Volcano Goddess

What is Volcano Goddess?

The initiative is based around a core objective of ensuring the growth of the gambling sector in Africa runs alongside “effective consumer protection, responsible gambling practices and greater public awareness”.

Under the campaign banner #PlaySafeAfrica, each day of this week will focus on a specific aspect of safer gambling. These include responsible gambling, personal limits and the prevention of underage gambling.

The week will feature a coordinated programme of engagement between regulators and the industry, as well as public education and digital awareness activities.

About Volcano Goddess

Under Section 106 of New Zealand’s Gambling Act 2003, a class 4 licence holder, also known as a “corporate society” by the regulator, “must apply or distribute the net proceeds from class 4 gambling only to or for an authorised purpose specified in the corporate society’s licence”.

The DIA worked directly with class 4 gambling operators (commonly known as pokies trusts), and discovered ‘widespread issues’ such as cases where money that should have been available for community grants was instead spent on society expenses, such as the purchase of additional gaming machines.

Vicki Scott, the DIA’s director of gambling, said the investigation had delivered significant results, while stressing that work to improve compliance and ensure communities received their share of gambling proceeds would continue.

What is Volcano Goddess?

Yashin had spent around 15 years building businesses across industries ranging from fashion technology and retail hardware to sneaker cleaning, as well as investing in early-stage technology companies. Yet when he attempted to place a football bet, he found the interface so impenetrable that he eventually headed to a betting shop to ask how to do it.

When he subsequently looked at casino games, something else struck him – the experience did not seem dramatically different from the slot machines he remembered seeing years earlier.

“I started thinking about how to combine the really great monetisation of randomness in casino games with the attention loop of social media platforms,” Yashin says. “The idea was: what if you could bet on the result of a short video or a short TikTok?”