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Guided by God to an online gambling fortune · The Front

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm christinaming it.
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  Speaker 1: It's Friday, March twenty one, twenty twenty five. Someone's doing
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  Speaker 1: very well out of the NDIS and it's not people
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  Speaker 1: with disability. Billions of dollars per year are being sunk
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  Speaker 1: into middlemen and coordinators while established service providers are struggling.
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  Speaker 1: The Australian is revealing today the boss of Mitsubishi Motors
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  Speaker 1: in Australia says car yards around the country are packed
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  Speaker 1: with electric vehicles nobody wants to buy. Sean Westcott is
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  Speaker 1: urging the government to pump the brakes on its renewable
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  Speaker 1: projects if it wants to avoid a price jump on
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  Speaker 1: petrol cars. Those exclusive stories alive right now at the
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  Speaker 1: Australian dot com dot au. He's the former Burger flipper
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  Speaker 1: who made his billions in online gambling. Lawrence Escalante is
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  Speaker 1: one of the new faces of wealth in Australia, featured
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  Speaker 1: in the list Australia's Richest two hundred and fifty. That's
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  Speaker 1: today's episode. In the year fifty a d SO says
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  Speaker 1: the Bible, the apostle Paul founded the Church of Corinth.
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  Speaker 1: It was a bold play. Paul had written letters to
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  Speaker 1: the Corinthians, giving them some frank feedback about their way
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  Speaker 1: of life. Write. There Beside him in those early days
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  Speaker 1: of the Catholic Church was Timothy, a disciple who became
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  Speaker 1: one of Paul's most trusted friends, the guy Paul sent
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  Speaker 1: out on his trickiest missions. Also along for the ride
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  Speaker 1: was the Greek apostle Titus, a gentile from Antioch. All
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  Speaker 1: three would be canonized as saints, but only the latter two,
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  Speaker 1: Timothy and Titus, would reach a new generation of Christians
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  Speaker 1: in video game form. A devout Catholic and avid gamer,
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  Speaker 1: Lawrence Escalante, sensed an opportunity. There was Christian music, Christian movies,
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  Speaker 1: Christian TV shows, but video games. Inspired by the Almighty Nothing, Escalante,
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  Speaker 1: who was in the early two thousands a twenty three
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  Speaker 1: year old financial planner living in Perth, bought and re
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  Speaker 1: mortgaged his parents' home to raise the quarter of a
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  Speaker 1: million dollars necessary to develop the game. Timothy and Titus
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  Speaker 1: Saints Martyr's Heroes. Our tale begins as Saint Timothy and
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  Speaker 1: Saint Titus are going to Rome to collect their letters
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  Speaker 1: from Saint Paul and to hear news from their beloved
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  Speaker 1: friend and father in christ. I'm looking forwards with my friend.
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  Speaker 1: I've made this journey with him before. There's the shortcut
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  Speaker 1: through the mountains. Follow me. But the dream of a
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  Speaker 1: Christian gaming franchise died with the game's publisher, whose financial
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  Speaker 1: troubles landed Escalante in a two hundred and fifty thousand
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  Speaker 1: dollar hole of his own friend. What are you doing?
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  Speaker 1: You must get out of here, not that you'd know it.
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  Speaker 1: While he worked off the debt, Escalante gained his way
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  Speaker 1: to a more than four billion dollar fortune and the
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  Speaker 1: front cover of the list Australia's Richest two hundred and fifty.
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  Speaker 2: Lawrence Escalante is a forty three year old Perth billionaire
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  Speaker 2: who loves loves his fast cars, loves his jets and
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  Speaker 2: loves living the high life. But he is a man.
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  Speaker 2: He's made a lot of money out of essentially a gaming.
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  Speaker 1: John Stenzelt is the editor of the list, which is
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  Speaker 1: out in full today.
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  Speaker 2: So it's a business that he calls virtual gaming worlds
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  Speaker 2: combined together, so gaming being the sort of gambling or
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  Speaker 2: casino games that people play online and the virtual world
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  Speaker 2: where people go gamify. These experiences he's put them together
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  Speaker 2: used a sweepstakes model. On top of that, I made
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  Speaker 2: a lot of money, mostly in America. It's actually something
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  Speaker 2: that's banned here in Australia, but Virtual Gaming WALS has
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  Speaker 2: actually turned into one of Australia's biggest private companies.
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  Speaker 1: Laurence Escalante got his start flipping burgers for five dollars
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  Speaker 1: sixty five an hour at Hungry Jack's and later did
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  Speaker 1: a stint in retail in Sydney, working at the Reject
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  Speaker 1: Shop while he studied at mcquarie University. Now older and
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  Speaker 1: a whole lot wiser, he flaunce his considerable wealth on Instagram,
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  Speaker 1: where he posts highly produced videos of his luxury cars,
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  Speaker 1: boats and private jets. Looking after your family as the
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  Speaker 1: friends first and foremost. But now that I've ad it
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  Speaker 1: was like enjoying the toys and really a lot of
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  Speaker 1: other people like enjoying them as as a proxy into
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  Speaker 1: my life and through the windows of that might have
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  Speaker 1: having fun of them. Really, the wealth that Lawrence Escalante
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  Speaker 1: has accumulated is essentially a product of online gambling. As
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  Speaker 1: we've just said, that's a pretty big swing for a
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  Speaker 1: guy who hoped to bring his Christian values to a
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  Speaker 1: new generation of people through video games not too long ago.
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  Speaker 1: How does he reconcile his wealth and his wealth from
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  Speaker 1: gambling with those values? Is he still religious?
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  Speaker 2: He insists that behind all that there's a quite a
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  Speaker 2: pious family. His parents in the Philippines, very Christian family,
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  Speaker 2: grew up with those sort of values. I suppose in
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  Speaker 2: terms of gambling. What he said to me when I
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  Speaker 2: asked him that question is several problem gamblers in the family.
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  Speaker 2: I know what it's like. And it doesn't mean that
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  Speaker 2: he's not cognizant of the fact that what he's doing.
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  Speaker 2: You know, people have a choice whether they're going to
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  Speaker 2: play these games or spend their money on it and
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  Speaker 2: things like that. So look, you could argue that it
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  Speaker 2: maybe he's being a little bit cute about it. He
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  Speaker 2: exists what he's doing is legal, and he's reconciled that
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  Speaker 2: with himself and seems to be going pretty well with it.
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  Speaker 1: He also talks about the checks and balances that they've
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  Speaker 1: put in place online in order to hopefully prevent people
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  Speaker 1: from going down that route. What does he say about
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  Speaker 1: their effectiveness.
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  Speaker 2: See, what he's done is raise the age of eighteen
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  Speaker 2: to twenty one to try and deal with any issues.
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  Speaker 2: He claims that they're doing quite well with artificial intelligence
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  Speaker 2: and other sort of parameters where they will cut people
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  Speaker 2: off if they're spending too much money. He has a
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  Speaker 2: background in financial planning, one of the things he did
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  Speaker 2: before getting into this business. With power planning, it sounds
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  Speaker 2: pretty boring going through people's financial plans or investment plans
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  Speaker 2: and giving them advice. So he claims that with that
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  Speaker 2: sort of mindset, he can tell when people are spending
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  Speaker 2: too much or too much money is coming out of
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  Speaker 2: their budget. People should be allowed to have an entertainment budget.
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  Speaker 2: He says. Part of that entertainment is gambling. If you
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  Speaker 2: want to do that now, he reckons it's pretty good
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  Speaker 2: with keeping those checks and balances in place. He's got
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  Speaker 2: the technology overlay with that. Of course, there is always
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  Speaker 2: going to be critics, always is with any sort of
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  Speaker 2: gambling company, whether it's crypto or horse racing or the
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  Speaker 2: sweepsakes model that Lawrence employs. I think he's not hiding
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  Speaker 2: to nothing with that. No matter what he says, really
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  Speaker 2: depends on what side of the fence you are, whether
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  Speaker 2: you're pro gambling or anti gambling, or even just agnostic
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  Speaker 2: about it as to what you think about.
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  Speaker 1: Him coming up. What Lawrence Escalante's rise says about wealth
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  Speaker 1: in Australia today. John Stanzeltz says Lawrence Escalante represents a
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  Speaker 1: new kind of billionaire, young, driven and loving every minute
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  Speaker 1: of it. He appears on this year's Rich's two hundred
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  Speaker 1: and fifty list alongside youngster Ed Craven and Tim Heath,
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  Speaker 1: both crypto gambling mavens, as well as colorful Melbourne figure
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  Speaker 1: Adrian Putta. Here's the billionaire who's been splashing his cash
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  Speaker 1: around for years, and today Adrian Patelli handed some of
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  Speaker 1: it out, no strings attached, a drink. Chris Samsworth doesn't
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  Speaker 1: work this hard mate, let's going on.
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  Speaker 2: It's the least we can do.
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  Speaker 1: May you do you think we'll see more people from
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  Speaker 1: that industry or from that sector appear on the list
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  Speaker 1: in coming years.
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  Speaker 2: I think there's two separate elements to that. With Craven
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  Speaker 2: and also Tim Heath, they've gone global, so they've taken
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  Speaker 2: the Australian sort of I suppose acumen. You know, we're
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  Speaker 2: a nation of gamblers. It is an element of our society.
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  Speaker 2: Whether you're like it or not, that's there. They've taken
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  Speaker 2: that Australian acumen and gone global with it with the
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  Speaker 2: new technologies that we have. So they've benefited from the
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  Speaker 2: role out of it acround the world, not necessarily just
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  Speaker 2: here in Australia. I think they will keep going. There's
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  Speaker 2: several other young Australian entrepreneurs that want to follow in
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  Speaker 2: their footsteps. I think that's here to stay. Quite frankly,
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  Speaker 2: as long as people still want to put money on
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  Speaker 2: a sporting event or on a horse playing casino, these
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  Speaker 2: guys are going to make it pretty easier for them
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  Speaker 2: to do that.
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  Speaker 1: And just lastly, you've written in your editor's letter that
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  Speaker 1: this new crop of billionaires represent the changing nature of
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  Speaker 1: wealth in Australia. Generally, tell me a bit about that.
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  Speaker 1: How has the list changed in your time as the editor.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you've gone from a lot of people
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  Speaker 2: that took decades to make their money, whether it was
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  Speaker 2: in bricks and mortar, in real estate or manufacturing, the
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  Speaker 2: slow accumulation of wealth, whereas these days, with technology, you
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  Speaker 2: can create a gambling company, you can create a software company.
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  Speaker 2: Here in Australia. Your market's the world and that what
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  Speaker 2: that means is you make your money a lot quicker
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  Speaker 2: because your market's a lot bigger. So if you overlay
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  Speaker 2: that with the young generations upon sean, if you want
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  Speaker 2: to call it that, for social media sharing, what they're
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  Speaker 2: doing online, their lifestyle seems to be splashed all over
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  Speaker 2: their social media and that's I think that's what really
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  Speaker 2: encapsulates the modern billionaire.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, they are their own brand indeed. John Stenzel is
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  Speaker 1: the editor of the list Australia's Richest two hundred and fifty.
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  Speaker 1: It's out right now so you can get stuck into
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  Speaker 1: all the articles, analysis and videos at the Australian dot
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  Speaker 1: com dot au