This week has been an incredibly productive week for the entire gaming industry. With the coronavirus upending gaming operations around the world, anyone even remotely tied to the industry has had to scramble to adapt. The SBC Digital Summit helped give everyone an opportunity to see how the space is dealing with the current situation and what lies ahead when the recovery begins. Attendance for all the seminars during the summit was incredible, and everyone has come away with a new appreciation of how resilient the gaming community is. There’s little doubt that this summit will go down in history as one of the most productive gaming conferences ever held.
Getting things started on Day 1, April 27, was a look at sports gambling and how it will weather the COVID-19 storm. Sports have been temporarily forced out of commission, which means sports gambling has taken a nosedive, as well. Next up was a dive into how gambling, in general, will be able to bounce back from the coronavirus. It’s obvious that the hill will be challenging to climb, but not impossible.
Just because casinos and sportsbooks are essentially offline right now, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t gambling options available. This was evidenced by a panel on Day 1 that looked at the various options that have been available. Options may be limited, but there has still been some activity, and things are slowly beginning to pick up. Wrapping the day up was a look at eSports, as well as how the coronavirus has impacted Spain’s gaming scene.
Day 2 started with a keynote address by Jesper Kärrbrink, the chairman and creative director of Green Jade Games before moving into online casino and poker in light of the global pandemic. One of the hottest topics of the day was global regulation, which is almost certainly going to find itself the center of attention for a long time to come. Regulators are going to be busy discussing a lot of different aspects of the gaming industry for a while, including live casinos and slot offerings, two topics that were also discussed on Day 2.