Glen Goldstein, President of TransUnion subsidiary TransUnion Gaming Services, took time to discuss the current state of play for the firm and its view on the emerging US market.
Having been in his current role with the company for two years, Goldstein also serves on the board of directors of the American Gaming Association (AGA) and on the Task Force for Responsible Gaming. His remit at TransUnion, however, is much broader.
By way of introduction to his role, he noted: “I cover a wide swath of industries including technology, retail, ecommerce, hospitality and transportation. But with the real focus on gaming, I’ve been spending a fair amount of time in that space recently, since it’s a relatively new market in the US, particularly for the online side.”
Explaining more about the company, he stated: “Most people who know TransUnion think of us as a credit bureau in the US. And that is certainly a significant part of our heritage for the last 50 years. But we’re actually much more than that. We’re a diversified information services company. As I told my mom, when she asked me what we do, I described us as the Amazon.com of data.”
On TransUnion’s market position, Goldstein advised: “So there are three companies in the US that are major credit bureaus – TransUnion, Equifax and Experian. There are also three companies that have public databases with identity graphs of individuals that cover more than 95% of the US. And again, of those three, TransUnion is one of them. The other two are LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters.”
According to Goldstein, however, TransUnion is the only one that actually has “both the credit side and the non-credit side”. He explained: “This allows us to pull together and create an identity graph of individuals that’s much more robust than what anyone else can, which is important for everything from fraud to marketing where you’re trying to identify people.”
Having established themselves as market leaders in identity and fraud as well as thought leaders in responsible gambling practices in the UK, TransUnion is now turning its attention to bringing this expertise to the US. “Responsible gaming in the US is really still very nascent,” said Goldstein.
“The rules aren’t written yet. And so what we’re attempting to do is take our expertise and the work we’ve done with operators and regulators in the UK and transfer that experience to help the US so that the market hopefully is able to develop more quickly and safely for everyone involved.”
To watch the full interview with Goldstein, click HERE.
