This is a guest contribution by Rasmus Sojmark of SBC Gaming. If you would like to submit a contribution please contact Bill Beatty for submission details. Thank you.
Events, conferences and trade shows are a crucial part of the betting and gaming industry – as they are for most business sectors. As event organisers, we facilitate the important introductions between buyers and sellers and help educate the industry via conferences and content.
But right now we are facing the COVID-19 pandemic, placing many of us around the world in lockdown, forcing us to work remotely, and causing an immediate stop to events of all kinds. So what are we able to do now?
Well, it doesn’t help that the post-pandemic industry picture is really hard to paint, with economic wounds to heal, disrupted supply chains, travel restrictions, uncertain company and employee-wide reactions in the aftermath of COVID-19, and many more issues to factor in.
Admittedly I could go on and on about the negatives, but for a change let’s instead turn to the positives with a focus on how the industry, which of course includes us here at SBC, is dealing with the situation. How can we stay optimistic and how do we continue to generate meaningful revenue?
It takes a lot of effort to successfully reschedule an event. It’s literally doing an entire year’s planning and work a second time, all within the same year. We’ve found that instead of leaving decisions to the last minute, stakeholders / partners will appreciate being told early about date changes, which calls for us event organisers to combine research, smartness, honesty and strategic communication in ways we never done before. Not easy, but needs to be done if you want to continue to see a strong support!
As a result most of us have been moving events to Q3 and Q4, under the belief that the industry will want to support us by participating in our events as soon as the crisis is over. However this does bring about a rather tight schedule for sponsors, speakers and attendees, which has led some organisers to also consider opportunities around strategic partnerships. For instance, we have moved our Betting on Sports Europe event from June to October and teamed up with EGR Global who have their popular EGR Operator Awards the same week. Expect more of this from the industry.
With physical events off the table in Q2 at least, event organisers are exploring other options. Many are turning to webinars and podcasts addressing all sorts of important topics, such as working remotely during challenging times, crisis communication, virtual sports as the important revenue generator, esports blooming etc. It’s great to see all this content being created at a time when we are all stuck at home, and it certainly is a good way for event organisers to stay active.
However, at SBC we decided to take it a step further – bringing me to our innovative and groundbreaking response to the current disruption – the SBC Digital Summit.
About a month ago we announced the rescheduling of Betting on Sports America and CasinoBeats Malta, and we made an early decision that all 72 employees would be working from home. It was at that time we formed internal teams to start researching potential platforms and opportunities around online / virtual events. Something we never thought in great detail about before.
We were sceptical at first, but the more research we did the whole project just started to make sense. Not only would this event serve as a great taste of what was in store for the physical SBC Summit event in Barcelona in September, but it had the potential to bring together the whole industry and encourage greater information sharing and collaboration during very turbulent times. And before you know it, the SBC Digital Summit was born.
The intention was to make the event free for the industry, but the costs involved in putting on an event of this scale are in fact considerable, which meant we had to introduce a small charge to cover them. But we have pushed to make them as low as possible – our company tickets give access for as little as two euros a day.
We firmly believe that this is a valuable event for the industry at a time when it really needs it. Key suppliers will be utilising the 50 virtual booths to display their latest products and services towards the entire industry, and at the same time all the attendees can make use of networking lounges and connect with fellow professionals around the world. For the conference part we will all have the opportunity to learn from the sector’s biggest names across 5 full days of high level content. Being stuck at home hasn’t stopped people being hungry for information and ideas, or wanting to connect with the wider industry to talk business, and the SBC Digital Summit will deliver all of that without anyone having to leave the house.
Once again, we’ve had incredible support from across the betting and gaming world, with the people we spoke to during the planning stages all excited by the idea and the opportunities it brings. And many CEOs from major players jumped at the opportunity to share their ideas on how businesses can recover from the pandemic disruption and perspectives on the wider long-term issues shaping the future of the industry.
We have over 140 experts lined up for the event in what is probably the highest-level speaker roster we’ve ever put together. To give you an idea of the level of expertise that delegates will have access to, I can tell you that the line-up includes
• Carsten Koerl (CEO & Founder, Sportradar)
• Jesper Svensson (CEO, Betsson Group)
• George Daskalakis (CEO & Founder, Stoiximan / Betano)
• Paris Smith (CEO, Pinnacle)
• Johnny Hartnett (CEO, Superbet)
• Alexander Stevendahl (CEO, Videoslots)
• Fabio Schiavolin (CEO, Snaitech)
• Adam Greenblatt (CEO, Roar Digital)
• Niels Erik Folmann (CEO, Danske Spil)
• Alexander Martin (CEO, SKS365)
• Avigail Nir (COO, Mansion)
• Sergey Portnov (CEO, Parimatch)
• Ariel Reem (CEO, Genesis Group)
• Tim Heath (CEO, Coingaming Group)
• JD Duarte (CEO, Betcris)
• Julio Cesar Tamayo (CEO, Wplay)
• Stuart Simms (CEO, XL Media).
There will be tracks on Leadership in Betting, Leadership in Gaming, the LatAm Market, Lotteries, the U.S. Market, Payments and Digital Marketing, so something of value for everyone in the industry to enjoy in their home offices. And while we can’t stage any of our famed networking parties in the digital space, we have ensured that there will be opportunities for delegates to connect with fellow attendees.
At this moment in time, it is more important than ever for people to communicate and connect – for both business and personal reasons. For that reason I hope that you will all be able to join us and thousands of your colleagues from the international betting and gaming industry for the SBC Digital Summit on 27 April – 1 May 2020. See you there.
About the author:
Rasmus has 15 years industry experience, with an early career start as commercial director of BetBrain.com, and founding team member of EveryMatrix. In 2009 he founded SBC (a highly successful events, news and media business) and Oddslife (a b2b social sportsbook platform).He holds a University Masters Degree in International Marketing, with a dissertation that researched and analysed both online and land based sports betting behaviour. His work was later presented and published in academic books at Aalborg University.While at EveryMatrix he won EGR Awards for Best Sportsbook Innovation 2010, Sports Betting Rising Star 2011 and special commendation for White Label Partner of the Year 2011. In 2008 and 2009 he won back-to-back IGB Awards for Best Sports Betting Affiliate and the Best Overall Affiliate with BetBrain.com.
