East Coast Gaming Congress Recap Day 1

The East Coast Gaming Congress entered it's 20th year of providing information and updates from the top organizations in the gaming industry. This year opened with the I Gaming Institute.

After the welcoming address, the keynote presentation was given by Itai Pazner, Head of B2C,

888 Holdings. Mr. Pazner cited the growth in E Commerce along with the potential increase of DFS and social casinos as reasons for optimism. 888 is currently in 9 regulated markets.

The 1st roundtable was the I Gaming: The View from New Jersey. This panel consisted of several top operators and one regulator. It was moderated by Eugene Johnson, Senior Vice President from Spectrum Gaming. The key takeaways  from this discussion were the absence of cannibalization with the online gaming product compare to the brick & mortar. George Rover, Director of Gaming Enforcement for New Jersey indicated that in over 2 years there was not one case of underage gambling.

The sessions were divided for the next panels, so I went to the I Gaming Expansion- Who's Next?

Pennsylvania, California and New York were all mentioned as possible players with different levels of optimism. California and New York are leaning to Poker only in an online gaming environment.

Pennsylvania would mimic New Jersey and do casino games and Poker. None of these states appear ready to leap into action in 2016.

One of the final panels of the day was Attracting Millennials: How to connect with the Next Generation. Each participant on this panel felt that the creation of an integrated resort experience that has non gaming amenities along with gambling is the way to go forward. Operators must have multiple catch points and target the millennial customer differently than a Baby Boomer or Generation X patron.  Victor Rocha, Owner and Editor of Pechanga.net, cited skill based gaming as a way of building the casino floor of the future. Chris Davidson, moderator and VP of Global strategy for MMCY Global had an excellent slide presentation. Sarah Robertson, from Income Access  & Dana Takrudtong, Vice President of Sales for GAN, represented their companies admirably. This was the highlight of the first day at #ECGC20th.

A networking event closed the day. It was held at the Pool at Harrah's Resort in Atlantic City.
                                                                Here is a peek.

                   Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram for updates!
                   Check out my app, Smart Responsible Gaming at thegamingguym.com/

                             My day two recap of the Conference will be on LinkedIn.