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BH: You need to be careful about what information is shared, because clearly it has commercial impacts on the companies you have licensed. So there needs to be a framework in place to make that happen in the right and proper way, particularly if you’re in an investigatory process. Like any other regulatory process, it will refine and becomesmarter over time. If we were having this conversation in three or four years, maybe the sharing of data would be as significant as the verbal conversations between regulators are today. SP: You’re about to go into your second year as IAGR president. Do you have a vision for the role IAGR can play in terms of setting the agenda for industry regulation? BH: First and foremost, IAGR is a conduit for engagement. We’ve got over 60 different countries here this week. We provide a platform for them to engage, either to listen or to discuss and meet, and there’s clearly an appetite for that. Our role is to respond to what our members are interested in. So it’s not me or the IAGR Board saying, ‘This is what you should be interested in’. We should reflect what our members tell us in terms of putting together our programs of work. When we put a call out for papers to be presented at an event like our annual conference, we clearly see what people are interested in. That’s why there is a big focus on data and AI this year, and that’s why there is a big focus on illegal gambling. And to the extent that people are engaging as we’ve seen this week, it feels like we’re fulfilling our role. SP: Looking forward, what opportunities do you see for IAGR to continue to evolve and become more representative of the industry worldwide? BH: In terms of our membership, that continues to grow. Like many organizations, we had a dip during COVID, but since then, we’ve recovered and are growing again. Clearly, there are lots of opportunities, because new jurisdictions are coming online in terms of regulated gaming all the time. It’s surprising how many people contact us before or as part of their development, because they want those connections. They want to know who to talk to about a particular aspect.
For me, the best thing about the new jurisdictions opening up is that they are able to borrow ideas from around the world. If you look at Ontario, for example, it’s gone out far and wide and thought really hard about what sort of framework it wants. Then, it’s taken some of those aspects and molded it to its own specific outcomes.. Every time someone new comes online, it takes that learning on a step. It’s been really interesting to watch the debate and discussion that’s been going on in Brazil and how the market is evolving there. No doubt we’ll learn a lot from that over the next 12 months. I’m also really looking forward to some of the outcomes of our working groups, particularly around illegal gambling. We had 30 different jurisdictions sign up for that group in the space of a week so there’s clearly interest. It’s one of those areas where collectively, as a group, we must be able to make more progress than we can manage on our own. So I’m really looking forward to the outputs of that work. SP: How do you reflect on the partnership with IMGL? What do the two organizations bring to each other? BH: As an organization, we’ve started to engage more outside of our own conference framework, and it’s part of the reason that we’re collaborating with IMGL on this event. IMGL’s involvement brings exposure to the supply chain of the gambling industry which is shifting all the time. I think we’ve benefited from the perspective of IMGL colleagues. We’re keen to be more in that space so I’m sure we’ll continue to collaborate with different parts of the industry ecosystem. When we do we learn more and hopefully others learn more at the same time. Every conference you do comes withrisk. You’re never quite sure how it will end up. You hope that your experience will ensure that you deliver something that’s meaningful. If we had done the program for this week on our own, it would have looked very different from the program we’ve delivered. That’s the benefit of engagement and discussion with IMGL colleagues; we have a stronger program that reflects the breadth of the ecosystem that we’re in. It’s made it much more rounded.
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IMGL MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2024
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