Hot on the heels of ICE closing its doors for another year, Ted Orme-Claye, Editor of Payment Expert, was joined by SBC’s Content Director, Ted Menmuir, and Joe Beel, SBC’s Senior Marketing Executive, to recap the key talking points from the event.

The first of these was the continuing emergence of crypto in gaming, which was further boosted by the recent re-election of Donald Trump who has long been a vocal advocate for crypto.

Orme-Claye said: “It’s quite an interesting time for the sector. A lot of people are very eager to keep an eye on [crypto] because the value of the sector went up so much after [Trump’s] election.

“It’s going to be interesting to see what policies he brings in, how that impacts it and, potentially, what knock-on effect that could have on gaming.”

Menmuir added that conversations he had at the conference centred around how crypto can be used beyond simply a payment method and instead for other aspects such as ledgers and player tracking.

However, he also warned that the sector has been marred by controversies such as ‘meme coins’ and the gaming sector needs to look past this to see the true value of crypto.

“There are bad actors in that industry but there is good underlying technology,” said Menmuir.

“I think that hopefully this year we will get to a better place where we can start to look at these technologies and see their viability for the industry. I think that’s what’s been driving this change of view in the industry, but also changing the prospects of what might actually happen this year.”

Elsewhere in the episode, the trio also noted that another key talking point was live betting and the emerging technologies surrounding the product.

Menmuir said: “What we’re seeing is that the tech companies are paying much more to get exclusivity on the tech and to use these exclusive data partnerships to create better products.

“I think that’s where the likes of Genius and Sportradar’s battleground is. [They] paid a shedload of [money] for the PGA Tour and WTA, now [they need] to make good frontend products because there’s been too many rip and runs where people just take the cheaper product.”

Reflecting on sports betting trends from the point of view of a consumer, Beel outlined the need for multi-platform technology as players move between mobile and desktop devices.

“Ease of use would be the most important thing for me to consider. Being able to move across platforms and across different applications,” he concluded.