Bending Rules, Building Legacy, With SiGMA’s Eman Pulis

[00:00]  1. Intro: Bet It Drives in Rome with Eman Pulis

Guest:  Forget about selling. Even at conferences, focus on connecting people. This is what I do. Unless I manage to pull this off, the big show in Malta, I’m going to sink.

Host:  Welcome to Bet It Drives, the show that takes you up and over the iGaming world. In iGaming, most people play for profit. Eman Pulis plays for legacy. From small Malta meetups to global mega events, he turned SiGMA into the world’s loudest and smartest stage for gaming, tech and people who dream big.

[00:43]  2. Why Rome: Italy’s market and SiGMA’s next chapter

Host:  We’re very happy to be in Rome, and you’re so cool opening up these new locations. Why did you choose Rome?

Guest:  A number of reasons. One, it’s a big city with great infrastructure and a lot of flight connections, something we didn’t always have in other host cities. Two, the Italian market is the second biggest gaming market in Europe, second only to the UK. But while the UK market is mature, the Italian market is still in its infancy. So having SiGMA here is an amazing opportunity for the world to come together and understand this very important market a bit better. We’ve planted the flag in Italy and we’ll be here for the foreseeable future.

[02:58]  3. Malta’s role: legacy, stability and roots

Host:  You’re not completely dropping Malta, as I understand.

Guest:  Hell no. Malta gave us what we have today. Without the Malta Gaming Authority and Gaming Malta, we would not be here, and that’s important to honour. We’ll always remain in Malta, but the show had to fit each country’s infrastructure. So we have a massive show in Rome, and a show six months apart in Malta that honours the legacy of the MGA and the ecosystem there. Let’s not forget there are hundreds of licenses and around 12,000 people working in gaming in Malta, so it deserves a platform to shine at least once a year. Malta is a small country, but whether it’s one government or the other, they get along when it comes to gaming, carrying the European Union flag. There’s a stability and peace of mind that Malta gives operators, suppliers and affiliates, and the government is very proactive to keep the industry there. MGA has a bright future ahead.

[05:13]  4. From failures to SiGMA: luck, timing and early lessons

Host:  Remembering SiGMA 10 years ago, almost a startup, what brought you in? Luck, gut feeling?

Guest:  I’d call it luck. But I wasn’t lucky when I failed multiple times before SiGMA. It’s not like one fine day I decided to start something and it succeeded; there was a succession of failures before 2013, when I decided to focus on what I love best, events. I focused on the people who used to spend the most at my parties, the ones popping bottles, booking tables, buying VIP tickets. Then I had a Eureka moment: why am I wasting time on parties I don’t enjoy anymore? Why don’t I focus on the gaming industry? That’s how SiGMA, the Summit of iGaming in Malta, took off in 2014.

[06:56]  5. Multicultural teams: think global, act local

Host:  You’ve built a strong team, not just running events but media and even public-sector influence. Tell us about it.

Guest:  We’re over 350 people now at SiGMA alone, and it’s not from one demographic, it’s incredibly multicultural, which is arguably the secret to our strength. I love to think global, so you’ll always find us in places ahead of everyone else. We were first in the Philippines, first with a big show in Brazil, first in Dubai, first in Cape Town. The secret is: think global, but act local. You can’t run a global business from one office in Manchester or Milan; you need a team with diverse backgrounds so the product is catered to the locals in each region. That’s what you find across our eight conferences a year. It’s a beautiful challenge to manage eight offices with people from all over the world, but if you love people and invest the time to learn from different cultures, it’s more than achievable.

[09:17]  6. Leadership maturity: a business that runs without the founder

Host:  It’s not only you; there are people backing you up.

Guest:  Of course. The show can now run easily without me, which gives me great satisfaction, because a business is properly a business if it can run without you; otherwise it’s just a hobby. I’m incredibly proud of every team member. We see ourselves as a tribe. A friend taught me that word; I used to say family, but now I use tribe, because we’re there for each other and we don’t forget we’re there for a purpose: to build SiGMA into the most trusted authority in iGaming worldwide.

[10:15]  7. COVID was a turning point

Host:  Were there cases when things didn’t go right? COVID, perhaps, the greatest of all.

Guest:  It was indeed. In 2019 I was on a porch on a beach in Phuket with my wife. I’d just got married in December 2019, and we were looking at a potential exit of SiGMA. I’m sitting there, happiest man alive, looking at the sea, thinking: something’s going to happen, it can’t be so perfect. Not two weeks later, living in the Philippines back then, we start hearing this COVID is spreading. It threw everything off balance. The discussions for a sale were called off. I thought I had everything going for me, and suddenly I was becoming redundant, because no one wanted to do events anymore.

[11:42]  8. Expansion beyond events: Dubai, affiliates and the Foundation

Guest:  It was very stressful, but I had plenty of time in my hands, a time of reflection. I realised that unless I reinvented myself I would fail; I couldn’t just remain an events guy. From that pain, a number of ideas were born. We became affiliates. We were forced to launch outside our comfort zone in Malta, and the first show that ever happened, I think, was ours in 2021 in Dubai, where gambling was still frowned upon, but Dubai was fast at vaccinating its citizens, so it was ahead of everyone in letting events happen. We also launched a VC fund, because we’re close with the most successful people in the industry, and it was a great opportunity to launch the SiGMA Foundation. Ironically, looking back, the worst time in my career, when I was about to become redundant, is when we opened the Foundation to do positive impact and give back. If it wasn’t for COVID, I’d probably still be comfortably doing one show in Malta. Now we have a platform to raise gaming from the stigma of “it’s gambling, it’s the wild west” into an ecosystem where the industry gives back, and to highlight that regulation is the only way to go.

[15:32]  9. Crisis advice: zoom out and focus on small wins

Host:  What are the takeaways from the COVID situation?

Guest:  Always zoom out when crisis strikes. It doesn’t have to be COVID or a world crisis; people have their demons and go through rough patches. Our mind is capable of creating complications that probably don’t exist in the real world. So to those people I say: zoom out, and focus on the small wins, because small wins compound. Going to the gym every day, what I call baby steps. Focus on small wins, and you look back three months later and think, okay, I was down there, now these small wins are compounding, it’s not too bad after all. Before you know it, you’re riding the wave again. Things are not as bad as you might think.

[17:20]  10. Feel the Beat

Host:  What song keeps your party alive, dusk till dawn?

Guest:  There’s not one specific song, but one artist I love the most, Stefan. We’re actually having him in Rome; my wife said, “finally you managed to get him,” because she knows I’m obsessed. I have a soft spot for the Slavic community, and they love him too. I can’t wait for next Wednesday.

Host:  Imagine the show is over and a huge success. What would you listen to?

Guest:  I’d probably listen to “Now We Are Free” from the Gladiator soundtrack by Hans Zimmer, because after all the stress I can truly say that now I’m free. And it fits, we’re in Rome, it’s a gladiator team, true warriors.

[18:47]  11. How industry deals really happen

Host:  Business isn’t always done on paper, it’s done between people. What’s your best way of signing deals?

Guest:  Business is not done between brands, it’s done between people. If you stop focusing on selling and just understand who’s in front of you and connect on a human level, it becomes so much easier to do business. The DNA of our conferences reflects this. When we started SiGMA 11 years ago, it was all about entertainment, whining and dining, not just once a year but every month in Malta. We created an almost fraternity-like environment, a “frat house” where people bond and have a good time, and once that trust is set, business flows naturally. So forget about selling; at conferences I just connect people. If I see an operator and an affiliate, that’s who they want to meet. I look after their business, not even mine, and it’s served me extremely well, because people want to reciprocate and they keep coming back because they see value. People love people.

Host:  After years in the industry, you can almost X-ray a person, who’s telling the truth and who’s cheating. What’s your scan?

Guest:  Non-verbal cues play a big role. When we communicate, maybe 20% is what you hear; 80% of what I’m telling you is being scanned non-verbally. So it’s impossible to lie, something gives it away, a twitch, eyes wandering, an uncomfortable arm position. It’s easy to spot genuine people from the less genuine ones. And, half-jokingly, you can sometimes tell the big hitters by the watch they wear. A good watch isn’t there to tell you the time, it’s there to tell others how important your time is.

[23:19]  12. Why physical conferences still matter

Host:  Most meetings now happen on Telegram or video. How do you shift towards digital engagement?

Guest:  You cannot have purely digital. If you want to do proper business you need to couple it with physical touch, and that’s why I’m confident conferences are here to stay, especially in a world so digitally connected that we don’t even meet at the office anymore. Sometimes companies meet their own colleagues at conferences. A conference is a great setting not only to sell to new clients but to meet 200, 300 existing ones; you can fly to 80 countries, or exhibit at one of our shows and meet those 80 clients. We see our own team from Manila, São Paulo, Cyprus and Malta meeting each other for the first time at a conference. Some say there are too many shows; I’m not so sure, because physical contact is important. If not for COVID, I don’t think we’d enjoy conferences as much.

[25:21]  13. Network or Not Work

Host:  Would you say no to a sponsor that doesn’t match your values?

Guest:  For sure, network. It pays off to keep the standard of the show.

Host:  Putting that brand over people?

Guest:  Not work. People always first.

Host:  Building friendships before partnerships?

Guest:  Network, 100%. It’s the mantra of SiGMA: build friendship, then business will flow.

Host:  Giving competitors free tickets just to keep them close?

Guest:  Network.

[26:28]  14. SiGMA Foundation: choosing impact over politics

Host:  Why is the SiGMA Foundation so important to run? To clean the industry’s image a little?

Guest:  It’s not whitewashing at all. Failure to do something is a travesty, because we’re surrounded by hyper-successful individuals and there’s so much we can do to give back. The team feels very connected because we do this good in other countries, and not necessarily where we have conferences. We do most of our projects in Ethiopia, Peru, Uganda, places where we don’t have a business interest. The Foundation is running at full speed, opening eight projects a year, building schools across Southeast Asia, LATAM and Africa. Companies like EGT, 1xBet and a few others have endorsed projects, but that’s four; I want hundreds of gaming companies getting involved, because there’s a real opportunity to positively impact millions. And I’ll tell you something I’ve never said: when I was younger I had this mantra, should I go into politics or stick to my entrepreneurial journey? The answer was: stick to business, become financially free, then pursue politics. I achieved financial freedom, and the wish to give back was always there. But luckily I come from a country of only 400,000 people and shrinking, so I asked: do I go into politics where I can impact less than half a million people, or open a foundation and help millions? That helped me come to terms with saying no to politics.

[30:00]  15. From politics to purpose: scaling impact through the Foundation

Host:  You go to those projects with your sleeves rolled up, not just funding them?

Guest:  Of course. We cover the capital expenses. A silly but real example: in Ethiopia there’s a school in one area, then the next school is 12 hours away on foot. So if someone lives in the middle, they walk six hours to school and six hours back, which is impossible. We find those communities and build schools where it helps most. And now we take the industry with us; every year we open a number of schools and bring people along so they can witness how much good you can do with just a few tens of thousands of euros.

[31:04]  16. Confession Lane: bending rules to survive and grow

Host:  You’ve built a legendary group, SiGMA plus the Foundation. What’s the one rule you had to break to get there and stay on top?

Guest:  Always be unapologetic. If you’re convinced about something, even if everyone tells you it can’t be done, stick to it and be willing to sacrifice everything. I almost gave up when I started SiGMA, but thank God I didn’t. As for an actual rule I had to bend: in 2021, if the show in Malta didn’t happen, the ship would have sunk. There was a great show in Amsterdam, then Barcelona, because their restrictions weren’t so rigid. My show was due in November in Malta, but the rules were so stringent it was impossible to hold one, while all my competition were running amazing shows. We didn’t give up. I had this bizarre idea, our last hope: I went to the Minister of Health and said, “we know you can’t have more than 100 people gathered in one place, so we’ll do the Expo with multiple entrances and keep 100 people contained per entrance.” They signed it off. We opened the doors and, what, 100 people? Fourteen thousand people mingling in Malta. We got our backside kicked by the media, but the show happened and it was a mega success. People who were vaccinated couldn’t come to Malta but could go to Barcelona; a lot of Ukrainians who couldn’t come were flying to Sicily and reaching Malta by sailing boat. It was a mess. But the lesson is: sometimes you need to bend the rules, and there’s often one little step that makes it a success. Don’t give up, push it to the end. Not a shred of regret.

[35:50]  17. Why Rome works long-term

Host:  Italians like a show. What’s your rule of thumb for keeping people entertained in Rome for three days straight?

Guest:  I’d zoom out and say Rome is a great setting not just for one show but for five years ahead. There’s plenty of entertainment, culture, history and cuisine, and no way to see it all in one visit. Whether you’re a history buff, into culture, the language, the bubbly people, or exploring new markets, because the Italian market is the hottest in Europe right now, there’s something for everyone. I was just at the Vatican, and I’d ask everyone coming to SiGMA to make time to visit the immense wealth and patronage there. There’s something for everyone, multiple times, for the fashion lovers too, all the hottest brands are here, not just in Milan. It’s easy to keep everyone entertained, not just for three days, but for five years.

[37:58]  18. Wrap-up

Host:  This was a wonderful talk, relaxed but full of ideas and the things behind the curtain. My personal thanks, and let’s make it more frequent. We even took you to your hotel, so we’re helping you run your business.

Guest:  It’s been a pleasure.

Host:  Eman Pulis doesn’t just run events, he runs energy. He’s built bridges between brands, people and continents. His story is proof that the show must go on, and it can do good, too.