Though ICE North America in New Orleans was canceled, a digital conference will take place May 11-15 that mimics the original event, but with an emphasis on COVID-19.
ICE North America, which was set for May 13-14, will be held in New Orleans in spring 2021. No dates have been finalized, according to Clarion Gaming, which produces the conference and tradeshow.
Rory Credland, event director for ICE North America, said that despite the cancellation, Clarion wanted to provide people an opportunity to come together and talk about what’s happening to the gaming industry in light of vast disruptions of the pandemic. ICE North America Digital Week is free of charge: https://www.icenorthamerica.com/ice-north-america-digital-form
“It’s an important time for the industry to get together,” Credland said. “We want to give everyone a chance to learn from one another. We will talk about the current situation and how the industry is coping with that across the land-based, sports betting and iGaming spheres. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. This will stop at some point. How do we get everyone in shape and ready for when that does happen? And with all of these problems, opportunities do exist.”
Credland called the conference sessions an amalgamation of the content planned for New Orleans but spread out over five days via a compressed digital format that doesn’t distract people from their daily work. Not only does it provide people content from sessions, but the conference allows them to network via chat rooms and video calls, he said.
“We’re looking at how we can connect people throughout the day and finish off with a community gathering on that Friday, where we hope everyone joins with a toast to what’s gone on that week. We can’t replicate New Orleans, but we’re going to try and bring everybody together.”
ICE North America, which launched in May 2019 in Boston, is a gathering of sports betting, casino, tribal and affiliate gaming industries.
Each day’s sessions will last about three hours and cover designated topics: iGaming and iLottery on May 11; sports betting and performance marketing on May 12; brick-and-mortar and hospitality on May 13; training for reopening and staff retention on May 14; and May 15 is a wrap of the previous four days with a discussion of where gaming is heading.
Here’s the tentative schedule with speakers and times being finalized: https://www.icenorthamerica.com/ice-north-america-digital-agenda.
On May 11, there will be an update on the casino-gaming industry post-COVID-19 shutdown. A panel discussion will evaluate whether iGaming is a threat to the U.S. gambling ecosystem or is proving its worth more than ever.
As land-based casinos shuttered, New Jersey online casinos and poker rooms set a record in March with $64.8 million in revenue, up two-thirds from March 2019.
“With land-based suffering quite a lot, we will look at how important iGaming is,” Credland said. “What impact does it have on the competition for the share of entertainment dollars? Can we expect iGaming regulation in the short term? We will learn from states that adopted it, like New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and how we can fast-track that in this current climate.”
May 12 leads off on how the coronavirus is impacting the sports betting industry, which has lost most live sports on which to bet. That day marks the two-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that paved the way for states outside of Nevada to offer single-game sports betting.
Credland said the sessions will look at where sports betting stands on the anniversary and how the disruption by COVID-19 will impact the momentum and expansion across the U.S. “With what is happening with COVID, are we going to see a lot of (mergers and acquisitions) because people are trying to survive this unknown?”
Speakers on Tuesday include Seth Young, CIO of Points Bet and Daniel Kustelski, co-founder and CEO of Chalkline Sports.
May 12 focuses on land-based casinos and includes a look at whether illegal machines have been the biggest benefactor of the closures of casinos. Credland said key industry leaders will discuss the reopening of casinos and what should be expected when they do. “What do the casino floor, food and beverage, and entertainment look like?”
Industry leaders have suggested dealers will likely wear masks and gloves and there may be separations between slot machines, and limits are expected on the number of players at table games.
“What is going to happen to staff and how do you upscale that?” Credland said. “Will you be able to get the same type of workforce you had before? I don’t think they’ll be opening right away, but there will be a staggered approach. What does that look like? Are we going to have machines next to each other and screens surrounding them, so people won’t be spreading germs and how does that affect revenue? How we change interacting with people will be interesting.”
Speakers that day include Bobby Soper, president and CEO of Sun Gaming & Hospitality and Colleen Birch, senior vice president of revenue optimization with the Cosmopolitan Las Vegas.
More than 1,000 people have registered for the conference so far and that number is expected to double and triple over the coming weeks, Credland said.
Attendees can ask questions via email during the sessions and afterward. The sessions will be available on replay.
