Interesting events of ICE London 2024
From February 6 to 8, London hosted the key event in the iGaming industry - ICE London 2024. The international exhibition of the gambling industry will be remembered this year for the discussion forum, the number of exhibits and attendance records. It was not without interesting events that will be on the rumor mill for a long time to come.
The main thing about ICE London 2024
ICE Totally Gaming has ended its historic presence in London and will be moving to Barcelona in 2025. Before we go any further, let's take a look back at what it was like this year. The organizers of the exhibition, as always, strived for scale, but this time they managed to surpass themselves. To confirm this, we suggest taking a look at the numbers:
- 811 industry representatives;
- 75 exhibitor countries;
- 600+ exhibitors;
- 30+ sponsors;
- 1 ICE VOX conference.
Clarion Gaming was responsible for the organization of the exhibition, as it has been for the last few years. Over 40,000 attendees visited ICE London over the 3 days - 4 large-scale halls and 1 for conferences were used for this purpose. Most of the visitors were focused on getting acquainted with the exhibits of popular companies, but neither the conference nor the speeches of individual speakers were left unattended.
Let's return to the exhibitors. Considering the total number of exhibitors, it is easy to get lost in this list. We suggest to single out a few leading companies, to which the exhibition was a close attention. These are such gambling brands as:
- Amusnet Interactive;
- Apollo Games;
- Betwinner;
- EasyPay System;
- ELK Studios.
The stands of these companies stood out for their original approach. Instead of just telling about the novelties, the organizers put the main emphasis on the visual and technological components. Virtual reality tools were used for a reason - all to attract attention to their exhibits.
Top of ICE London 2024
Given the scale of the exhibition, it is not surprising that in 3 days the organizers managed to combine several conferences at once. They are devoted to different topics and respectively cover different aspects of gambling. Now we will tell you about them in detail.
ICE VOX World Regulatory Briefing
This conference annually addresses the key issues of the industry and 2024 was no exception. The conference was held in several stages, considering:
- a workshop on the customer journey in iGaming;
- a series of lectures on gaming security;
- a master class on 'Entering new markets';
- a workshop on innovative lotteries.
The scale affected the briefing as well, as it was possible to discuss 20+ critical and important issues for the development of the industry - from economic regulation to cybersecurity. Based on this, here are our conclusions from the briefing:
- An innovative approach in gambling is needed. Attracting players is becoming more difficult every year, as is keeping their attention and loyalty.
- Regulation remains an issue. The best solution is international or harmonized regulation across national borders.
- Attention to player vulnerability. While last year experts discussed how to reduce the risk of ludomania among users, this year the focus was on player vulnerabilities and potential harm from illegal operators.
Within the ICE VOX panel discussion the issue of regulation was also discussed. Here the experts came to a consensus. Thus, regulatory commissions, including national ones, should take into account technological novelty and go towards operators.
WBR or World Regulatory Briefing
The issue of legality for the gambling industry remains relevant even in countries where it is very strict. It is easy to explain: illegal operators have long ago learned to circumvent all sorts of requests and continue to be active. To offset this, the experts at WBR 2024 propose the following solutions:
- harmonized regulation between different countries, including the EU;
- international cooperation to address common challenges;
- additional measures to check players for compliance;
- creation of a single regulatory commission for individual regions;
- regulation of the gambling industry in various aspects;
- strengthening the protection of slot machines against hacking.
The regulation of the industry in Asia, India and Brazil was not left without attention during the briefing. Now gambling in these regions is at the peak of popularity and more and more casinos and operators are entering new markets. Therefore, there are a lot of questions - from attracting players to the nuances of payment processing and withdrawal of winnings.
Master class: Entering new markets
We mentioned gambling regulation in Brazil and Asian countries for a reason. At ICE London 2024, a separate master class was dedicated to entering new markets. It addressed the following issues:
- Exploring Africa - the African gaming market from the inside, the issue of regulation and assessing user demand;
- opening of Canada - strategies for iGaming business entry in Canada, payment processes;
- global market - creation of a single strategy for all countries, localization of business processes, AI for the development of technical documentation.
Legal aspects of the industry were not left out of the master class. Invited experts focused on how to legally operate casinos in regions where the industry is not yet regulated. The cultural differences between audiences in different countries were also discussed.
Results of ICE London 2024
Given the scale of the exhibition and its diversity, we suggest highlighting its results. This will help to better understand in what vector the gambling industry around the world will develop further and what players should expect.
Artificial intelligence in priority
Hardly anyone will be surprised that the active development of AI has affected gambling entertainment. At the exhibition it was not only discussed, but even presented specific solutions. For example:
- audience segmentation and recommendation systems;
- marketing models that predict audience behavior;
- chatbots that automate customer service;
- systems for detecting fraud at the verification stage.
We should separately note the growing popularity of Probably Fair technology. Its effectiveness back in 2019 was proven on the example of the Aviator game from the provider Spribe. Therefore, it is highly probable that this technology will replace the usual random number generators, as it offers fairer game conditions.
Crypto trends are still relevant
The active use of cryptocurrency by players remains relevant in 2024. There is a high probability that the next 5-7 years this trend will definitely not go down. ICE participants note the growing demand for cryptocurrency betting. If earlier crypto was used only for payments, now some casinos offer full-fledged tournaments with cryptocurrency prize pools and even NFT prizes.
The trend of active use of cryptocurrency in casinos has also received rapid growth due to legalization in many countries. Right now, the cryptocurrency market is still in its infancy. As this payment method gains legal status, more and more online casinos will become involved in this sector.
Strengthening protection measures
The active development of the gambling market does not do without increased activity of fraudsters. This was also noted during the ICE London 2024 exhibition. There are many risks for the gaming industry - here are the main ones among them:
- cyber fraud;
- organized crime;
- bypassing verification;
- use of third-party software;
- illegal gambling;
- software hacking.
The security of player data remains a priority. In our experience, casinos are gradually moving away from the usual protection measures and specifically strengthen them. In some aspects, users may be a little discomfort, but compensation for the inconvenience will be 100% security of personal and payment information.
The international exhibition ICE London 2024 clearly showed that the gambling industry continues to actively develop and is definitely not at a stagnant stage. World technologies affect the gambling sphere, so it remains only to guess what AI will bring or what trends will be used by providers. So see you at ICE London 2025 in Barcelona.
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