Mr Green co-founder Mikael Pawlo on his return to online gaming

There is little doubt in just how much the online gaming industry can get under the skin of those who work in it. Such is the uniqueness and close-knit nature of the sector, many people who previously had little interest in gambling often find themselves working at gaming companies for many years or, as is also often the case, for the entirety of their career.

So when Mikael Pawlo, co-founder and former CEO of Mr Green, recently announced his return to the industry after a near three-year absence, it should hardly have come as a major surprise. Pawlo had, of course, maintained a close connection to the sector as a shareholder of Mr Green and investor in various start-ups, but his attention since 2015 has predominantly been focused outside of online gaming as CEO of machine learning firm Red Flag.

His return to the sector sees him become chairman of Mandalorian Technologies, a Malta-based online casino operator with big ambitions with regards to technology and compliance. The founders of the Malta-based business claim to be the inventors of Pay&Play and the No Account casino experience, according to the company’s website, and Pawlo says Mandalorian has been growing exponentially despite its relative infancy.

“We are growing at about 1,000% year-on-year and I believe we are in the top-10 operators in Sweden,” Pawlo explains. “We’re a super-fast growing company – I don’t think I’ve seen an explosion like this before in terms of growth rate, which has come essentially in just one year.”

There do indeed seem to be some parallels here between Mandalorian’s strategy and the early days of Mr Green given the immediate growth in the Nordics and the desire to build the bulk of technology in-house. Both businesses also have a strong emphasis on responsible gaming. Below, Pawlo talks through some of these similarities, the story of Mr Green and why the prospect of joining Mandalorian was too good an opportunity to turn down.

EGR Intel: How did Mandalorian manage to persuade you to return to the industry after a three-year absence?

Mikael Pawlo (MP): I was the founding CEO of Mr Green and left it around the summer of 2015, continued on the board for another year and since then I’ve still been a shareholder up until William Hill bought the company. However, this was as a passive shareholder.

Mikael Pawlo was appointed chairman of Mandalorian Technologies earlier this year

I didn’t think I would return to the industry in the foreseeable future but then I came across Mandalorian and saw that it was doing something quite different with how it regards product, technology and also its clients. Mandalorian is an operator but I would probably regard it more as a tech start-up because there’s so much more focus on technology, automation, KYC and responsible gaming than any operator I’ve seen in the industry before. For example, Mandalorian has more developers than customer support and I think that’s quite unique in this industry.
It’s all about building good solutions to facilitate the possibility of playing in a safe and sound environment than to just quickly put something up, do a white label and try to market a brand. This has been sort of the modus operandi of the industry for quite some time now and it doesn’t really interest me, although it may work from a financial point of view for many companies.

EGR Intel: How did you end up getting involved with the company?

MP: I came across Mandalorian via a friend of mine who was from the finance industry and who took the helm of the company about a year ago. I wasn’t initially trying to enter the company at all but I started giving him some friendly advice, providing contacts, and the business started growing a lot. I also liked his approach as he really wanted to be number one in compliance and, given his background in finance, he is used to operating in a highly-regulated environment. The company started taking off in a significant manner and we began discussing if I should join in a more formal position. And then, of course, Swedish regulation happened and I thought I should join so I could assist in the licence application because I’d done that before with Mr Green.

EGR Intel: So it was a slow process but they managed to persuade you in the end?

MP: Every three to five years there has been a significant change in the industry, whether it’s mobile gaming or the shift from poker to casino. Now I think the next loop might be the administrative things like KYC and taking care of the players because that could drive a lot of costs for companies if they don’t do it well. I believe we are entering a new phase of the industry now again which will be much more tech-driven than before now we have automation and machine learning. We need to use artificial intelligence to find and identify problematic players rapidly, and do KYC rapidly and efficiently to stay competitive in the marketplace. So one major reason for joining Mandalorian was that it’s a company that’s playing into this industry trend.

EGR Intel: What has Mandalorian been looking at with regards to customer onboarding and how do you think this area can be innovated?

MP: There are a number of international systems you can use. With those systems you need to be able to automate the check-ups; there does need to be people involved but you can do it very swiftly. The other thing is to understand what kind of customer you have and know their behaviour with some quick behavioural analysis. I believe physical casinos have been very good at this with membership cards – they know very quickly if you want a dry martini or a beer, for example, from when you step into the casino and see your card. The online world has strangely enough been quite bad at this historically, both in terms of knowing what game to serve to each player but also in terms of quickly identifying that this player might need some extra help or might be exposed to or suffering from a problem.

EGR Intel: Considering your success in the past, what do you think are the main areas for start-ups to grow and move to the forefront of the industry?

MP: It’s pretty much a matter of product and technology. Marketing is good but the gaming industry is already very good at this. That wasn’t really the case 10 years ago when it was not so creative, but nowadays I would say that most companies are quite good at marketing and therefore it’s not a unique selling point anymore. But some of the offerings are quite poor in terms of throwing out bonuses to everyone. I think sometimes we might have forgotten why people actually love this; it’s for the joy of the thrill, to pass the time and have some fun. I think that the industry needs to recapture that spirit. I always refer to the gambling scenes in James Bond because I think that’s what we’re actually all about – it’s time to regain some of the glamour and fun in that kind of environment. But if it’s all about bonusing, then in the end it won’t be as interesting. If you are focused on product and technology though, then you will have an advantage because too few are today. So for a start-up or new entrant to be successful in this industry, that’s where you can distinguish yourself.

EGR Intel: What have you been focused on since leaving Mr Green and how has the industry changed in this time?

MP: I’m CEO of a company called Red Flag, which is using machine learning to read expense reports and create them automatically. We have created a sales accounting credit card together with MasterCard and some other pretty nifty stuff in that area as well. I believe the egaming industry is one of the most interesting industries in the world and attracts a lot of very clever people. It’s also one of the most challenging industries. I have learned a lot in my 10 years in the industry and find it quite fascinating to be back because there’s actually one major change that I’ve noticed, which is that the industry is becoming more and more professionalised.

EGR Intel: What do you mean by the industry becoming more professionalised?

MP: Ten years ago it was pretty much the Wild West – everyone was trying out different things and trying to get ahead. Nowadays, it’s much more professionalised with a lot of listed companies and some very stellar managers in high-ranking positions, whereas before it was very hard to attract that kind of talent. On the other hand, I also believe that the pace of innovation has probably gone down a bit. The industry needs to be very innovative because otherwise, while it might not die, it will definitely slow down on a general basis over time. We are entering a new environment where you need to pay gaming taxes, look after problematic gaming behaviour, and be forward leaning in dealing with all negative aspects of gaming. You must also reinvent the game to keep it interesting for the players. Just like certain types of sharks, the online gaming industry needs to move in order to survive.

EGR Intel: Can you pinpoint any similarities or differences between Mandalorian and the early days of Mr Green?

MP: I think Mr Green was actually one of the few companies that was built first on technology, but that was out of necessity because there was no possibility of doing white labelling back then as it was not easy to have more than one gaming supplier. You basically had one supplier and you were more or less stuck with it. There were a handful of casinos with more than one vendor, but then you had to go to the cashier to exchange chips for the new vendor if you wanted to switch games. So back in 2008 we built the first seamless wallet in-house for Mr Green.

We now have a similar situation where Mandalorian has built a very easy onboarding product on top of the Swedish BankID system so you can simply identify and do the KYC and AML checks in-house. I wouldn’t say that we always catch 100%, that would be foolish to claim, but we have quite a few cases where we discover problematic behaviour and then block customers, and I find that is the only way to run this business these days. In my opinion, you have to be very sustainable to stay in the game, and I don’t think the companies that try to make a quick buck will be around for much longer actually due to increased regulation and public opinion.

EGR Intel: Can you talk us through the backstory of Mr Green? We’ve heard some interesting stories.

MP: There were three founders in myself, Fredrik Sidfalk and Henrik Bergquist, who were also the founders of the company which became Betsson. We thought that we could build a consumer-facing standalone casino brand back in the day when everyone was building portals. The Mr Green name came from a Google search and it is actually from Moe Greene – the guy I was told ran the first casino in Las Vegas. We then purchased the domain name and did some branding. But before we released to the media, I started doing some background work and I couldn’t find any references to Moe Greene apart from on IMDB, which said that Moe Greene was actually just the guy in The Godfather running the Corleone family’s casinos in Vegas and ends up getting shot in the eye for stealing money. I told Fredrik this but we’d already spent money on the domain name, so we had to stick with it and come up with a different background story. I had some inspiration from James Bond in the style of Dr No. and put my dream characters into this ground basically.

EGR Intel: What was your take on the William Hill deal?

MP: I’ve been careful not to say too much about it because it’s quite sensitive, and I will refrain from commenting too much on that now as well. What I can say is I’m very happy that such a prominent player will continue to run the brand and if I could dream up a perfect home for Mr Green, I think this would be it.