Taking on the Trillion Dollar Illegal Gambling Menace: Matt Zarb-Cousin joins the Yield Sec team

Yield Sec, the actionable intelligence platform helping legal industry, government, regulatory and advertising stakeholders to fight the impact of crime upon the gambling ecosystem, has appointed Matt Zarb-Cousin as their Senior Advisor for Government and Regulatory Affairs.

Zarb-Cousin, an experienced and highly respected campaigner for consumer safety and the public good across the gambling experience, joins the rapidly growing Yield Sec platform at an exciting time.

As the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar progresses through playoffs and final stages, the global betting industry is already seeing vast increases in illegal and unregulated sports betting activity, with many jurisdictions currently monitored by Yield Sec displaying triple-digit year-on-year increases in black-market traffic, engagement, and commercial conversion both prior to, and during the FIFA World Cup. It’s impossible for consumers to effectively distinguish legal and licensed gambling operators from illegal, criminal ones, and all illicit betting and gambling activity removes revenue, taxation and good causes funding from state and national commerce and communities, whilst frustrating the ambition of legal gambling to replace illegal activity and sustainably provide for the regulated marketplace as legislators intended, as legal operators work for, and which regulators act to effect.

The appointment of Zarb-Cousin further strengthens Yield Sec’s betting, gaming, and lottery expertise across stakeholders – government, regulator, operators, suppliers, affiliates, ad platforms, financial institutions, payment providers and law enforcement. This expert human insight works alongside the data science and analytics teams in parallel with the company’s proprietary technology, AI, and machine learning to identify, qualify and quantify threats and deny criminal entrants the ‘oxygen of marketing’ necessary to acquire new audiences and reach or reactivate existing customers.

Matt Zarb-Cousin, Senior Advisor for Government and Regulatory Affairs at Yield Sec, said: “I am delighted to be joining the Yield Sec team and look forward to educating governments and regulators globally in how the pioneering platform can identify, qualify and quantify the marketplace, totally, and help legal stakeholders drive out crime to safeguard vital tax revenues that are presently lost to illegal and unlicensed operators.  The debate around online gambling’s black market has for too long been impacted by those with a vested interest in maintaining inefficient licensing and regulatory models, rather than by those who wish to see the contained, commercial marketplace work to the benefit of our commerce and communities. Yield Sec presents solutions for all legal stakeholders to optimize their positions in the marketplace and allow them to work effectively, together, whilst shielding and protecting revenue, taxation, and consumer safety measures so that legal gambling can deliver benefits for each jurisdiction.”

Ismail Vali, Founder and CEO of Yield Sec, said: “Matt is known for his forthright and pioneering viewpoints and work across tech and the public good. Where he and I found shared thinking on Yield Sec is upon the sole partisan line that our platform holds sacred: the line separating all legal stakeholders in a regulated jurisdiction from criminal, black-market infiltration. I am pleased and proud to welcome Matt to the team – across his focus with regulatory and government outreach, I know his insight and experience will help our legal stakeholder clients to understand, combat and defeat the existential threat presented by illegal betting, gaming, and lottery activity, and its insidious impact upon our commerce and communities.”

Alastair Graham, Chief Operating Officer of Yield Sec, said: “Matt’s profile and status across the government and regulatory community in betting, gaming and lottery is without equal and this ability to reach the broadest possible audience will aid Yield Sec in educating and assisting our legal stakeholder clients to optimize and protect their taxable revenue, positively benefiting regulators, national, state, and tribal governments, consumers, communities and legal, regulated operators and suppliers, whilst simultaneously ensuring for a fair marketplace with safe consumer experiences.”