From Startup Pivot to Global Growth: The EQL Games Story

Episode 36:  In this episode, Brad Cummings, Founder and CEO of EQL Games, shares how his company successfully pivoted from a disrupted sports-based concept during the pandemic into a fast-growing global digital lottery services provider. Leveraging existing technology, relationships, and industry knowledge, Brad repositioned EQL Games to deliver digital content to lottery operators across multiple international markets. He emphasizes the importance of adaptability, humility, and listening to market signals when navigating uncertainty. Brad also highlights how building authentic relationships, not just selling products, has been critical to expanding into regions like the UAE and beyond. His approach focuses on trust, long-term partnerships, and consistent presence in global markets. Today, EQL Games operates across several countries, demonstrating how a well-executed pivot can unlock international growth opportunities. His journey underscores the power of resilience and strategic thinking in building a scalable digital services business.

Key Themes:

01:15   From the Stage to the Statehouse: The Unconventional Path of Brad Cummings

06:56   The Endeavor "Seal of Approval" and Global Connectivity

10:47   The 2020 Pivot: Navigating the Disruption of Global Sports

16:14   Exporting Digital Services: Establishing a Footprint in the UAE

18:46   The "FaceTime" Advantage: Building Trust Beyond Video Calls

26:41   Scaling EQL Games: The Future of Global Content Distribution

Episode Transcript:

Jim Ray:

And friends, welcome back to this episode of the podcast. We are very excited to be back in the studio with a good guest. I am going to introduce to you first of all, Dr. Omar Ayyash, the CEO and President of the World Trade Center, Kentucky. Omar, how are you guy?

Omar Ayyash:

Hey, Jim. How's life?

Jim Ray:

Life is good for me. Life is good. I get to do podcasting with you and our guest, Mr. Brad Cummings. Brad, how are you guy?

Brad Cummings:

I'm doing great. How about yourself?

Jim Ray:

I love doing this. Thank you very much for taking time out of your schedule to come over and visit us. So ladies and gentlemen, as we normally do, let me tee up a topic for us. We are going to talk about exporting digital services, which might be a little bit different from what we've talked about in the past. Usually we have some kind of a tangible product that we're talking about exporting or maybe importing something else from overseas. But today we're going to talk about the digital space and how Brad's been able to basically change the game here a little bit for us. No pun intended. With that being said, Dr. Ayyash, why don't you take it away, guy.

From the Stage to the Statehouse: The Unconventional Path of Brad Cummings

Omar Ayyash:

Thanks, Jim. I'm really excited about this. It's just like you said, Jim, it's a little different. The focus is going to be on services and our guest here has got a unique story. So Brad, without further ado, tell us about yourself. Give us your bio, if you will.

Brad Cummings:

Sure. I mean, before I started exporting digital services, I am from the Chicago suburbs and was a musical theater stage actor in my first career. Ended up in Louisville working for Stage One, the world renowned children's theater here at the Kentucky Center of the Arts. And when I got here, my plan was to be here for a year and then go to New York City and become a big time Broadway actor. It didn't quite pan out, probably came to terms of the fact I was good but not great at it and had a ceiling that I didn't want. So I moved on. I came back here after a summer in New York and started to look at ways to transition my career. Did a little bit of column writing for the Courier Journal and eventually became a politico in the state, working with guys like Ken Upchurch, Trey Grayson for his reelection campaign in 2007. And out of that, I ended up being fortunate enough to be the chair of the Republican Party here in Jefferson County. In the same month I actually started my first business called the Paulick Report. Still thriving today, 17 year anniversary in June of this year. It's what we call a lifestyle business in the startup world. No one's gotten rich, but it's been a nice business and I like to say it's paid for my car once or twice. So how about that?

Omar Ayyash:

Fantastic.

Jim Ray:

You're winning.

Brad Cummings:

Yeah, I'm winning. I'll take that one all day long. And so yeah, actually as I was building that and I was brand new to horse racing, of course in Kentucky, horse racing and politics are oftentimes synonymous. And I started to become obsessed with trying to figure out how to improve that sport or to enhance its days outside of its biggest events. And I saw a lottery terminal one day and thought, I wonder if the results came from a live horse race instead of a ball draw what that would be like. And I started to work on a concept, eventually became a product called Win Play Show. Got some angel investment locally in 2014 to be able to start pursuing it full time. We had a pilot successful pilot program in Kentucky through the Kentucky Lottery. Some people may have played it. And that was in 2019. And then we were scheduled to launch it statewide, April of 2020. And I don't know if you remember…

Omar Ayyash:

Perfect timing.

Brad Cummings:

Yeah, great timing. Great timing for sports. And actually at that time we had licensing for Major League Baseball, NBA and NHL, NASCAR, Team USA. And the thought was we were going to build somewhat of a version of a game of chance sports book out of through lotteries. And that was the concept of my company. It was not called EQL Games at the time, it was called EQU Lottery Games. And yeah, we ended up launching the horse racing product later that year. But just if you remember, that year was just a tough year to get anything going. And at six months in, it was out in and out of the market. What I had at that point was some technology that we could use still and a Rolodex of industry leaders in the lottery space that few could tout.

And so we saw at the same time digital lottery was starting to grow in the US and we thought we could potentially pivot our technology and our contacts and our industry knowledge and go towards offering products on mobile phones and computers and that kind of thing, start to do digital services through the lottery. And that's grown into, we're now active in Michigan, Virginia, DC, Peru, and the UAE. And we also do some licensing of that business. So we are the official representatives of Team USA, LA28, US Soccer and the Harlem Globe Globetrotters in the lottery space.

Omar Ayyash:

How fantastic!

Brad Cummings:

It's been a cool ride. I feel very fortunate to have had the career that I've been able to carve out so far and look forward to that just being the beginning.

Omar Ayyash:

So Brad, so many great, great things about your background right now. So many questions are popping in my head and I'm sure the listeners here are wondering, so acting, political, career, horse industry, digital services, I mean, which one do you fancy more or they're all great?

Brad Cummings:

Well, they're all acting, so there's that. No, I mean obviously your first love is your first love, but I love problem solving. I’m a logic problem guy, those kinds of things, crossword puzzles, and there's something about starting your own business that just is sort of the ultimate problems to solve and it's constantly evolving sort of opportunity. And so, where I thrive is when my life isn't predictable and when it isn't the same thing every day and that every day has different challenges and different ups and downs, and however I'm wired, I'm wired for that to be something that I really thrive in. So I mean, I love what I do right now and as long as I continue to be able to do things at that tempo, I think I'll love whatever I do in the future.

Omar Ayyash:

Excellent. So yeah, I remember recently watching the CEO of Nvidia talk about for him to relax is actually to think of a problem and work it out, and that was phenomenal. So for you now to tell me that you love problem solving here you are, another entrepreneurial trait.

The Endeavor "Seal of Approval" and Global Connectivity

Brad Cummings:

Well, I just became an Endeavor Entrepreneur and I was in one of my panels last week and they said, so what are you going to do if you sell this company afterwards? I said, well, I told my wife I'm going to take six months off, but it'll probably be about five days and I'll start solving the next problem.

Jim Ray:

It’ll feel like six months.

Brad Cummings:

Exactly right.

Omar Ayyash:

So great, you hit on Endeavor. I'm a fan of Endeavor. I've been involved with them for a number of years. It's a global organization. What is Endeavor? What does it mean to be an Endeavor Entrepreneur?

Brad Cummings:

I mean, first off, it's just an honor to be a part of an organization like that that's been around as long as it's been around. You look at the companies that have been involved in Endeavor over the years. There's some of the blue chip startup companies internationally. A lot of times in the US we spend a lot of time focusing on what happens from an entrepreneur perspective and a startup perspective in the US, but there's so much stuff that's going out there in the rest of the world. And so to be able to be connected to that and just to have that good housekeeping seal of approval is a big part of it. But I look at it and say, now I have 46 local offices around the world and they don't work for me, but they give me opportunities to be able to instantly have contacts and investment in different countries.

So if we're looking to spread our products in countries that we aren't in now, what I do, what we all do on some level, but lottery especially is such a heavily relationship business. When you're doing business-to-government, B2G businesses, a lot of trust has to go into that. The governments are trusting that your technology's going to work and that your games are going to produce and that you're going to be able to help them raise the funds for education or whatever it is that that lottery exists to serve those good causes, as we call it in the industry. So being able to walk into 46 countries around the world and be able to already have a level of credibility, I think that's as attractive as anything to me. And we've got a great local group headed by Justin Brown and Jake Bundler, of course, Jackson Andrews left an incredible legacy. And Matt Thornton as board chair, of course started by David Jones, Ken Taylor, all these great names with John Schnatter, all these great names in the community to be associated with all those people. It is a humbling thing and I'm excited to be a part of it.

Omar Ayyash:

Excellent. Congratulations.

Brad Cummings:

Thank you.

Omar Ayyash:

Again, it's a big deal that we've got an Endeavor office right here in Louisville that represents the Midwest, so our ecosystem on our entrepreneurial ecosystem is well, and it's thriving and it's exciting to see that.

Brad Cummings:

Well, I have to say just a little extra on that is we had three companies from Louisville go to Detroit, NSP is what they call it. It was a National Selection Panel, and we went three for three. So we were the only, I think we were the only regional office that had three NSPs pass through unanimously on the first vote.

Omar Ayyash:

Fantastic. Who are the other two?

Brad Cummings:

So Theresa Reno-Weber.

Omar Ayyash:

GoodMaps.

Brad Cummings:

Yeah, GoodMaps.

Omar Ayyash:

We've had her on the podcast, by the way.

Brad Cummings:

Oh, good. I like Theresa. She's a good woman. And Jordan Mitchell with ENCON Equipment, which is one of those companies you probably wouldn't know about unless you knew the industry. But Jordan's got an incredible business and he's a great guy and has an incredible business. And it just shows these businesses aren't necessarily always making headlines, but there's some really solid business professionals and startup guys in this community. So look forward to being a part of that and helping it grow so that someday three for three is just a footnote and that someday we're six for six and 10 for 10 and all that stuff.

The 2020 Pivot: Navigating the Disruption of Global Sports

Omar Ayyash:

Excellent. Congratulations to all three. This is great news. So Brad, before we get into the current moment and what you're working on, and we've talked more about that, I want to go back to April, 2020 and the idea of pivoting, I mean the idea of, and if I may call it a failure in some aspect or another, the only way you're going to learn from it. Tell us from your perspective, what are some insights that you can share with someone that is going through their entrepreneurial journey of how important that is?

Brad Cummings:

Well, you have to be able to be okay with failure in life in general, but especially when you're doing a startup, you are never going to, even if you're successful, the idea that you start off with is never going to be the idea that you end with. It might be a tweak of that idea, it might be a variation of it, but the business plan that you write to yourself when you start a business is just almost impossible for that to end up being the business that you end up selling at the end of the day or whatever your outcome ends up being. So you have to always walk into things with a level of flexibility and understanding that you're not as smart as you think you are. And I don't mean that in a pejorative way. None of us are. We're all imperfect and we all see things one way and then as you get into the fight, into the battle, it changes on you.

I mean, for me, the pandemic, we were building a sports product and if you remember before the pandemic, the calendar was the same as the sports calendar. If it was February, you knew it was the Super Bowl. If it was October, you knew that it was the World Series and the baseball playoffs. And so when those sort of the things got stripped from you, it's the last thing you're thinking of. You come up with all the things that could possibly go wrong with your business, and the very last thing you'd ever have thought of to the point where you never would've thought of it is that sports would actually come off of its schedule and stop playing. So I mean, I remember no joke, first week of the pandemic, I still forced myself to get up and get in front of my computer, but I kind of just stare at the computer, just kind of numb because what am I going to do?

This whole thing is kind of falling apart on me, and if you do it right, you stay humble enough, you can start to listen to what the world is telling you and where you might be able to find a new path. I never imagined being a digital lottery supplier of content, but we had some pieces that could help us accelerate that growth into that sector. And it was because I had built a network of people in the industry trying to accomplish one thing that when I finally figured out how to pivot the company, I had that network already built, not thinking that's why I built the network, but if you can kind of humble yourself and quiet yourself and listen to the tea leaves or read the tea leaves, eventually you find your way. So you got to be patient. You have to have this mixture of patience and impatience and know when to have both and when to turn one off and turn the other on.

Omar Ayyash:

Yeah, a lot of times when I'm lecturing on entrepreneurship, I tell my students that you got to think of life as when you're born. You're not born walking, you have to start crawling. And then when you learn walk, the first couple of times you fall.

Brad Cummings:

Yeah.

Omar Ayyash:

And if you're like, oh, this is too difficult, I'm never going to do it again, this is too much risk, then you'll never learn to walk. And that's how I see the entrepreneurial venture. So you explained it in my mind as you were going through that, so that's fantastic.

Brad Cummings:

Yeah, I mean, you see Usain Bolt run a hundred meters dash one day. He was learning how to walk too. And so I think it's really easy. Anybody who wants to be an entrepreneur, it's really easy to look at the success stories and go, I could never get there. Well, that success story has a hundred failures along the way, and the only reason why it's a success is because of those a hundred failures and because an entrepreneur understood that each failure was just taking you one step closer to that success. There's a meme online, I'm going to butcher a little bit, but there's two guys carving their way through a tunnel underground and one guy breaks through and the other guy has an inch left to carve through and he stops and turns around. And you don't want to be that guy you got to keep fighting through because you never know when you're this close to being on the other side of it and making it a success, stay focused, believe in yourself, be humble enough to make the right pivots and any idea, any entrepreneur can end up making it work.

That's the other cool thing about entrepreneurism. I am more of a sales business development type of entrepreneur, but I know very geeky engineer types who have built great businesses. I know people are very operational-heavy that have built great businesses. There is no specific type of person. The commonality is the ability to just get up every day, do the next right thing, and eventually you'll find success.

Exporting Digital Services: Establishing a Footprint in the UAE

Omar Ayyash:

Alright, so Brad, you and I connected when I started telling you about the Dubai Trade Mission. And the reason I started talking to Louisville companies or Kentucky companies in general about the Dubai Trade Mission is typically the mission got started with going to GITEX, which is the largest technology trade show in the world, but then the Dubai Chamber of Commerce has been focused on creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem and not just the Dubai Chamber of Commerce, the entire country. And now not only we go to GITEX, but we arrive a few days earlier to go to Expand North Star, which is literally one of the biggest startup events that happens in that region of the world. And then I pick up the phone and I call you and you're like, Hey, I was in the UAE already in December, and I'm like, all right, cool. Tell me about that. So tell us about where the business is now and how you are navigating the export market when it comes to your digital service.

Brad Cummings:

Yeah, so the UAE is unique in that region, the Middle East region, in that it's starting at fully regulated gaming operation. And it started with a lottery. So the UAE lottery is now almost a year old. I think they officially went live in December of last year. And a friend of mine who was running the lottery, knew what we did as a company. We actually worked together. He was a consultant, had some companies that we actually ended up working with and helping get into the US and so he saw our quality and saw the kind of product offering that we had, and he needed a bunch of content. And so everything in this world, it's about the relationship and building that trust. And so I was in Dubai, or sorry, not Dubai, Abu Dhabi in December of last year and went ahead and pitched our services and showed them what we could do.

A few months later, we had a contract to deliver digital lottery products. Basically, we handle all the third-party digital lottery products for the UAE'S lottery, the first ever regulated lottery in the region. It's made news. So I'm not saying anything that is a surprise here, but Wynn Casino, Steve Wynn, there'll be a casino in the country. I think 2027 is the target goal for that, but we get to be the first, be part of that first wave of gaming operations in the country, and obviously it's a great honor to be a part of that.

The "Face Time" Advantage: Building Trust Beyond Video Calls

Omar Ayyash:

Yeah. Another thing that intrigued me when we were having about our conversation, and it was literally our initial conversation, I was doing business, developing myself to get you to join us on the trade mission. And your answer to me is something that I want to highlight. You said, the more face time I can have in that market, the better it is for me. And I think I applaud you for thinking that way because there's a lot of companies that I work with on the export side or the import side that think, okay, video conferencing is the best way to do all the business and I don't need to go into that market and it's too far. And let's highlight that. Tell us your thought process around that.

Brad Cummings:

Well, if your life is all about video conferencing and phone calls, I mean, listen, that's a very useful tool and I can't be there all the time and all that, but I'm committing to at least being there once a year if not, if not more than that. And it's because you can't build a relationship with somebody, a trust with somebody over a video call. You can't build that trust over a phone call or email or text. You have to be in the same room together. You got to break bread with each other literally and figuratively. You got to have a couple too many drinks with somebody every now and then to, so you have those bonds with people. There are some things that only can be accomplished when you're sitting across the room from somebody. I mean, heck, we've known each other for a few months now, and yet I already feel like I know you better than I did for a few months just because sitting here in the same room for the first time and you read people's body language, we all have imaginations of what people are thinking and all that.

And when you get in the same room with somebody, all the concerns and all the kind of things we put in our head, they all go away because you get to really understand somebody and get to feel their heart. We don't talk about that kind of stuff enough. I think understanding where someone's coming from, where you can see what somebody's passionate about, what they do, or if they're just kind of phoning it in. And I think that for me, it really works because I can't do anything that I don't feel passionate about.

Omar Ayyash:

Another insight that I want to hone in on, and I've got 15 years of experience in the UAE market in the Gulf region, and I've seen the transformation. I've seen so many great things. And of course there's a lot of news about the success that's happening there in data centers and AI and things of that nature. But what I tell the American businesses is you need to be very strategic about going into that market. Just don't think that by having a product that's quality, people are going to buy from you. No, you've got to actually be, they know what they want on the other end, and if you don't offer what they want that they're not going to really be interested in you. Can you highlight that in terms of what you've got to offer in the digital space?

Brad Cummings:

Yeah. I actually almost don't even think about my product or selling. It is much more about connecting with somebody because no one's going to buy a product from you they don't want or they're not looking for. So to sit there and to focus on product is to focus on what's not the point of the relationship. The point of the relationship is the relationship. And eventually if it's meant to be a business relationship, it will turn into one. But I actually had this a bit of epiphany during the downturn and the pandemic and all that where I think before pandemic, I was too transactional the way I thought, not on purpose, but just as I was being able to reflect on it and I made a concerted effort, I'm going to care about the person and then the things that come out of that relationship will either be business or someday we'll be able to help each other out in a different way. Or heck, just a good person I get to know. And I've never gone wrong adding somebody to my network and getting to know somebody else.

And so I always step away from the product discussion completely and just say, the important thing is that I connect with you. And then there's a world of things that can happen out of that connection. But if I don't have that connection, I'm just another sales guy. And do you like a guy knocking on your door trying to sell you something? Of course not.  So there was a moment I actually left a little part of my career out. I went and worked for, I had a moment, temporary insanity, went to go work for somebody else. And I worked through ad agency in Lexington, and I remember guys would have a full page ad we'd build for them, and they'd want every piece of copy on that full page ad.

They'd like, oh, you got to say this too. And it's like, you're not looking at that ad, the way you would look at that ad, if you were the consumer reading the magazine. Because what do you do when you look at an ad? You go, oh, okay. And you go to the next thing. And if you've got a bunch of copy on it, you're not reading any of it. And it's like we're too often, we think too much about the way that we're perceiving things because we're trying to sell something. And it takes you off the path completely to the point, which is to actually connect with somebody. If you're just a salesman, you're a number. If you're a person, it's a long-term relationship and anything can come out of that.

Omar Ayyash:

Fantastic. This is a question I wanted to ask you earlier, but our conversation went in a different way. Just explain to us what is your business in a basic way and what is the service that it offers?

Brad Cummings:

Yeah, so I mean in the most basic sense where a lottery content company, so anything that has to do with content that's delivered to lotteries, we could take a part of. So our bread and butter is our digital services, which is what we're here talking about. And that's mobile phone games and that sort of thing. That's through lottery. Kentucky has a digital lottery as well. And so you can go on and you can play games that sort of emulate, at least from a math perspective, the scratch off ticket in store, your Lucky 7s, that kind of thing, just a digitized version of that.

But we also, so that's one part of our business and there's two spokes of that. We build our own games and then we also work with 24 studios around the world that all integrated into our system. And so when a lottery integrates into our system, they're getting the benefit of 25 studios, the 24 partners in our own. And so they're getting hundreds of games through a single integration. So it them a lot of optionality. It also gives vendors, studios that don't have the business development chops in the lottery space to be able to get into the lottery space. So we kind of are a pathway. Think of us as the App Store. We help the distribution, we take a cut of their games again, we also build our own products. And then of course we take the full cut on those. And then we also represent, I think I said earlier, some of the licenses in the industry with Team USA, LA 28 and such. And there we actually, everything from the digital products to representing those companies to distribute scratch tickets, like physical scratch tickets in-store, all the way to in 2027 and 2028. We'll be giving away trips to the Olympics in LA as part of a product offering. And so we run the gamut on those as well.

Omar Ayyash:

Fantastic. Jim, I feel like I need to get with the times. I didn't realize that the lottery has progressed to where you can actually play games and be scratching off on your phone.

Brad Cummings:

You got to go to KentuckyLottery.com or KYlottery.com and download your app today.

Omar Ayyash:

Amazing.

Brad Cummings:

They're great people over there. They do a great job of that with that digital lottery, so always happy to give them a little bit of a push.

Scaling EQL Games: The Future of Global Content Distribution

Omar Ayyash:

Amazing. What's next for your business? I mean, especially from an international trajectory, let's talk about that. Again, you're joining us for the trade mission. We're excited about that. And what are some of the key things that you're looking to accomplish with your business?

Brad Cummings:

Yeah. Well, I mean I think the obvious is expansion into Europe and Asia, South America. We do have a site in Peru, so we're always looking for new lotteries, but I also we're a company that's still raising money and all that stuff. So it's great to have international connections on that level as well. So those investors are looking for American companies that are having an international footprint. That's a part of our continuing growth. But as far as the actual company's edict or mandate or whatever you want to call it, it's about finding those lotteries that are looking for our services. There's tens of lotteries, almost probably a hundred lotteries in the world that have some level of digital lottery, have a scratch off ticket, whatever. And so just expanding that footprint and becoming my humble opinion, I believe that will become the leading independent content provider in the world for lottery.

Omar Ayyash:

And currently you're based in Louisville, and how many employees do you have?

Brad Cummings:

Twenty-one employees? We're in Louisville. Not all of them are in Louisville. You're in a niche industry like this and you need some specialized talent. You're not going to find them all in Louisville, but we're doing our best to grow a local whole team. We're out at NuLu Marketplace, Mo Deljoo’s, his development out there does a great job.

Omar Ayyash:

The growth he's done there is phenomenal too. I was just watching the new structure coming up.

Brad Cummings:

It was like three days ago. It feels like it was just a foundation and now it's almost up. So, he's a great guy and we're lucky to have guys like that with a vision for helping to revitalize and grow that part of town. And then we were attracted to it. First off, I can't work at a flash cube kind of building. It's not my style, so I wanted something different. But it's also a great way to recruit talent. People want to be able to come to place someplace that they're inspired by, and I think he's done a great job with that.

Jim Ray:

Brad, if I could, when you talked about, okay, the first business kind of ran its course and you were kind of sitting in front of that blank computer and just kind of listening to the world, as you said, and then you're just being humble enough to say, okay, what's the next evolution? Were you thinking a global business at that point or were you thinking, okay, I can make this work here because now I've got some experience, I've got some connections, I've got that network to leverage. How did that evolve? When did you realize, Hey, wait a minute, I'm doing well domestically, but there's a whole other world out there on a global scale?

Brad Cummings:

Yeah, I mean, honestly, at first, I was just hoping for any business, and I don't know if I could tell you there was a moment. It just sat getting up every day and doing the next right thing sort of thing. And eventually, and be listening to opportunities and like the UAE opportunity. If we had talked about a month ago this time last year, I wouldn't have even had UAE on the tip of my tongue. It wasn't something we were thinking about. But an opportunity comes along and you assess it, and sometimes the opportunity leads you into the growth. And sometimes it's your plan. I can't say that I'd ever imagined even being in the UAE physically much less as a business, but to start to, so something comes to your plate and you go, oh, okay, that's interesting. Let me learn more about it. And then you go, how didn’t I know about this country? How didn’t I know about the 10 million, 11 million people that live there and the incredible growth that they've had? And the standard of living is quite high. You just look at it and go, what a great future this country has. And so then to be able to be a part of it, sometimes things just fall in your lap because you do the right things over and over until something happens.

Omar Ayyash:

And ease of doing business in the UAE, I mean everything is set up to where boom, boom, boom, boom, you can standard of living infrastructure, good schooling, all of that.

Omar Ayyash:

To your point, Jim, you got me thinking about since we're highlighting services here, you don't have to ship a product. You don't have to worry about tariffs, you don't have to worry about duties. You don't have to. Yeah. I mean, you still have to regulatory things that you need to comply with. You still have to have solid contracts to make sure that your business is protected, but that's an advantage of exporting a service.

Brad Cummings:

Yeah, exactly. So that's one of the things I like about the business we're in. I mean, we don't even pay for a player acquisition on these sites. That's usually handled by the Lottery. So we get to focus entirely on delivering a great product, and we don't have to worry about all those extra pieces that others have to worry about. And listen, there's great advantages to all businesses and there's great disadvantages to every business, but I think you lean into those advantages. And for us, it's definitely the lack of extra stuff that you have to deal with. It is freeing and makes it a lot easier to do business.

Omar Ayyash:

So Brad, to use a word that you used earlier, we're all acting.

Brad Cummings:

That's exactly right.

Omar Ayyash:

And this has been an incredible show, so thanks for acting.

Brad Cummings:

Oh, my pleasure. I'll end with a soliloquy. No, I'm just kidding.

Omar Ayyash:

Any final words that you'd like to share with us?

Brad Cummings:

Oh no. I just really appreciate being on, and I love being not just part of the trade mission itself, but getting to, this is my adopted home state. I’m from the Chicago suburbs. And so to be able to be a representative of this incredible Commonwealth, it's done so much for me, will continue to do great things for me, and I can continue to feel like I need to give back. And so to be able to be a part of this is just one more piece of that.

Omar Ayyash:

Fantastic. Three for three.  Six for six and 10 for 10.

Brad Cummings:

10 for 10 all day long.

Jim Ray:

There we go. Brad, if somebody's been listening to this and want to get in touch with you to learn more about your company, is there a website they can visit?

Brad Cummings:

Yeah, EQLgames.com. And if somebody wants to do business with us or talk to us, my email address is brad@eglgames.com.

Jim Ray:

Outstanding. And I'll put that in the show notes so that if somebody's listening to this and goes, yeah, I didn't get a chance to write that down, it'll be right there. It'll be clickable. All you've got to do is do that and you'll have perfect access to the website and Brad, alright.

Brad Cummings:

And if do you my phone number, I'm going to give you Omar's number.

Jim Ray:

No, that's fantastic. Brad, I do, once again, just as Omar said, I want to thank you for your time and your attention for this. Thanks for prepping and putting together some great information for us.

Dr. Omar, I know how busy you are. We've been all over the place lately it seems, and we've got another event later on this evening. So just one more step in the journey. So I really appreciate being able to walk alongside you.

So once again, thank you very much for listening, and if your business is getting ready to explore doing commerce on a global scale, just remember the World Trade Center, Kentucky connects businesses globally.

 

To Learn More about EQL Games: 

Website:  www.eqlgames.com

 

Thank you for listening to today's episode. We hope you enjoyed the conversation. You can find more information on our website at wtcky.org. Be sure to register for the upcoming events. Until next time, from all of us at the World Trade Center Kentucky, and our This Global Trade Adventure podcast, remember, if it involves global business at the World Trade Center Kentucky, we grow trade.

Upcoming WTCKY EVENTS:

• 08/25-26/26 – World Trade Day 2026 Global Business Summit
• 09/29/26 – 10/01/26 – International Trade Certification
• 10/12/26 - 10/21/26 – Discover Beautiful Ireland with WTCKY
• 12/05/26 – 12/11/26 – Dubai Trade Mission 2026

 

The next episode of our podcast will launch on 06/09/26.  Thank you for listening.  Be sure to follow This Global Trade Adventure on your favorite podcast platform, or at www.WTCKY.com/podcast.

We hope you enjoyed this episode.  Our schedule is to publish a new episode on the 2nd Monday of each month.

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