In episode 6 of Kinectify Conversations, Seth Young, the Chief Strategy Officer at FSG Digital and founding partner at GMA Consulting, joins Sean Topchi, the Director of Business Development at Kinectify, and host Shannon Adair, the Director of Client Success, to discuss his journey into the gaming industry, leadership within the industry, and his startup experience. Together they also explore Seth's thoughts on casino gaming changes and the development of the gaming industry and regulatory landscape, including the most effective ways to stay on top of evolving regulatory environments.

ABOUT KINECTIFY

Kinectify is an AML risk management technology company serving gaming operators both in the US and Canada. Our modern AML platform seamlessly integrates all of the organization's data into a single view and workflow empowering gaming companies to efficiently manage risk across their enterprise. In addition, Kinectify's advisory services enhance gaming operators' capacity with industry experts who can design and test programs, meet compliance deadlines, and even provide outsource services for the day-to-day administration of compliance programs.

To learn more about Kinectify and book a demo, click here.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Shannon Adair: Welcome to Kinectify Conversations. My name is Shannon Adair and I'm the Director of Client Success at Kinectify. Our mission is to share the experience, expertise, and insights from gaming industry leaders that comes from years navigating the complexities and impact of compliance. On this episode, we have a special guest.

[00:00:23] Seth Young: My name is Seth Young. I'm a founding partner at GMA Consulting.

[00:00:27] Shannon Adair: Also with us today…

[00:00:29] Sean Topchi: My name is Sean Topchi and I'm the Director of Business Development at Kinectify.

[00:00:33] Shannon Adair: Thanks for joining us today and remember to like and subscribe to the podcast. You can also learn more anytime at kinectify.com. That's K I N E C T I F Y dot com.

Seth, thanks for joining us today. Can you get us started with a little background?

[00:00:57] Seth Young: I've had a very non-traditional, I have a very non-traditional background in the gaming business. My career really started when I was a child. I was kind of a child of the internet. I grew up very interested in computers and this emerging thing called the Worldwide Web and started domaining, buying and selling domains when I was a kid. And backed into a web design business when I was 12 years old. Ended up registering a domain name for a professional lacrosse team in New York, now defunct, and put up a fan site. This was in 1997. And when the team realized that the internet was becoming a thing, they reached out to the domain owner, which happened to be me.

And my cousin and I decided to try to trade that domain for a job with the team, which we successfully did. So for four years, I worked in sports all through high school with a group called New York Saints. And some of the team pictures are still hanging on my office wall which is amazing. And my cousin's still involved actually in lacrosse.

And later when I was 15, I was threatened with a lawsuit over IP rights to a domain name that I owned. And this wasn't settled as a matter of law at the time. It was still really early days in the internet. So I looked into it and wanted to defend myself, and that set me down a path of becoming a lawyer.

It was so fascinating, this ambiguity in law. I had always grown up thinking law is rigid. And it wasn't, this was completely undefined. So I ended up at a college where they allowed me to design a course track, Brandeis University, geared towards internet law, computer science, politics, a bit of a mixture of a bunch of things.

Ended up in London studying abroad. When I was working in a solicitor's firm. I don't know if you remember this, but there was a famous tabloid case. It was the Polish Nanny and the Shaken Baby from years and years ago. We were on the defense side and the solicitors all loved to play poker.

I went, played poker with them. I did really well and ended up meeting a gentleman who'd be my first partner and got into the gaming business that way. Came back to the states, ended up dropping out of law school after a year after all of those early years getting into law.

Finally got out of it very quickly, but was very fascinated with the ambiguities of law particularly as it related to gaming. So started early and on the affiliate side nearly 20 years ago. Had a great time doing it. Learned a lot. Fast forward maybe 10 years. Helped pioneer the daily fantasy sports space with a company called Star Fantasy Leagues...