Darragh McGee

Yes, this idea that we're willing to offend and outrage everybody if it gets to our target audience, young men, and makes them laugh.

I mean...

They saw an opportunity and they were willing to kind of follow through on that in a way that saw them grow remarkably, both in Britain and then on to Australia.

And of course, nowadays on to North America, where they're kind of, you know, arguably they're one of the biggest firms on the planet now as Flutter.com.

Positive.

Yeah, you're really talking about two key aspects of the playbook there.

The first being kind of the, I guess, the commandeering of politics and politicians and policymakers with the promise of tax revenues.

And where that really came home to me is the expansion to North America, where by the time this playbook made it to North America, I mean, states were won over so easily.

I saw Ontario and Canada embrace the same tactics very, very quickly.

And of course, yeah, the other end of that is people self-regulating, what is known the genius invention of responsible gambling, which is the other part of this, and that is

what one academic called the ultimate fig leaf for the industry in the sense that this idea of responsible gambling is a framing that didn't exist before the turn of the century.

Yes, these are new age terms.

That was vitally important to everything that happens in the sense that at every turn it individualizes the harm and deflects our attention away from people

away from, excuse me, from the products to the people, the wrong way around there.

And this idea that people, if they're informed consumers, should be left to self-regulate despite the fact that we've got products that are designed by technologies we don't understand very well.

We have corporate practices that are not being regulated suitably.

And so the book lays out the need to find a better balance between our focus on people here

but also the products and the practices.

I say to that that that is a very myopic view and relies on a very narrow conception of big industry.

It also lacks precedent.