Announcement Meister Report on the ICE and LAC London 2013

[The Dude]

Finally:

https://www.casinomeister.com/newsletters/

 

[Westland Bowl]

Interesting write up on the ICE and LAC from you and Maxd. But where there any purpose to ICE other than to annually put up display booths of casino software companies and the like? Did they have informative sessions of industry-related topics and such? Or it basically just a meet-and-greet handshake festival of industry insiders? At least you meet with casino reps to resolve open issues and keep communication lines open. Anyway, I enjoyed reading of your reports.

 

[Simmo!]

Interesting write up on the ICE and LAC from you and Maxd. But where there any purpose to ICE other than to annually put up display booths of casino software companies and the like? Did they have informative sessions of industry-related topics and such? Or it basically just a meet-and-greet handshake festival of industry insiders? At least you meet with casino reps to resolve open issues and keep communication lines open. Anyway, I enjoyed reading of your reports.

ICE offers a conference ticket that also includes access to talks and panels but it is quite a seperate event.

The ICE show has traditionally been a place where vendors of land-based casino equipment show their wares with an online section mixed in. It was gradually infiltrated by online software vendors a few years back. Now of course, B&M and online - or "interactive" as many of them call it - go hand-in-hand for a lot of the suppliers.

Even now, you still don't get the online casinos exhibiting though - the online reps are the software providers, licensing jurisdictions, processors and industry service providers.

LAC is all online and is primarily the online casinos, poker rooms and sportsbooks exhibiting. It's around 1/20th the size of ICE I'd guess. As important as the exhibition are the conference streams: there are 2 streams of sessions running continuously the whole 2 days with individual speakers and/or panels. Unlike ICE, these are free to attend for anyone at the show.

 

[maxd]

Or it basically just a meet-and-greet handshake festival of industry insiders?

Basically yes, but that covers a LOT of ground. Serious issues get discussed, problems get ironed out. Don't forget, the insiders make the whole thing happen. Take the insiders out of the industry and you're left with a bunch of punters looking for a place to play. I can say without hesitation that I do my job better throughout the year directly because of those meet-and-greets. It's easy to be cynical about the whole thing -- I'm not pointing fingers here, just saying -- but the reality is it's invaluable.

For instance this year I wanted to get some first-hand feedback from regulators and operators about our PAB process. In total I probably talked to about a dozen senior people including casino managers, legal council for major regulators, directors, industy consultants, etc. That would not have been possible if I hadn't been able to shake those hands and sit down with those people. Some things work fine over the net, other things require good old fashioned face time. And that's what ICE is for us: face time. The booths and a lot of the rest of that crap are just window dressing, a place to show up.

 

[The Dude]

Just to show you how this industry has grown - here is Playtech's booth at the GIGSE in 2003:



Compare this to 2013: