Trevor De Giorgio, CLO of Greentube, reflects on the maturing gaming industry in Malta and the importance of developing talent in IT on SiGMA TV’s exclusive Executive Series

On this episode of our exclusive Executive Series, Quentin from SiGMA TV sits down with Trevor De Giorgio, the Chief Legal Officer of Greentube Internet Entertainment Solutions. From his unique vantage point as a seasoned C-Level executive of a successful gaming operator in Malta, Trevor shares his perspective of the dramatic evolution of this industry on the island.

The CLO contents that while Malta’s position in the global gaming industry has matured, there are still integral hurdles that legislators need to tackle:

We’re seeing a more mature industry which has it’s own challenges. We’ve also seen those young employees who have grown on the island over here and now they have families and now they face a different set of problems.

He adds:

One of the biggest problems we have right now for expats is where do they send their children to school. If you speak to gaming employees, international schools are limited, […] there is also quite a few of these expats, foreigners, who live on the island and contribute to the island complain a lot about the environment and the lack of outdoor space that they have.

We have issues of education, we have issues of the environment, and there is also transport.

We need to invest more in the education system. […] We also need to start producing ‘techies’, we need to produce more IT people because you don’t just graduate in IT and then you are ready for the gaming world because there are several different aspects involved in our job.

In reality, tech is at the heart of the gaming industry.

Trevor also speaks about the new challenges facing the gaming industry?in Malta:

Reputation, reputation, reputation unfortunately – that is an issue. Reputation has taken a hit and we see it because we are regulated in other jurisdictions and we do get questions, ‘Greentube you have a Maltese entity, what’s going on in Malta?’ and I regularly have to brief. So, reputation is an issue and with that it brings other problems. The banking sector is a huge problem, trying to open an account for a gaming company, especially startups, is a huge nightmare.

The reputation has put a hit on the banking institutions because of that gaming companies are not allowed to open up accounts, which makes you think twice about delving or investing into the gaming sector and that kills startups, it kills innovation.

Nonetheless, Trevor believes that Malta’s position as a gaming hub is here to stay stating:

Malta has always placed itself as a hub, it’s your base of operations, and the evidence of that also comes from the fact when the UK chose Brexit, unfortunately I think it was a big mistake, but when the UK chose Brexit, Gibraltar suffered and lost some of it’s base of operations – which actually moved here. Bet365 is one of the best examples.

Malta as a hub, it’s value is there, but to keep that value we go back to the previous points I’ve mentioned. We need to make sure that companies can attract foreign talent, and you attract them with education […], infrastructure and the environment.

The CLO offered a glimpse into future projects Greentube has up its sleeve

At this point in time, we’re focussing on developing in the States, with one licence in hand and let’s say some others in the pipeline eventually.

We hope to announce soon a project which will merge Greentube’s talents with Novomatic’s talents, I’ll leave it at that, and that will be a very strong announcement from us.

But if you don’t evolve, you’re gonna die. And Greentube, if there’s one thing that it’s been capable of doing especially these past few years, is that we evolve, we change with the developments in the market, the developments in the product.?

WATCH the full interview below:

M&A Action:

Whether you’re a startup looking for seed investments or an established company looking for an exit, we’ve got your back! We’ll connect you to the right people to make sure you’ll get the best evaluation for your business. What’s more, we won’t charge you a dime for this consultation! Let us help, sign up?here.