Meet Jen Bowman of IGT fame. Jen talks us through her choices to take to a deserted tropical island:

• 3 albums
• 3 books
• 3 movies
• 1 song
• 1 pet
• 1 object
• 1 dessert
• …and one piece of advice to give her younger self.

Have to say, this episode is completely worth it just for the pet part. Brilliant. Anyway, you can find the RSS for the offshoot here: https://feeds.captivate.fm/tgf-did/

And it's available at all good podcast outlets. Probably the dodgy ones too. And if you have a guest suggestion, we are all ears. Fintan especially, that's why he keeps his hair all bushy.

In the interests of full disclosure, our guest this episode is a bit quiet in my opinion, but she says it's probably just Jon being too loud.

Anyway, it's another industry thought leader for our second proper guest on Dessert Island Discs as we welcome RG and player protection specialist Dr Maris Catania to the hotseat.

Dr Maris chooses her three key albums, three books, three movies, one pet, one object, and one dessert, all of which need to help keep her sane on this deserted dessert-laden tropical paradise. Oh, and she has one piece of advice for her younger self. If you've met Maris, you'll know the conversation could go just about anywhere…

Enjoy the episode – and feel free to contact us to nominate someone as a guest, or even throw yourself forward. All you have to do is be interesting!

So the thing about this is, it's about people, not about work – and I can absolutely guarantee that there will be something surprising in every episode. The industry is all about personal relationships, and this podcast is about the amazing people we meet every day in the gambling world.

We're learning as we go, as ever, so for now I won't put what they've chosen in the show notes, you can listen and find it out. But Alex was full of surprises! My favourite part though, was his advice for his younger self.

And discovering he likes musicals.

Get on it!

In this inaugural kind-of episode, Fintan is the guinea pig; or maybe he's the hamster, and I'm Richard Gere, if you believe those scurrilous long-dormant rumours.

I'm just slipping this out quietly on a weekend because it's kind of our proof of concept thing – the new podcast offshoot, and I want people to understand the format before we use actual, real people in it.

So this is Dessert Island Discs, where our guests are stranded on a tropical island and all their basic needs are taken care of. They now have to choose the luxury items that come with them (or that wash up on the beach, maybe).

They get to choose:

• 3 albums
• 3 movies
• 3 books
• One song (not on the albums)
• One pet
• One object/thing
• One dessert
• One piece of advice for their younger selves, and they choose when to receive it

Our guests are top-level gambling industry execs, thought leaders and any other buzzwords we can come up with while we think outside the box on this one.

Some guests will drop things from the list because they don't apply – maybe they didn't have a pet, or don't read for pleasure. But mostly, it's what's up there.

Fundamentally, this is about people, not about work.

Dessert Island Discs bears absolutely no relation to any shows anywhere else with similar-ish names that have been running for many decades, and you're a fool and a communist if you think it does.

Love some feedback on the idea, suggestions for guests, that kind of thing; remember, this episode zero is just so you can see what it's all about. Also thinking we might do this as audio-only. Who knows?