Highlights from the past year
The Global Gaming Awards’ Event Manager looks back at industry highlights from the past 12 months.
Last year marked the tenth anniversary of our flagship Global Gaming Awards event in Las Vegas which, naturally, made us look back and reflect on the past decade and how the industry changed in that time.
Not only did the industry evolve phenomenally but it keeps on growing faster and faster with each passing year. In the time between the Global Gaming Awards Americas in October last year and now, so many things happened that we don’t have enough pages in this magazine to discuss them all. However, these are the ones that stick in my mind…
Let’s start with sports betting, which is still the most talked-about vertical today, six years since PASPA was overturned. 38 states and Washington DC now cater to sports bettors. The American Gaming Association reported that for FY23 sports betting achieved new records for handle ($119.8bn) and revenue ($10.9bn), up 27.8% and 44.5%, respectively.
We saw a few new entrants seek to disrupt the sports betting status quo with Fanatics and ESPN Bet entering the scene. Other operators, such as Kindred Group, Evoke (formerly 888 Holdings) and Betway announced their decision to exit the North American sports wagering market.
Elsewhere, iGaming moved a tiny bit forward in March this year when Rhode Island became the seventh US state to launch iGaming with the operating monopoly given to Bally’s Corporation.
The Tribal gaming sector also had a record 2023 with the National Indian Gaming Commission reporting $41.9bn in gross gaming revenue in FY2023, the highest in Indian gaming history, surpassing 2022’s previous record.
The Seminole Tribe made history by launching craps, roulette and sports betting last December at all three Seminole Casinos in South Florida. That, however, was not the only historic moment for the Seminole Tribe of Florida.
Its Hard Rock brand, which acquired the iconic Mirage Hotel & Casino from MGM Resorts for $1.075bn, officially began transforming the property into Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas. After 34 amazing years, on July 17 this year, Las Vegas said goodbye to one of the resorts that ushered in a new era for the city when it opened. Now we wait for a nearly 700-foot guitar-shaped hotel to grace the Vegas skyline in 2027.
As The Mirage closed, two new luxury resorts opened their doors in Sin City – the $3.7bn Fontainebleau and the $750m Durango Casino & Resort.
On the supplier side, we saw amazing new products such as Interblock’s revolutionary Smart Pit and Aristocrat Gaming’s highly anticipated NFL-themed slot machines hit the casino floors and captivate players across the country.
Away from the United States, Ontario’s iGaming market reported remarkable growth in its second full year of operation with revenue reaching CA$2.4bn. The success of Ontario has made other Canadian provinces explore iGaming with Alberta’s Minister of Service and Red Tape Reduction confirming at a conference earlier this year that the province is moving forward with plans to open the online gaming market.
Over in South America, all eyes are on Brazil. In December last year, the country’s Senate, at long last, passed a bill regulating and establishing taxes on sports bets. The Brazilian regulator is confident that legal online gambling will go live in the country on January 1, 2025. Experts and analysts already predict that Brazil is poised to become one of the biggest sports betting markets in the world.
Since December, suppliers have been ramping up their products for the Brazilian market while operators are working on getting their licenses. Kaizen Gaming, the owner of the Betano brand, became the first company to apply for an operating license in Brazil. MGM Resorts also recently announced plans to launch BetMGM in the South American country next year, after joining forces with Grupo Globo, Latin America’s largest media group, to seek a sports betting and iGaming license in Brazil.
Another South American market that generated a lot of interest is Peru, which approved new online casino and sports betting regulations in October last year. The country’s Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism revealed that it received 145 license applications within just a month.
The list of industry highlights from the past 12 months goes on and you will find plenty more in the next pages, where we present to you the achievements of the best suppliers and operators from the Americas.
The Global Gaming Awards are the only industry Awards that give a reason why each company is nominated, and that reason relates to achievements in the relevant region (in this case – the Americas) and from the past 12-18 months.
At the start of the year, we asked companies to tell us why they are amongst the industry’s best, share what new and innovative products they launched and how they performed overall.
We were overwhelmed by the number of shortlist-worthy submissions we received. After a long and difficult review of nominations, submitted by companies, we narrowed down the final Shortlist to 10 nominees for each company category and 25 for American Executive of the Year.
Congratulations to all those who made it to the final Shortlist – this is already a phenomenal achievement as the competition has been fierce!
We ensured that the best of the best were shortlisted and we left the rest in the capable hands of our stellar Judging Panel.
The Global Gaming Awards have the most impressive Judging Panel with 100 senior industry executives, all with years of experience in the Americas, choosing the winners. Thank you to each and every one of the executives who agreed to take the time and participate in the voting for this year’s Global Gaming Awards. Your contribution is invaluable!
The voting process is independently adjudicated by KPMG in the Crown Dependencies so those of you who walk off the stage with an award on October 7 in Las Vegas can be certain that you have truly earned the recognition.
– Mariya Savova, Event Manager, Global Gaming Awards
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