Conference fever has officially kicked off for the iGaming industry with ICE London and LAC both taking place today and plenty more coming up quick as 2019 pushes on. iGaming conferences are one of the most cherished aspects of our industry, so cherished that as one event is taking place, delegates are already asking each other, “At what event will I see you next”?
In an effort to help our readers answer that question, this week I spoke with Andrew McCarron of SBC Events to hear more about the two conferences he’s got coming up, roughly one month apart from each other: Betting on Football in London, March 20-21 and Betting on Sports America, in New York/New Jersey, April 24-25.
“Betting on Football is actually our 6th event, it feels so strange considering that was the first conference we did many years ago. Again, we’re at Stamford Bridge, home of Chelsea, by that time they may have won the league cup, who knows?”, McCarron joked.
Betting on Football or “BOF” will take on a similar format as years previous, bringing together like-minded professionals focused on the same pressing issues.
“The great thing about Betting on Football is we have operators there in the numbers discussing some of the key stuff that’s happening during the year ahead. 2018 was such a big, important year for all the wrong reasons and this is a good chance to grasp the metal of some of the things that are happening and push our way forward to change the perception of the gambling industry in 2019”, McCarron said.
In addition to covering the latest in sports betting and football, team SBC has made an effort to segment down from sports to separate forums, to ensure all aspects of the industry are covered in depth. Included in these segments are digital marketing, payments and sponsorship.
“There’s lots of different outbreak areas as well for the specialists within the sports betting industry”, explained McCarron.
A short four weeks after BOF, SBC Events will be launching the inaugural Betting on Sports (BOS) America, with its affiliated events taking place in both New York City and New Jersey, a short taxi ride away from each other.
“The beauty about Betting on Sports America is everyone’s upbeat about it, everyone is upbeat about the market in the US and the potential that’s there”, shared McCarron.
“Its not quite got the negative aspects that the European market has got at the moment, everyone’s positive and looking forward to potential making business and bringing things into the legal sphere. For Betting on Sports America we’re trying to cover all that and things keep changing very quickly so our agenda has had to be quite fluid at times”, he added.
“We’ve got sessions looking at regulation, even drilling down to what the tribal views are, the lotteries’ views- the lotteries one is particularly interesting with the recent Wire Act reclassification. We’ve got stuff talking about operations, from the data side of things, from a social responsibility side of things, we’ve got issues on sponsorship and marketing because that’s going to start coming into play a bit more”, McCarron explained.
In addition to providing outstanding content for sports betting businesses interested in targeting American turf, SBC Events has arranged their usual selection of top-notch networking events, all boasting gorgeous views of the New York City skyline.
“Tuesday night we have a reception for Betting on Sports America, that’s in the 40/40 club, a pretty well renowned sports club owned by Jay Z and that’s going to be one of the better networking events for sports betting this year”, revealed McCarron.
“On the second night we’re actually going to stay in New Jersey, we’re going to go over to Meadowlands Race Track and we’ve hired out the whole roof of Meadowlands, beautiful views of Manhattan, beautiful views of the racetrack and we’re going to have a BBQ there, a great opportunity for networking. Its also the place where the first retail sportsbook facility was launched in New Jersey, so its really appropriate and its fascinating to actually see that in motion as well”, he added.
“On Thursday night after the conference we’ve hired out Sky Room – beautiful views – we’re inducting some people into Sports Betting Hall of Fame, one particularly big name which we’re not quite ready to go live with yet, but we’re very, very pleased to get them involved”, he said.
