Huddle Up: Continuing Collaboration with American Professional Sports
As sports betting continues to expand in the United States, the National Football League, other professional sports, operators, and regulators collaborate to protect the integrity.  Jonathan Nabavi shares how the NFL approaches the sports betting ecosystem and how stakeholders must address challenges and opportunities together.

Jonathan D. Nabavi, Vice President of Public Policy and Government Affairs, National Football League (NFL)

Match Fixing: When the Uncertain Becomes Certain
Encouraged by recession fears, lingering pandemic concerns and other challenges, organized crime has found lower divisions of football, tennis, basketball and other sports as a source of income. These criminals often involve an individual link – i.e., a former player or coach - with active players, coaches or even executives of a club to ensure a certain outcome of a match to maximize a bet's financial return. And as sport develops in our digital world, new means of sport manipulation are paralleled by evolving tools to catch them. Featuring representatives from betting and gaming who will address match fixing, fraudulent player behavior and the negative reputational and economic impact they have on sports betting, our panel will shed light on the growing threat match fixing presents and discuss what the global gaming industry can do to address the negative effects of match fixing. 

Moderated by Brett Abarbanel, the Executive Director of the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) International Gaming Institute, the panelists include:

• Santiago Asensi, Managing Partner, Asensi Abogados
• Matt Fowler, Director of Integrity, IBIA 
• Nick Oliver, Intelligence Manager (Betting Integrity) at the Gambling Commission of Great Britain / UK SBIU
• Steve Paine, Co-Founder & Director, Evolve Sports Integrity

"As online gambling grows, so does the financial crime risk:”* a look at financial crime detection and prevention best practices
With extensive anti-money laundering compliance programs rigidly followed by bricks and mortar operators to ensure compliance with government requirements, the attention is now shifting to whether current measures used to detect online financial crime and fraud are sufficient to handle online gambling’s rapid expansion.  

Featuring financial crime experts from the US, UK and EU, this panel will consider whether the boom in online gambling across the US creates opportunities for criminals to launder money or engage in other criminal acts like fraud. Next, the panelists will reflect on lessons learned in the UK and across Europe, with emerging best practices that could be applied in the US. 

Moderated by Bob Boyle, Senior Manager for Assurance Services and Forensic & Integrity Service for Ernst & Young (EY), the panelists are:

• Gabrielle Angle, Director – Government Relations & Licensing, Geocomply
• Alex Costello, Vice President – Government Relations, American Gaming Association
• Andrés Galiñanes, Associate Director, Forensic, Grant Thornton
• Will Monk, Chief Product Officer, Napier

*Wall Street Journal, 8/29/22

Lunch

All About the Money – Innovations in
Cashless Gaming and Payment Technology
Over the past year, major strides have been made in how players are allowed to pay for gaming, entertainment and resort services, signaling a radical shift in the way global gaming operators can approach financial transactions. This shift in technological capabilities, along with a favorable shift in regulatory and network environments, is revolutionizing the “money” side of the business with game-changing efficiencies, tighter controls and higher player visibility. This diverse panel will discuss the ups and downs of these advancements, considering potential innovations like mobile wallet and cashless solutions that could be applied seamlessly across jurisdictions if regulatory alignment and approval were achieved.

Moderated by Jennifer Carleton, Chief Legal Officer for Sightline Payments, the panelists include:

• Patrick Bland, Chief Technology Officer, Acres
• Mark Hemmerle, VP - Gaming & Compliance Counsel, Shift4
• Caroline Torrisi, Deputy General Counsel, Massachusetts Gaming Commission 
• Barrie VanBrackle, Partner, Latham Watkins

The Expansion of Free-to-Play Gaming and Real Money Skill Contests  
The expansion of unregulated digital games in North America continues to create legal and regulatory issues for the US gaming industry.  During this presentation, Bill will discuss how peer-to-peer skill game contests, freemium gaming (a/k/a “social casinos”), daily fantasy sports variants, and online sweepstakes remain unregulated, have self-regulated and in some ways have attracted civil litigation.  He will also discuss the status of Gambling Loss Recovery Act claims in the United States and regulatory interventions as to certain unregulated products and will cover the status and impact of the Coffee v. Google videogame loot box case, the Fortnite settlement, the Apple/Google/Facebook “Simulated Casino” MDL and other developments under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act on the freemium gaming app industry and videogame microtransactions.

Presented by Bill Gantz, Partner, Duane Morris

Ethics Session #2: Ethics 101
Our final panel and second ethics session will focus on highly relevant ethical considerations and hands-on input. What happens when the CEO of a prominent client asks you not to disclose certain information to a regulatory authority? How do you handle a client is surprised that one regulator has shared certain information with other regulators?  What happens to privilege, when emails between you and your attorney were requested, or worse, subpoenaed, by your regulator?   The panel will respond to questions and participate in a collaborative discussion with the audience about optimizing working with regulators in an ethical manner to conclude the content portion of the conference.

Presented by Edward Winkofsky, a Shareholder and Chair of the Greenberg Traurig gaming practices, the panelists include:

• Peter Czegledy, Partner, Aird and Berlis
• Dr. Simon Planzer, Partner, Planzer Law