Lottery-Focused Panel At SBC Summit Next Week To Discuss Digitization, Regulation

When the annual SBC Summit North America rolls into the Meadowlands Expo Center in Secaucus, New Jersey, next week, the lottery industry won’t get its own day-long or multi-day-long track, the way iGaming or sports betting will. But lottery will have one dedicated panel discussion all to itself.

And the chances of fireworks on the panel are definitely not a 1-in-300-million long shot.

Next Wednesday, May 8, beginning at 4:40 p.m., the conference will play host to a scheduled 40-minute panel titled “How Lotteries Can Hit the Jackpot: Following Sports Betting’s Example to Work With Regulators and Implement Digitization.”

It is part of the iGaming track on Stage 3 on the middle day of the three-day event at the Expo Center. (Link to get a ticket is right here.)

What is the SBC Summit?

The conference and trade show organized by SBC Events brings together some 5,000 individuals working in the gaming industry.

The biggest name in attendance next week will be NFL Hall of Famer Dan Marino, who will be speaking Thursday morning about his charitable foundation as well as his partnership with a gaming company.

Perhaps just a half-step down from the former Dolphins QB on the celebrity scale, you’ll find Lottery Geeks’ Adam Small, Brett Smiley, and Eric Raskin on the conference floor at various points in the week.

And the panelists are …

Wednesday’s lottery panel will be moderated by William Scott, the chairman of Meridianbet. Scott will be joined by five panelists:

• Tom Metzger: Metzger is the CEO of Lotto.com, a platform for ordering draw and scratch tickets on both mobile- and web-based devices. Lotto.com has grown from four employees when it launched in 2020 to over 170 nationwide and is now available in eight states.
• Akshay Khanna: The co-founder and CEO of Jackpot.com, Khanna is in the same sector of the lottery field as Metzger. Jackpot is a third-party digital courier that launched in 2022 and is now live in six states. Prior to co-founding the company, Akshay was an executive at StubHub.
• Peter Sullivan: Rounding out the trio of competitors in the digital courier space, Sullivan is CEO of Jackpocket, which launched in 2013, making it the first of the courier apps. Jackpocket is available in 18 states plus Washington, D.C., and in February, announced its sale to DraftKings.
• Angela Wong: The vice president of Global Lottery Solutions at GLI, Wong works with lotteries, lottery suppliers, and tech vendors. Before coming to GLI, she was the director of the Montana Lottery, giving her experience from multiple vantage points in the industry.
• Andrew Walter: Walter is the director of legal and business affairs for the sports betting division at the Connecticut Lottery Corporation. Before taking that opportunity, he worked for operator PointsBet as senior director of compliance and regulatory affairs.

So what exactly will the panelists be discussing? The panel description on the SBC Summit agenda reads:

“In order to respond to the influx of sports betting and iGaming operators that might steal their lunch, state lotteries have a whole buffet of opportunities to maintain — and even, in cases such as New Jersey — increase their revenues by digitizing. But why has the approach been so different state by state? Hear from the lotteries themselves on the strategies needed to work with legislators to diversify, and the partnerships to be built with digital operators that will open up a whole new tech-savvy generation to lottery.”

And on top of all that, expect some friendly fire regarding which of the three digital lottery courier services is the best.