During the final day of the SBC Barcelona Summit, Sam Brown, chief commercial officer at Hero Gaming, raised concerns over US slot consumption and how it would affect the European market. 

Speaking as part of ‘The art of slot management’ panel, Brown turned the attention towards the end of the panel to the future regulations in regards to the US market: “Perhaps something controversial but one thing that would concern me is that the current consumption of games in the US is very old fashioned. 

“The types of games and content that they are consuming on maths are very old maths, very old titles and models. So my concern is if suppliers want a piece of that action are they going to spend considerable amounts of their time re-engineering older and less European focused type games? 

“For the likes of us who are operating outside of the US due to the punchy regulations and costs and barriers of entry are we going to suffer with the supply we get in Europe because they focus their energy on a whole new wave of people playing really old fashioned non European mechanics.”

Offering his own opinion on the US market, Daniel Mitton, head of casino at Dunder and Kazoom, believes providers in the future will aim towards innovation in sportsbook cross sell: “I can very much see providers in the future going towards product innovation aiming at sportsbook cross sell I would say in the USA, looking at another avenue in virtual sport or slots specifically designed to yield results from cross sell campaigns,” he noted. 

“Given the fact the mass majority of the revenue from the US markets is yielded from the sportsbook sector, so I can see them focusing mainly on that over the next three to ten years.

“In the gambling industry the landscape is constantly changing with the new regulated markets, Germany just around the corner and tighter regulations from larger markets such as Sweden and the UK. 

“The providers themselves are limited in regards to looking at innovation on new products and features inside the games and mechanics and I would say they are mainly held up to catering to those regulation stipulations and making sure those products are compliant to those markets in the coming years. 

“I wouldn’t expect too much innovation coming out of those providers with the strict regulations coming into force over the next couple of years.”

Mitton and Brown were joined on the panel by Marco Castaldo, CEO of Microgame and Stefania Mincu, head of casino at Ellmount Interactive with Steve Schrier, CEO of Sales Tribe, moderating.

Earlier in the session, the panel were asked what the most important aspect in terms of relegation of a slot product with Mincu stating that the most important component is knowing your audience. 

“The most important thing for us is knowing your audience, seeing how perceptive they are and knowing their preferences. We did build different profiles for our players based on their value location and their location,” she said. 

“We noticed that there are regions, for example northern Europe  are less receptive to newer and flashier content and we were careful to provide them with a more classic and land-based feel.”

SBC Summit Barcelona – Digital takes place over four days this week (8 – 11 September) and features four main zones – Sports Betting, Casino & Gaming, Payments & Compliance, and Affiliate & Marketing – each of which have their own conference tracks, networking roundtables and interactive expo halls. 

Click here to secure your free pass for the betting & gaming industry’s largest ever virtual event.