Industry stakeholders, suppliers and regulators gathered at Hard Rock Atlantic City last week for the 26th edition of the East Coast Gaming Congress.
The conference, founded by Spectrum Gaming Group and the Cooper Levenson law firm, added two new producers this year in PlayDoit, the Mexico-based online sportsbook and casino that helped create that country’s iGaming licensing standards; and SI Sportsbook, the sports betting partnership between Sports Illustrated magazine and 888 Holdings.
Conference sessions covered several of the top issues confronting gaming. Prominent among them was the creation of an omnichannel gaming environment, which was addressed by two separate panels and the first day’s keynote presentation, by Siobhan Lane, CEO of gaming for supplier Light & Wonder.
Lane described Light & Wonder’s journey from when she started just prior to the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic through the divestiture of the former Scientific Games’ lottery and sports betting divisions and rebranding as Light & Wonder. She said becoming solely a cross-channel supplier of content for brick-and-mortar, iGaming and social casinos was critical for where she said the industry is headed.
Lane noted that player demographics are skewing younger, and those new players are demanding a seamless experience when shifting between online and in-casino play. She said the cross-channel experience will be more important as additional states approve online gaming—she noted statistics showing that players who engage both online and brick-and-mortar casinos play 30 percent more than those only engaging one channel.
“We know iGaming is still in its infancy in the U.S. market,” Lane said. “We know that will change. State revenues being generated here in New Jersey and in markets like Michigan and Pennsylvania are just far too great for other states to ignore for long.” She added that studies show potential tax revenues of $1 billion if states that currently have sports betting adopt iGaming.
Just how sluggish that adoption has been was the subject of the first panel of the conference. Titled “iGaming: Is 2023 the Year?,” Cooper Levenson partner Lloyd D. Levenson moderated a discussion that included Indiana state Senator Jon Ford, who is president of the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States; West Virginia state Senator Shawn Fluharty; John Connelly, CEO of Interblock; and Howard Glaser, global head of government affairs and legislative counsel for Light & Wonder.
The panel examined the mystery of why 30 states have approved sports betting, but only six have approved online casino gaming, which had been expected to follow sports betting approval in many more states, since early-adopting states have shown that iGaming revenues dwarf income from sports betting.
Glaser said the reason for the delay can be traced to lawmakers’ failure to determine “who gets a piece of the pie, and how much.” Fluharty opined that the delay in legalizing iGaming is partly due to the makeup of state legislatures, currently 65 percent Republican. Sports, he said, are a popular notion, but Republicans are generally more cautious about iGaming.
Fluharty said legislators will win over Republicans if more player protection/responsible gaming methods and procedures are written into the laws.
Glaser commented that iGaming expansion is dead for the year, after failures to move bills in several state legislatures, but stressed that education of lawmakers is key to winning them over to iGaming.
Next up at the conference was the annual View from Wall Street panel, in which JPM Securities analyst Jordan Bender, Wells Fargo Bank Security Managing Director Duane Bouligny and Clairvest Group Managing Director Mohit Kansal discussed the coming casino or casinos in New York City, potential casinos in Texas, the sports betting failure in California, and how omnichannel operations keep players in an operator’s ecosystem.
This was followed by perhaps the most compelling panel of the conference, dealing with distributed gaming, and the battle against unlicensed, unregulated gaming. Penn Entertainment Vice President Jeffrey Morris showed alarming slides of children in Pennsylvania and Missouri playing the slot-like “skill games” that are proliferating in several states, and fellow panelists Matt Roob of Spectrum, Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board hair Denise J. Smyler, Florida Gaming Control Commission Executive Director Louis Trombetta and J&J Ventures Gaming CEO Robert Willenborg concluded that the spread of the illegal slot games will continue until legislators pass laws with sufficient penalties for operating the games.
After a brief welcome from American Gaming Association President and CEO Bill Miller, the second day of the conference kicked off with another panel on omnichannel gaming, featuring Sightline Payments Senior Vice President Jonathan Michaels moderating panelists Kelly Huston of Wondr Nation, Entain Senior VP Martin Lycka and Delaware North Vice President Luisa Woods.
Industry Leader presentations followed, with Hard Rock International CEO James Allen, Cordish Companies Chairman David Cordish, PCI Gaming Authority President and CEO Jay Dorris, Rush Street Gaming CEO Tim Drehkoff and Foxwoods Resort President & CEO Jason Guyot each giving their own views of the issues vital to the industry.
The final panel examined the future of sports betting in the U.S. Moderator Jane Bokunewicz of Stockton University, 888 U.S. President Howard Mittman, Michigan Gaming Control Board Deputy Director David Murley and New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement Executive Director David Rebuck painted a positive picture of the growing industry, with 33 states already having approved sports betting and seven more ready to do so.
New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin delivered the second day’s keynote address. Platkin outlined several state initiatives to improve responsible gaming efforts, including the creation of a new coordinator of responsible gaming position within the Division of Gaming Enforcement.
“This position will be filled by an experienced attorney within DGE who will serve in this new role and report directly to the director, and ultimately, me, on all issues impacting responsible gaming, including the progress on the initiative I just discussed,” Platkin said.
Platkin said the state’s RG initiative also will include simplifying access to the state’s self-exclusion program and setting new advertising standards for online gaming operators.
