Kirkwood: FYI NGG FAQ

Launching a new event is an exercise in patience and a healthy dose of information overload.  And even still, with all of the marketing and information we try to put out in advance, there are always questions about our motivations and comparisons made to past events.  With Next Generation in Gambling, we encountered a metric ton of confusion that most likely sprung up because of the location.  Here are a few of the most common inquiries we received prior to and in some cases during the inaugural conference:

FAQ Un: Why is NGG in Montréal?
Réponse: One could speculate that it was because we wanted to brush up on our French.  But the truth is NGG is an event focused on the North American gambling market and because of a certain unnamed event, we have established working relationships with vendors and venues in that lovely city. 

FAQ Deux: Is that unnamed event GIGSE?  And what happened to GIGSE?
Réponse: Yes, the unnamed event I referred to in the first answer is GIGSE.  We held GIGSE in Montreal in 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007 which gave us a raft of experience working in Montréal and with our preferred vendors there.  The answer to the second question is a bit less cut and dried.  As anyone that hasn't been living under a rock knows, the 2006 passage of the UIGEA caused a massive shift of focus in the i-gaming industry away from North America and the 2007 GIGSE was living proof after having gone from 1800 delegates in 2006 to roughly a third of that in 2007.  Granted, most industry events would LOVE to have 600+ attendees, but the perception of the 2007 GIGSE was that the market in NA was a goner.  We listened to what the industry was saying, we looked at the business of gambling in NA and concluded that the market wasn't as dead as most believed, but merely living on life support and with some non-traditional medicine and some forward-thinking, there was and is potential for this market.  The industry asked for clarification on laws with respect to i-gaming and got it in the form of UIGEA.  Our thinking was to use the clarification to help educate regulated gambling interests in the NA market determine exactly what they could and couldn't do and most importantly, how they could profit from it.

FAQ Trois: Why was NGG so small?
Réponse: Some consider these smaller events to be much more fulfilling and useful, but I'll humor this question.  It was small for a few reasons, the biggest being that it was a launch event being promoted to business leaders that are or have been wary of the Internets as a means of distribution.  One need look no further than one US Senator explaining the Internet to Congress by calling it "a system of tubes" to know that as smart as some people in important positions are, there is still quite a bit of confusion or simple ignorance about it.  Another reason is because of circumstances outside of our control gave us a very short time to market the event and thus, build the necessary buzz.  In the event industry, there is a critical mass of people needed to make a conference successful and for the launch of NGG, we reached it.  Barely, but we reached it nonetheless.

FAQ Quatre: Why was there no expo?
Réponse: Quite simply, regulated i-gaming in North America is still being explored and is really just on the verge of happening.  Next year, you can bet there will be an expo and it will be populated with companies that are on the cutting edge of i-gaming and are going about it the right way.

FAQ Cinq: Will there be an NGG next year and beyond?
Réponse: Yes and yes.  We learned quite a lot at this first NGG on which we will build an ever more successful event in 2009.  As we saw in several presentations, there are entrepreneurs out there willing to do the heavy lifting needed to give rise to platforms that are legal in North American markets and we'll focus on these as well as policy issues in 2009.  Stay tuned to www.nextgenerationingambling.com for announcements on 2009 dates and venues.