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All About ICE: Class is in Session
A roundup of some of the top-level panels and sessions from last week's ICE Barcelona conference.

The 2025 edition of ICE saw gambling experts from around the world converge for the first time in Barcelona from Jan. 20-22.
As the premier international gambling gathering, it should come as no surprise that all of the industry’s biggest trends and developments highlighted the show’s education program.
Below is a roundup of some the most noteworthy sessions from throughout the week:
California tribes won’t try for wagering legalization in 2026
On Jan. 21 a panel of California tribal leaders told ICE participants that they won’t put legal sports betting on the 2026 ballot. Indian Country has reached some consensus, but polling indicates voters aren’t interested.
California Nations Indian Gaming Association (CNIGA) Chairman James Siva said that tribes have “come too far and have too far to go to rush into this complex sports betting (issue) which is tied to iGaming.” His remarks led a chorus during the ‘State of Gambling in California: Current Trends and Future Prospects’ discussion at the ICE convention in Barcelona.
Siva was joined by Pechanga Band of Mission Indians Councilmember Catalina Chacon and San Manuel Band of Mission Indians Vice Chairman Johnny Hernandez. The panel was the last of four put on by the Indian Gaming Association (IGA). A how-to guide for working with Indian Country, a history of how San Manuel grew gaming and a discussion about remaining growth opportunities for tribal sports betting rounded out the conversation.
But the news was the tribes’ announcement that despite feeling pressure from the rise of sweepstakes, they would not pursue another ballot initiative so soon after spending nearly hundreds of millions to defeat a commercial proposal in 2022.
“It’s not going to happen in 2026,” Chacon said. “The data is telling us that the time is not right. Definitely not 2026, we’re looking more like 2028, but it has to include all tribal communities in California.”
Said Hernandez: “It has to include all tribes, including non-gaming tribes. I agree with Catalina that all tribes have to be in agreement. Gaming must go through the tribes.”
Consensus-building still a work in progress
Getting all of California Indian Country on the same page is no simple task. There are more than 100 tribes in the state. And they range from the wealthy and well known to rural tribes that struggle to get the most basic services. Pechanga and San Manuel were among the major contributors in the campaign to defeat Proposition 27 in 2022. Financed by seven commercial sports betting operators, Prop 27 would have legalized digital sports betting across California, but the tribes opposed it.
The tribal mantra continues to be that any gaming expansion must originate in Indian Country. Tribes have exclusivity for Class III gaming and they will not be rushed.
“We have come too far to rush into this to potentially damage the foundation that we have built,” Siva said. “For 2026 we’re being very patient. The outlook is looking toward the future.”
The somewhat hidden news from the session is that tribes appear to have reached at least a top-line consensus. Chacon repeatedly used the word “ownership” when talking about legalisation. She indicated that this means that all tribes must buy into a plan.
The discourse is slightly different than it had been previously, when the word used was “consensus.”
Sharing the wealth
California tribes have what’s called a Revenue Sharing Trust Fund (RSTF) from which gaming tribes currently funnel $1.1 million per year to non-gaming tribes. The RSTF will surely be up for discussion among tribes as they sort out how to share the wealth once sports betting—and eventually online casino—are legalized. The $1.1 million figure dates to 1999 and, given inflation and the changing economy, raising it seems to make sense.
The idea behind the RSTF is that tribes that are not geographically positioned to have land-based casinos can still get some benefit from legal gambling. An online component could change that.
In 2022, the tribes were aiming to legalize in-person wagering only while commercial operators were looking at digital betting. None of the tribal leaders made clear whether the next initiative would be in-person only or have a digital component.
Sweepstakes not welcome
The rise of sweepstakes continues to be a key issue for California tribes. Moderator Jason Giles, executive director of the Indian Gaming Association (IGA), asked if sweepstakes ads are putting pressure on the tribes to legalize. Multiple sweepstakes companies, which are unregulated in California, are advertising on television and other mediums.
“They are getting away with it by saying that it’s a non-play, that there is no money,” Chacon said. “But if you peel back, you see that there is. It’s not OK. It’s illegal in California. Sweepstakes casinos are just not what they say they are.”
IGA Conference Chairman Victor Rocha has been stunned by the rise of sweepstakes and last fall ran a series of webinars about them. The unregulated operators have served to galvanize the legal industry and even give tribes and commercial operators—often at odds—a common enemy.
“It is a violation of both our exclusivity and infringing on our sovereignty,” Hernandez said of sweepstakes.
Leading CEOs grapple with innovating, expanding alongside illegal market
Running and scaling a regulated business successfully is hard, especially alongside an evil twin who never gets in trouble. Such was the ethos of a CEO-studded panel at ICE Jan. 21.
GeoComply co-founder David Briggs was joined onstage by a who’s-who of European online operators, including newly minted Entain CEO Gavin Isaacs, Evoke CEO Per Widerström and Snaitech CEO Fabio Schiavolin.
Aptly named “The CEO Dilemma”, the quartet commiserated over the difficulties of growing and innovating new product when the black market can do it faster, without being tethered to regulatory obligations. Longtime peers and competitors, the panelists prodded each other and made light of the difficulties.
“All three of us would dream to be in the unregulated market just for a day,” Schiavolin joked.
Isaacs, whose career spans several major gambling companies, has seen the unregulated versus regulated debate become increasingly murky. Having taken the reins at online giants Entain in September, he now must navigate new technologies and gray markets.
“When I started, there were very clear black and white lines, but there’s much more gray now,” he said. Those who choose to operate legally make sacrifices to do so, he said, but it sometimes feels “unfair” to see others not do the same.
Always one step ahead
One of the central themes of the discussion was finding ways to innovate and protect IP with offshore platforms lurking closely behind. For Isaacs, the innovation is not necessarily the hard part. Rather, the latter point is the rub. “It’s the time to market that’s the issue,” he said.
To his credit, Briggs mentioned a few potential tools that might help with this. Among them were the adoption of artificial intelligence and the adoption of cryptocurrencies.
Widerstrom, whose firm oversees powerhouses William Hill and 888, was positive on AI while noting the high costs associated with it. But he asserted that off-the-shelf services make it so that “you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.”
Crypto is another story. None of the companies represented in the panel are able to accept the currencies, which are extremely popular among younger consumers. Many of them choose black market platforms because of that roadblock. As Isaacs pointed out, the tenets of a regulated market and crypto are somewhat at odds. Operators diligently fulfill KYC obligations, while crypto at its heart is a decentralised, anonymous medium.
Do players care about regulated protections?
As the black market continues to grow, legal operators must fight hard to convince players to stay above board. If the odds or markets aren’t superior, though, the regulated market must push its other arguments. Chief among them is the framework of consumer protections and harm minimization.
But in today’s era, do players even consider that argument? After all, it’s a hard sell to say that the best thing about the regulated market is that you are monitored more closely with fewer options.
“The consumers don’t care (about harm minimization) as much as the rest of the stakeholders do,” Isaacs surmised. “I don’t know if the player cares.”
Gambling Commission reveals ten-fold increase in illegal URL takedowns
Great Britain’s Gambling Commission has assisted in the takedown of 264 illegal gambling websites in the financial year to date, an increase of more than tenfold from the previous year.
Commission CEO Andrew Rhodes made the revelation during a speech Jan. 21 at the ICE World Regulatory Briefing. Rhodes discussed the state of the British gambling market and offered insight into the regulator’s recent activities.
He was keen to highlight the commission’s ongoing focus on and commitment to combating illegal gambling. On this, Rhodes revealed several statistics from the current financial year to demonstrate, with a focus on the online market.
This, Rhodes said, includes referring over 102,000 URLs to Google in reference to unlicensed online activity in Britain. Of this total, 64,000 sites have been removed by the search engine giant, while 264 websites have been taken down. The latter figure dwarves the total that were taken down in the previous financial year.
Rhodes also set out details of how the commission itself is addressing illegal gambling. He said in the financial year to date, the regulator has issued over 770 cease-and-desist and disruption notices. This includes 262 cease-and-desists to operators and 205 to advertisers.
While pleased with this progress, Rhodes said there is “more to do” to tackle illegal activity.
“Our aim is to prevent the illegal market from operating at scale in Great Britain,” he said. “A significant part of our strategy in doing that is to target our efforts as far upstream as we can – at the level of hosts, payment providers, software providers, search engines and others.
“We have spent the last two years in particular not just targeting illegal activity but also building our own resources, skills and capabilities. There is more to do of course and that also is true of others in the sector.”
Commission chief urges more effort from licensees
On this point, Rhodes repeated calls from the commission for licensed operators to support the regulator with its efforts.
This week, the regulator issued a warning notice after flagging incidents of licensed games being used by illegal operators. It once again called on licensees to improve monitoring of business relationships to ensure partners are not facilitating illegal gambling.
Last November, he urged licensees to conduct due diligence on partners to ensure they are not engaged in illegal activity. Rhodes last week said the sector seemingly misunderstood his comments and that he could not understand why licensees would want to work with those supporting illegal competitors.
“While it is not the job of licensed operators to take action against illegal operators, I have firmly encouraged everyone to ensure they have undertaken due diligence regarding their own activities and those of any suppliers they rely on,” he said in his speech.
“If the commission detects illegal activity in any operator – B2C or B2B – we may well immediately suspend their licence. In any event, they face the very real prospect of having their GB licence revoked, which means anything they are supplying to anyone else in Britain will cease immediately.”
Rhodes sees bright future for gambling in Britain
While concerns over illegal activities remain, Rhodes is upbeat about the regulated market in Britain. He referenced the most recent gross gambling yield (GGY) figures which, published in October, revealed record results.
GGY in Q3 – covering the three months to the end of September – hit £1.32 billion ($1.63 billion). This was largely driven by a 16 percent uptick in online slots activity among U.K. gamblers, with this reaching a record high.
Casinos, pro sports team can create meaningful synergy
In Washington, DC or downtown Phoenix, sports fans can get a double whammy—go to a game and visit a casino. In Dallas, Miriam Adelson and Mark Cuban are hoping to create the same sort of destination. The model is good for both parties, said speakers at an ICE panel on Jan. 20.
Adam Sachs, counsel and senior policy advisor for Dentons, joined Brendan Bussmann of B Global Advisors to discuss the issue. The panel was entitled ‘From Sin City to Sport Central: Creating an Intercommercial Gaming Ecosystem.’
“Having a casino connected with professional sports… I think we all help each other,” said Sachs, whose law firm works with professional sports teams and gambling companies. “It’s all fan engagement or consumer engagement. We tend to bring each other to a destination. It’s also good for the economies.”
Sachs maintained that he believes that more is better. While it might seem like having a casino or sportsbook in or next to a sports venue could be at cross purposes, the reality he sees is different.
“Experiences matter, concerts matter, professional baseball games matter,” he said. “Being at a casino and experiencing that rather than doing it on your phone, that matters. From a community perspective and an economic development perspective, the only game in town, the biggest game in town is these experience-based developments and casinos provide a reason to go an area around a baseball stadium 365 days a year rather than 82 baseball games, 82 days a year provide an opportunity for people to pour into these venues before or after.”
In some states, partnerships mandated
Across the U.S., sports betting has proliferated since the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act was overturned in 2018. In some cases, lawmakers have required that wagering platforms and retail sportsbooks be tethered to professional sports venues. So far, at least seven states allow for sportsbooks at or adjacent to pro venues. The latest is Missouri, where voters legalized in November. In neighboring Kansas, digital betting has been legal since 2022.
In Missouri, as in Washington, DC, there will be exclusive zones around sports stadiums. In some of those zones, only the operator connected to the venue will be available.
Whatever the regulatory setup, Sachs is on the forefront of encouraging partnerships between professional sports and casinos in Kansas City.
“Frankly, (pro teams and casinos do) compete against each other in places like Kansas City, where you have four or five land-based casinos not tied to the stadium,” Sachs said. “People are not going to the ballpark as much as they used to because they have these other entertainment options, but if you concentrate that activity (you attract more people). The more people around, too, the safer a community is. So you get this vibe created by the gambling operations and the sports operations. You not only build up revenue for the public entities, you enhance public safety.”
Where sportsbooks and pro venues intersect
The new Missouri law requires that digital betting platforms be tethered to either existing casinos or professional sports venues. The question for cities in Missouri is which operators will partner with professional teams and if those operators will build out retail sportsbooks.
In Washington, DC the William Hill Sportsbook at Capital One Arena in July 2020 became the first book in a pro sports venue.
Since then, others have opened. Caesars Sportsbook has opened at Chase Field in Phoenix, FanDuel has opened at Footprint Center in Phoenix and at the United Center in Chicago, Penn Entertainment has a sportsbook at Kansas Speedway and DraftKings has opened retail sportsbooks at Wrigley Field and TPC Scottsdale.
Pro sports remaking Las Vegas
In Las Vegas, T-Mobile Arena opened in 2016, marking a key change in the politics of America’s gaming capital. Home to the NHL Golden Knights, the arena was wedged between the then Monte Carlo and New York, New York. The location puts fans steps from casinos and sportsbooks. Since then, the NFL Raiders moved into Allegiant Stadium in 2020. That venue is across the highway from the Strip.
In 2028, a second Strip sports venue will debut. The Oakland Athletics’ $1.75 billion ballpark will open on property the team will share with a Bally’s casino resort. The land is owned by Gaming and Leisure Properties.
“I saw what happened when we built T-Mobile, I saw what happened when we built Allegiant,” Bussmann said. “T-Mobile was really about bringing locals back to the Strip. Not necessarily for a game, but for dinner or for other things along the way when they go to a Golden Knights game.
“You see the same thing with Allegiant, but it is much more with the tourists. You go into a Raider game and there is tremendous energy in the city that day, not just from the locals, but from the people from where the (opposing) team is. It’s creating those synergies from between those different sectors that comes from drawing people more to a venue offering a complete entertainment experience, whether that be gaming or sports or F&B… it gives something for everyone in that center of entertainment.”
Sachs: Better together
In Sachs’ experience, sports franchises get the “benefit of the doubt” from government and citizens for all of the “goodwill,” economic investment and growth and philanthropy that they provide to communities. Gambling companies have an “opposite” experience. The industries can learn from each other and create a whole that it is bigger than the sum of its parts.
Sachs said: “If you get those two together on the same page and get the public relations strategy together synergistically, the chances of success in the long run are far greater.”
How should regulators address the illegal market? With collaboration and enforcement, panellists say
A group of international gaming experts converged at ICE Barcelona on Jan. 20 to discuss the enigma of the illegal market and how to combat it. The biggest priorities, they said, were open lines of communication and sufficient resources.
The discussion, moderated by H2 director David Henwood, featured panellists from around the world:
- Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, chair of the French Gambling Authority (ANJ)
- Bashir Are, CEO of the Lagos State Lotteries & Gaming Authority
- Gilbert Remulla, director of the Philippine Gaming and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor)
- Lisa Osofsky, former director of the U.K. Serious Fraud Office
“Is (the illegal market) growing? Yes, in most European jurisdictions,” Falque-Pierrotin lamented at the top of the discussion.
Citing Covid and more competitive offerings as reasons for this growth, she acknowledged the difficulty of fighting an uphill battle. Regardless, the fight is necessary.
“If you don’t fight, the legitimacy of the regulation is damaged,” she maintained. In terms of comparable size, she estimated the black market to be about 10 percent of the regulated market. In the Philippines, Remulla said it’s about half, down from previous levels of 90 percent or higher.
Communication, cooperation key to success
All panellists spent time detailing the importance of working together to tackle a global conundrum. Each regulatory body by itself has finite resources, they said, but the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
“If there’s no cooperation, there’s no way you can fight illegal gambling,” Are asserted. “The illegal industry is always going to be ahead of the regulation.”
Osofsky gave input from a law enforcement perspective and noted that part of the problem is fighting against an enemy that is hard to define effectively. A presentation slide gave examples of black-market revenue estimates from around the world and how much they varied.
In addition to international communication, domestic teamwork is also key to stopping the momentum of the illegal market – Remulla explained that Pagcor is limited in its police powers but has made great strides thanks to help from other government agencies. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. last year shut down the country’s offshore gaming industry, and Pagcor is divesting its gaming operations to focus solely on regulation.
Solution can include both business and regulation
In addition to federal buy-in, Remulla also advocated for a more favorable business environment. Dangling the carrot of lower tax rates can be more effective than the fear of prosecution, he argued.
Finding a regulatory balance that protects players and allows companies to innovate is also part of the overall puzzle. Often the biggest allure of the illegal market is better odds or offerings unavailable elsewhere. This is despite the lack of KYC protocols and other risks, one panellist said.
Artificial intelligence is a unique technology that can help solve the problem or add to it. It is expected to become a useful tool in regulators’ arsenal but the consensus was that this will take time and experimentation.
Suppliers also have role to play in combating illegal market
The role of suppliers and the need to enforce their licensing and vetting was another theme noted by all. Are in particular was adamant that suppliers must be held to the same standards as operators to ensure that the fight is prioritized industry-wide.
When asked by iGB about payment providers, Falque-Pierrotin said it is important to start having conversations with all stakeholders in online gambling. In order for things to improve, she said, regulators have to have “the power and the resources” to command respect from all involved. This includes not just payment providers but also search engines, social networks and more.
“They understand it’s in their interest as well,” she said.