>> Narrator: Live from Orlando, Florida, it's The Cube, covering PentahoWorld 2017. Brought to you by Hitachi Ventara. >> Welcome back to The Cube's live coverage of PentahoWorld, brought to you, of course, by Hitachi Ventara. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, along with my cohost, Dave Vellante. We're joined by Reni Waegelein, he is the IT manager of Veikkaus. Thanks so much for coming on The Cube Reni. >> Thank you for having me here. >> So, Veikkaus is the Finnish national betting agency wholly owned by the government. >> Yeah. >> Tell us more. >> Yeah we have, we used to have like three companies, now we are merged as one and we operate every money gaming thing, all the money gaming in Finland. So that includes from casino to lottery, to scratch tickets, sports betting, horse betting, whatever that is, and we gather money, of course, pay out some good winnings as well. But everything we make under the line, that goes to good causes, and I mean everything. >> And you are IT manager. >> Reni: Yeah. >> So what does, what are your responsibilities? >> Yeah, responsibilities like the developing the whole of the idea things we have, from architecture to doing the IT procurement development, and harnessing how we work. >> So the public policy on betting is, hey, let's have a single state-run monopoly. >> Reni: Yep. >> And we'll take the winnings and put it to the public good, right, makes sense. >> Reni: Yep. >> And is there any competition from internet, for example? >> Of course, yes, and the internet, well, it's like a full competition, although we are a legally-based company in Finland and we operate and sell only to Finnish people. The people itself, they have all the freedom to choose whoever they want to play with, so in that sense, it's full competition and have been so for many years. >> So you have to have great websites. >> Reni: Yep. >> Great customer experience, >> Reni: Yep. >> User experience. >> Reni: Yeah. >> Competitive rates, all that stuff. >> Reni: Yep. >> Okay so, and good analytics. (laughing) I mean that industry is obviously very data heavy. >> Reni: Yep. >> Always has been. So how do you analytics and data to compete? >> So we have been doing, like, the product analytics for quite a long time and then we established a customer-ship. So in Finland we have a 5.4 million habitats, and we sell only for the 18+ year old people, and at the moment we have more than 2 million registered customers already. So, you can imagine that we have that vast amount of data from the customer, and we use that data, for example, promoting the service, promoting games, targeting, making some recommendation. We build our own recommendation engine, for example, and utilize all of that kind of data. But, as you know, the gaming is also like a two-edged sword, that's a happy side, but there's also the dark side. So it does cause problem, so we try also to use the data so that we want to identify the bad patterns when somebody is about to lose control of gaming. So we use also the same data that we want to see, for example, for these players who want to see all the activities of marketing, for example, we don't want anybody to get into problems because of gaming. >> So that's a really interesting tension here, is that you obviously want to make money in this, but you also have to watch out for the Finnish society. And as you said, if there's a compulsive gambler or an addicted gambler, you need to act, I mean, is that? >> Yeah, yeah that's really big part of our responsibility, and if we didn't have any data or if we couldn't process it fast, we couldn't know who is problematic gambler and who is not. Since vast majorities, of course, is enjoying it, it's a nice habit. Play a game of poker every now and then or go to the casino for once or twice a month, for example. But then there's the small portion of people who we want to protect so that they don't get into the debt. That's not our intention. >> And the level of protection that you provide, is you stop marketing to them, is that right or? >> Reni: Yeah, yeah. >> It's not like you intervene in some other way. >> Yeah, of course, we want to promote that if you want, you can stop and close your account, or this kind of activities. >> So you promote cutting the cord basically? >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. So instead of marketing, we say that this might be a problem to use, so yeah. >> Let's take a break. >> You should take a break, yeah. >> So, as Dave was saying, you're really, because you are competing with private entities you really have to have a great interface, great customer experience, great rates. How much does this put Veikkaus really on the vanguard of this kind of technology, more so than what other government agencies are doing, in the sense that, you really have to stay on the cutting edge of these things. >> Yeah, we have to be like double-backed, you say. >> So how much do you then you talk to the health agency, or other government agencies about what you're doing and sharing the best practices about capturing customer attention? >> We are actually talking more to the new players out in the field who already live and breath true to data, so that's where we can learn and, I would say that we are also in to like a lottery area itself but also in quite many other industries as well. So we have been doing this for awhile, so we have had the luxury that we have already gathered some experience and opened some paths and, well, maybe learned also from the hard way how not to do it. We of course didn't succeeded in the first runs but you just have to go and have a trial and error in some areas as well. >> And you have multiple data sources obviously, maybe talk about how you're handling those data sources, are you ingesting, how you ingest those into Pentaho, what you do with it, how you're operationalizing the analytics. Where does Pentaho fit in that whole process? >> Yeah Pentaho we use, that's like ETL process, so to get this 360 view of the customer, we have like a various data sources. After the merger, we tripled the amount of different sources, and I think more than quadrupled the amount of data. So of course, just to make the data and work of the analysts easier, we need to make some transformations to the data and in that area the Pentaho has it's place. And in the future, what we are also expecting like the future versions to help us with is the tech in the more real time data. So for example, we can put in the real time data feed for the one physical place so they can see like which machines are used well, which are not, or is there any other activities that they can learn right in their place. >> So are you in the process of instrumenting the machines at this point? >> Reni: Yep. >> And so you're putting, how does that work, is it rip and replace, is it some kind of chip that you put into the machine? How do you instrument the machine? >> It's a good thing, so that we have actually we design our own slot machines, even. >> Dave: Okay, okay so. >> So we, we can like build up from the ground up. >> Dave: Design it in. >> Yeah. We designed the hardware supports like, it's, they are big IOT machines. >> Dave: Right. >> But also the software will support us. >> And then you've got connectivity, is it hard-wired? Is it physical or is it wireless connectivity? >> We use, well, whatever is available, so... >> Dave: Depends. >> Yeah, yeah. And when we are developing like a new type of games, for example, when the slot machines should have like online all the time, like jackpot available, then of course, we have to think about what's the quality of service of the network, as well. So far, we have been like using whatever is available. >> So what does the data architecture look like? I wonder if you could paint the picture, so you've got the machines, let's just use slot machines as an example. So you have the slot machines, you've instrumented those, you're doing real time analytics there, and maybe talk about what kinds of things you do there? And then where does the data go? How much data, do you persist the data? Maybe talk about that a little. >> Yeah so we get like the slot machines and other resources as well, and have like Kafka Hadoop area where we collect everything. Then there's a Pentaho doing the ETL work and we store the, all the data that goes through it to the Vertica. So we have HP's Vertica there, in that Vertica they've like lots of users, they have like a SAS analytics, use that and the Hadoop as well, so then we have some reporting, financials, finance department they also utilize it. But then we are also building up some new things like Apache's Kudu is one thing that we want to set up there just to make the life of analysts much more easier so they are the moment having little bit hard time in some areas how to utilize the data, and especially how to use like the different analyst tools from different cloud vendors for this data since we are still at the moment on premise, so everything is on premise partly because of the government requirements. >> Dave: Okay. >> So some part of the data they require that we keep it in within the Finland. >> Right so could we call that your private cloud? >> Reni: It's not private cloud yet. >> It's not, okay. >> But we're, we are going. >> Dan: Someday. >> Yeah, yeah. >> It will be a private cloud, okay, so you have edge device, which is the slot machine, and then you do you send all the data back to Vertica or no, probably not, right, I mean. >> Not yet. >> Dave: But do you want to? >> But it will be. >> Dave: Really? >> Yeah, it will be. Of course we have to make some decision like what data will be important and what is not, so not all the data is valuable, but especially when it's like connected somehow to the customer, or the retailer as well, that data we also keep like more than a year. So we are not doing all the analytics just for a short time of data but also want to seek out the long trends and make new hypothesis out of it. >> And the Vertica system is essentially your data warehouse, is that right? >> Reni: Yeah. >> Okay. And then are you doing sort of, well you mentioned recommendation engine so you're doing some >> Reni: Yeah. form of it. That's a form of AI, as far as I'm concerned. Are you doing that, where are you doing that? Is you doing that in your data center, and is that another layer of the data pipeline or is that done in the? >> Yeah, it's done partly on site but also in AVS. >> Yeah >> So we used Amazon services in some areas where we can use those, so the recommendation for example, and part of the cost of AI, that's part, some blocks are also on the AWS. >> So it's a three tier. >> Reni: Yeah. >> So there's the edge, then there's the aggregation at Vertica, and then there's the cloud modeling and training that goes on, and Pentaho plays across that data pipeline, is that right? >> Yeah, yeah, it's our one major player in our data platform in this sense so that it will take care quite a many different kind of transactions so that we have the right data in the right place. >> Dave: All right I'm done geeking out. (laughing) >> All right, so Reni before the cameras were rolling, we were talking a little bit about the difficulties of cultural change within these organizations and you were talking about something that you're working on in Finland that's not necessarily related to Veikkaus, can you tell our viewers a little bit about what you're doing? >> Yeah, we are also setting up a Teal Finland, so promoting this like next phase of organizational, well you cannot call it belief, but vision and perspective so we want to also promote these kind of activities. So I know that especially with the big data movement, you have also seen the cultural changes so not the normal organization ways of working are not, just are not efficient enough so you have to liberate today, you have to give the freedom, how to use the data, what kind of hypothesis, what kind of activities are done, and this cultural change is also with the Teal movement. It's like getting next big leap so this is, well it's a side project but it's also really heavily work related. >> And how open is the Finnish tech community to these ideas, I mean is there an adversarial relationship within the people who don't necessarily welcome the change, I mean how would you describe it? >> I believe it's a really open, we have already, I believe, a handful of companies who work and who operate by this, from this perspective and more is popping out. And we are establishing one cooperative, like to support this movement, and maybe to create new spinoffs which can be for profit. >> All right, let's get to the heart of the matter here, (laughing) how do I beat the house? >> I knew you were going there, Dave. >> Just, just between us. >> I knew it. (laughing) >> Obviously I'm kidding but different games have different odds. >> Reni: Yeah. >> Right, I mean, and those are, you're transparent about that, people know what they are, but what are the best odds? Is it slots, best chance of winning, or poker, or... >> Yeah, slots is good side and also whenever you go to Cassie you know, it has a top notch, so 90 point something, so... >> Of probabilities and, >> But of course I have to say that the house wins eventually, so yeah, yeah. >> The bookeys always win so. >> Rebecca: Right exactly. >> So the higher the probability, the lower the pay out, and reverse, presumably, right? >> Reni: Yeah, yeah. >> The lottery would be. >> Lottery you're a check out if you're yeah. >> Dave: Low odds. >> Low odds but, >> Dave: Telephone numbers if you win. >> Yeah. >> Dave: Yeah. >> But David, you can't win if you don't play, okay, just saying, just saying. >> And every week there's somebody who wins. >> Rebecca: Right! >> Yeah. So why it cannot be me, or you? (laughing) >> Or me, or me, maybe! >> So what do you do to the guys who count cards, you like break arms or you put them in jail, no? >> It's Finland, this is no, no, come on. >> Nobody does that, right? >> Reni: No, no, no. But of course, yeah that's probably something we could in future also to use data more efficiently than we use it at the moment, so that's one part like how people behave versus machines behave. So for example in the online poker, the card counting program, that's one problem I think every, for the industry. >> Dave: Right. >> Are you working with behavioral finance experts in this to sort of understand people's behavior when it comes to this? >> Yeah we work, for example, with psychologists to understand this and the same goes with problematic gambling as well so you have to know about how people behave. >> And do you have customers outside of Finland or is it pretty much exclusively? >> No, sorry, it's exclusive club, you have to move to, you know you have to move to Finland. (laughing) And then we welcome you. >> Awesome. >> He's going to immigrate, I think, any day now. Well Reni, >> Reni: But hey, it's one of the best countries. >> Thank you so much for coming on The Cube, it was a lot of fun talking to you. >> Yeah, thank you. >> I'm Rebecca Knight, for Dave Vellante, we will have more from PentahoWorld just after this.