Autumn opens with a fair fully dedicated to betting and igaming: Sbc Summit Barcelona, scheduled from today, 20 September, to 22 September. This year's event “is going to be by far our biggest ever exhibition and conference. Last year was great, but we were restricted in terms of the attendees who could join us for the show. This year, however, we return with a bang and make Barcelona an unmissable event on the calendar of industry professionals”, Dennis Algreen, Sbc's marketing director promises.
The event will take place at Fira de Barcelona Montjuïc. “Given the scale of the event attracting leading industry experts and decision-makers from around the world, the venue will serve as the centre of the international betting and gaming industry for the three days of the trade show and conference. The exhibition floor will feature 200+ exhibitors, the most we ever had, as we will cover all the industry verticals to ensure that every single attendee finds plenty of companies and contacts relevant to them.
Given the size of the exhibition floor and the number of exhibitors, our main priority was to ensure that the delegates' experience is all about convenience and efficiency. That's why we decided to split the floor into five separate zones to make it easier for the attendees to identify relevant leads for their business.
We will have the 'Sports Betting Zone,' the 'Casino & iGaming Zone,' the 'Affiliate, Marketing and Media Zone,' the 'Payments and Compliance Zone,' and the 'Emerging Tech, Blockchain and Metaverse Zone'.
Interest in exhibiting has been so high, that we have had to extend the area for some of these zones”.
Moreover, “apart from focusing on making it easier for the delegates to navigate the area, we set up a separate networking lounge to help facilitate in-person meetings and a dedicated conference stage for each zone, hosting discussions on the hottest topics in each vertical. We have been working hard on creating a truly unforgettable experience for our exhibitors, sponsors, speakers and delegates, which requires a lot of planning. I am excited to share all the event highlights and give you a sneak peek of our speakers, exhibitors and networking parties”.
What are the main features and highlights of Sbc Summit Barcelona?
“The entire industry will be present at Sbc Summit Barcelona, and we certainly had to pull a couple of tricks out of our sleeves to make this experience special for the attendees.
We will have special guests like Molly Bloom, author of the best-selling book 'Molly's Game' which served as an inspiration for the Hollywood movie of the same title starring Jessica Chastain. Molly is known for hosting a series of underground poker tournaments for the rich and famous attracting some of Hollywood's biggest stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Ben Affleck, and Matt Damon.
We thought it would be fun to bring Molly to Barcelona and organise an exclusive invitational-only poker tournament for the industry C-levels. Everyone is pretty pumped about it — it truly is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Speaking of unforgettable experiences, we also have the Sbc Football Championship, just before pre-registration and the networking drinks on Tuesday. We will have twenty teams of industry professionals competing for a trophy at the Rcde Stadium, the home of the Espanyol football club.
This tournament is a great opportunity to start the summit on a positive note, but most importantly, a dream come true for many football fans.
To make this even more interesting, the industry's football teams will be joined by Gaizka Mendieta, former Spanish football star who was voted the best midfielder by Uefa for two consecutive years during his career. Mendieta played for teams like Valencia, Lazio, Barcelona and Middlesbrough and brought Valencia to the finals of the Uefa Champions League not once but twice. Sharing the pitch with someone like Mendieta will definitely be a memorable moment for all participants.
Another thing worth mentioning is that, for the first time, our Sbc Awards ceremony will take place in Barcelona. The location we managed to secure is majestic — the ceremony will take place at the Palau National, home to the National Art Museum of Catalonia on the hill of Montjuic.
Our regular Sbc Awards host Kirsty Gallacher will be also joined by Gaizka Mendieta — securing attendees of the Awards show the chance to meet the famous footballer as well. The awards celebrate the best of the best in the industry with a nice selection of categories dedicated to operators, affiliates, suppliers and payment providers. We had a record-breaking number of nominations this year, and the judging panel has already completed the process of selecting the shortlisted companies in a total of 45 categories.
The awards are a truly unique experience, very lavish, rewarding”.
Sbc Summit Barcelona has a very comprehensive conference agenda, what are the main subjects that will be covered during the conference?
“We will have a massive seven conference stages at the event in Barcelona and a record number of 350+ speakers — all senior executives, industry leaders and carefully selected experts in their fields. As mentioned above, each zone comes with a separate stage, making it much easier for the attendees to focus on the topics that interest them the most. We will also have the 'Big Stage' hosting discussions on betting and iGaming from industry Ceos and the 'Player Protection Stage', where senior executives will cover the ever-important topics surrounding player protection, safer gambling, and regulatory challenges.
In addition, we will have Google representatives joining us at the conference to hold a couple of Masterclasses for our audience. This opportunity is truly valuable for delegates — everyone knows how hard it is to build a successful Seo strategy, especially with so many Google algorithm changes, and even more so how hard it is to create converting paid ads campaigns with multiple restrictions in place.
Overall, I can say that we have managed to secure some top speakers for our keynote sessions, including Molly Bloom discussing the evolution of poker, Shay Segev, Ceo of Dazn, and Johan Tjarnberg, Ceo of Trustly.
Other notable speakers include Jesper Svensson (Ceo, Betsson Group), Paris Smith (Ceo, Pinnacle Sports), Alexander Stevendahl (Ceo, Videoslots), David Flynn (Ceo, Glitnor Group), Maksym Liashko (Ceo, Parimatch Tech), Allan Auning -Hansen (Ceo, Cego/Spilnu.dk), Sam Sadi (Ceo, LiveScore Group), Niels Onkenhout (Ceo, Nederlandse Loterij), Elen Barber (Cmo, Kindred Group), Carmelo Mazza (Ceo, Betaland/Enjobet).
In terms of topics, we are covering all the verticals and all the major trends and challenges in the industry, so I am sure there is something for every delegate on our conference agenda. Our panellists will discuss a variety of topics, including the upcoming winter Fifa World Cup and its importance for acquisition and retention campaigns, emerging market opportunities, Nfts and tokens, blockchain technology, esports, media rights and sports data, slot mechanics, financial institutions and gambling, compliance in global markets.
We understand that with seven stages running simultaneously across the two full conference days, the delegates will not be able to attend all of the panel sessions they would ideally want to follow. However, we have a dedicated app, Sbc Connect, where we will publish all these sessions post-event, to ensure that event attendees get access to all the conference content on demand”.
Who is your target audience for Sbc Summit Barcelona?
“If I wanted to answer your question shortly, I would say that it is the entire industry. Sbc Summit Barcelona is a global sports betting and iGaming show — the word 'global' is key here. We have a massive exhibition floor of 18,000 sqm and expect around 6,000 delegates to join us at the Summit.
We will have around 200 exhibitors from various industry verticals and geographic regions — the majority operate on a global scale. We will have companies like Adyen, Altenar, Amusnet Interactive, Aurum Solutions, BetConstruct, Delasport, Egt Digital, Elbet, Endorphina, Evoplay, Fsb, Golden Race, IDnow, Kiron Interactive, Melbet, Playtech (Casino), Soft2Bet, Sporting Solutions, Sportingtech, Symmplify, Stats Perform, Relax Gaming, SmartSoft Gaming, Truelayer, Trustly, Wazdan.
Our conference agenda is also very diverse and caters to a global audience. We have sessions covering European regions like Dach or Eastern Europe, emerging markets like LatAm (with special sessions covering the 'sleeping giant' Brasil), Asia (with sessions on Japan, India and the Asia-Pacific region), Africa, and North America (the United States and Canada).
Our list of attendees is already looking excellent when it comes to geographic representation. Our 2021 event had representatives from 95+ countries, and we are certainly looking to beat the record this year. We will also hold various gatherings throughout the event to facilitate dialogue among like-minded professionals operating within the same markets or looking into expanding their offerings in emerging regions.
Bringing companies from across the world under the same roof will be hugely beneficial for industry professionals from the emerging markets, as they will get the chance to chat with European operators and suppliers with more experience in regulated markets.
I am confident that the five-zone concept, the diversity of exhibitors and the quality of the speakers make Barcelona an absolute must-attend trade show and conference”.
What are your plans after Sbc Summit Barcelona?
“We will be busy with Sbc Summit Latinoamérica 2022 — our conference and trade show for senior executives in the Latin American betting and gaming industry.
The show takes place in Miami between 1-3 November, attracting retail and online operators from markets such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Uruguay. LatAm is becoming a primary focus for the industry, as the region offers numerous opportunities for suppliers and operators. The conference speakers will discuss the challenges of launching your product in new territories, localised marketing strategies and the latest technologies.
We are also already planning our next year's events. We are preparing for CasinoBeats 2023, which focuses on iGaming development, innovation and strategy (21- 23 March 2023, Intercontinental Malta). We will also have our Sbc Summit North America show following the very successful and record-breaking, in terms of delegates, event in New Jersey. Sbc Summit North America 2023 has been confirmed for May 9-11, as the region's leading sports betting and iGaming event will return in a significantly expanded form at the Meadowlands Exposition Center.
Sbc acquired Canada's premier annual conference and trade show from the current joint owners — Canadian Gaming Association (Cga) and MediaEdge Communications. Therefore, the 2023 edition of the Canadian Gaming Summit will undergo a major change as this will be the first year under Sbc's management. The show will be staged on June 13-15 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. And naturally, our biggest event, Sbc Summit Barcelona, will also return even bigger and better in 2023, and we plan to start working on it as soon as this year's Barcelona show is over”.