In the eighth episode of iGaming Accent, host Vakho Mdivani sits down with Nick Laconico, CEO of Megabet Plus, to discuss a career that has spanned continents and eras of gaming — from the digital revolution in Las Vegas to the unique betting culture of Cyprus.
Nick’s journey into gaming began unexpectedly, shaped by the tech boom of the 1990s. “I thought I was going to work for one of these companies, Oracle, Adobe, something like that. So when I graduated, it was like maybe 70% of the graduates, engineering, computer science guys, stayed in Silicon Valley. The rest went to Vegas to do everything from local area networking, the slot machines, which were transitioning from mechanical slot machines to computerized random number generators.”
Nick’s career then took him to Asia, where he helped bring electronic bingo to the Philippines. “I became a distributor and got into electronic e-bingo machines all over the Philippines, which was on fire back in the day… We went from 20 shops to 250 and… we were the second fastest growing company in the Philippines, doing over a billion in sales turnover on the machines.”
Reflecting on the operational challenges of such rapid growth, Nick recalls, “Before I took the position of COO, the chairman of the company looked at me straight… he said to me, we don’t sleep until 2018. That was around 2015… I didn’t understand what he meant. But basically that’s what was happening. I mean, all hands on deck seven days a week, but unsustainable, right? You can’t live like that forever.”
A key lesson from his international experience is the importance of localization. Nick shares, “We brought the product that was number one back in Brazil into the Philippines, and I was expecting it to do massive numbers, but it just fell on its face. No one liked the game… That would be my main one, not understanding how to localize, and understanding that the number one game in one market doesn’t guarantee success.”
Arriving in Europe, Nick discusses Megabet Plus’s position in the saturated Cypriot market, Nick emphasizes the power of local presence and community: “We are the local brand. We’re the local retailer, and we’ve the most shops. In every village you visit in Cyprus, you’ll see a Megabet there. And our shops are like the equivalent of a barber shop or a men’s club, right? Guys go there to watch games, to talk, to smoke, to hang out with their friends… It’s a gathering spot. It’s a social place, not just to make a bet.”
He also highlights the value of employing ex-players as agents: “A lot of our agents are ex-players, a lot of them. So they’ve got some kind of local reputation in the city or the village that they’re in. Everybody knows them. They know everybody… These people are like gold mines.”
On leadership, Nick is clear that listening is key: “For me, what I like to do is surround myself with good people… I collate, I sift, I gather everyone’s information. I put in my two cents and, you know, out of a hundred, maybe it’s a little more than two cents, maybe it’s 10 cents, but the other 90% comes from everybody else’s feedback that comes to me. And then from there, I make the decision.”
Looking to the future, Nick sees continued growth and innovation in iGaming: “More and more states are starting to regulate iGaming. It’s just going to grow more in the US and provinces in Canada as well. The regulated space is important. So, I only see the industry getting bigger, and the more competition, the better. It will make a better product, a more interesting product, a fairer product… I can’t think of another industry that’s more dynamic than gaming.”
He also responded to a question from a previous guest, CrustLab’s Marcin Jablonski, and posed one of his own for the next guest.
To hear the full conversation and gain even deeper insights, listen to the complete podcast episode of iGaming Accent.
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