SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
This week’s 6 of the Best gives our readers an insight into the life of “true working-day routine lover” Nikos Chalikias, the CEO at Favbet.
Keep reading to find out about his crazy 10-day trip to Bangkok, the sporting comeback which served as a pre-cursor to Liverpool’s Miracle of Istanbul, and a Netflix series where every episode feels like a live stream in his own head.
Best Holiday
I don’t like holidays at all, I am a true working-day routine lover.
But at the top of mind, I will go with a crazy 10 days trip to Bangkok with an old friend of mine around 15 years ago. I cannot go through details because my kids will read this article, but let’s just say that we were looking for trouble and trouble came heavily from day one. I am glad I came back safe and sound and healthy! I am more glad socials were not part of our lives back then!
Best Album
I will go 30 years back and choose ‘Appetite for Destruction’ from Guns N’ Roses. Don’t laugh, I am 40 and it is a really good album.
Best Film
I will go with ‘Shawshank Redemption’ but only after a coin tossed with ‘In the Name of the Father’. I consider both films as the epitome of human rights, reflecting the ancient Greek worldview three-fold: Hubris – Nemesis – Tisis.
I will break the “choose just one” rule and mention also the ‘Black Mirror’ series on Netflix. I don’t know the guy behind this masterpiece, but the first thing that comes to mind is that every single episode feels like a live stream from inside my head. Actually, if I was a TV series my name would have been Black Mirror, much better than Nikos Chalikias I guess…
Best Sporting Experience
Normally you would expect from a Greek guy (yes, I am Greek) to go with the miracle of the Greek national team at Euro 2004. However, it has always been my firm belief that painful experiences leave much deeper wounds than celebrations, so let me travel you back in time, almost five months after Euro 2004, to the night of 8th December at Anfield stadium.
Only a few soccer fans remember that the absolute come back of Liverpool from 3-0 down in the Champions League final in Istanbul was a déjà vu of that night! We are in the last round of group stage and Liverpool is 0-1 down at half time against my club – and 50% of population in Greece – Olympiacos.
The Reds need a good comeback of three goals during the second half and you all know what happened, otherwise they wouldn’t have the chance to repeat it in the Champions League final against Milan. ‘Stevie G’ has stated that the goal he scored on 86th minute is in top three goals of his career. Just enjoy Anfield going absolutely crazy…
Best Book
Definitely the one that I am planning to publish in the next few years. Okay, maybe ‘Symposium’ by Plato is better and much more worth a read. Seriously now, you will rarely hear a good thing from me about Greek people, I’m not into the national pride concept, but please just read this book, bearing in mind that it was written almost 2,400 years ago! You will thank me later.
Best Bet
Definitely, when I joined Favbet as CEO one and a half years ago. It is by far the biggest challenge of my career until today, to lead such a large organization so well established in Eastern Europe.
Apart from that, it is impossible for me to forget an insane comeback from Inter against Sampdoria in 2005. From 0-2 in the 90th minute, they somehow won 3-2. That cost me €4.5k, so it was a good bet for another guy and a betting lesson for me.
