneath it was enormous technical ability and an almost obsessive attention to execution. I like that combination.

You can experiment. You can be provocative. You can make something ridiculous.

But that doesn’t give you an excuse to do it badly.

4. Don’t optimise yourself for universal approval.

The more people you try not to offend, confuse or alienate, the easier it becomes to remove everything distinctive.

Companies do this. People do it too.

Of course, deliberately being controversial for attention is equally boring.

The interesting position is somewhere else:

Know what you think.

Be prepared to explain it.

Accept that not everyone needs to agree.

Independence isn’t saying whatever you want.

It’s building enough freedom to think for yourself – and enough competence to do something with it.

PS: This is part of my Football Team of Like-Minders series – 11 people from completely different worlds whose ways of thinking I recognise in my own, and whose ideas I think can be interesting to apply to iGaming.

Only one player left before I reveal the full team. ⚽

The final player in my Football Team of Like-Minders is Buckminster Fuller.

Probably the least famous name on my team.

And perhaps the best one to finish with.

What I particularly like about Fuller is that when he saw something that didn’t work, his instinct wasn’t necessarily to complain about it or improve it slightly.

It was to ask whether the whole thing should be designed differently.

That’s something I recognise quite a lot in myself.

1. Don’t just optimise the existing system.

One of Fuller’s most famous ideas was essentially: Don’t fight the existing reality. Build a new model that makes the old one obsolete.

I think we spend enormous amounts of time in business making existing systems slightly better. Sometimes that’s exactly what’s needed.

But occasionally the better question is: If we started from zero today, would we build this system at all?

2. Do more with less.

Fuller called this ephemeralization – achieving increasingly more with fewer resources.
That sounds remarkably relevant in the age of AI.

The interesting question isn’t simply how many jobs AI can replace.

It’s how much more a very small group of capable people can now create.

A company that previously needed 50 people might eventually achieve more with 10.

And one person can increasingly test ideas that previously required an entire team.

3. Look for the trimtab.

A trimtab is a tiny part of a ship’s steering system that helps move something vastly larger than itself.

Fuller used it as a metaphor for leverage.

I love that way of looking at problems.

Instead of asking how we change everything, ask: What’s the smallest thing we could change that would disproportionately change the outcome?

Sometimes the most important improvement isn’t the biggest one.It’s the one in exactly the right place.

4. Look at the whole system.

Changing one part can create consequences somewhere completely different.

That’s particularly relevant in iGaming. Regulation affects product. Product affects player behaviour. Taxes affect margins. Margins affect marketing. Marketing affects affiliates. Technology changes staffing. AI changes all of them simultaneously.

Optimising one piece while ignoring the rest can easily make the whole system worse.

So perhaps Fuller’s biggest lesson is also the simplest: Zoom out before you optimise.

And that’s player #11. Eleven people from completely different worlds whose ways of thinking I recognise in my own – and whose ideas I think can be interesting to apply to iGaming.

My Football Team of Like-Minders is complete. ⚽ Next, I’ll put all 11 on the pitch.