Interview with Keith O’Loughlin, Sr. VP Sportsbook & Platforms, SG Digital

Your parent company Scientific Games is already one of the major suppliers to the US gaming industry. How big an advantage is this to SG Digital?

It’s a huge advantage, we know the market very well, we’ve some great people in the market, we’re regulated in pretty much every state across the US.  We’ve got officers right from the east coast to the west coast.  We’ve been preparing for the US market to open up for sports betting for a long time, so we think it’s a huge advantage.

Everyone is getting very excited about the US. Is the hype real?

I think the hype is real actually, but it’s not going to be as quick as everybody says, and it’s going to be different.  Sports in the US is much about entertainment than just a short game like a soccer game here is 90 minutes, quick half-time.  Whereas in the US games can be between two hour and four hours, there’s a lot of breaks.  There’s a lot of razzmatazz and entertainment and it’s the same when you go into casinos in the US, it’s much more about entertainment.  The sports books in the US have got a bar, they’ve got TVs everywhere, they’ve got prices coming through in real time.  When you go to a betting shop in the UK, it’s much more transactional, and while it gives a good experience to customers it’s not quite at the same level.

Will this be the biggest betting market in the world?

Yeah I absolutely can, because I think betting and entertainment goes hand-in-hand.  For the US a fantastic with service that they give to customers and I think from a betting perspective, it just adds to that service, that’s what it’s about, betting has always been a side product for sports and it’s about enjoying your sport and having a flutter on the side.  The way that Americans do sports, betting is a perfect side product for that.  so I think that it will be huge, I think if you consider that it’s going to be different across each state, it’s going to have different nuances and different regulations in each state.  So I think it will take a long time, but it will actually be the biggest market in the world.

What can you say about Betting on Sports 2018?

I think it’s a really fantastic event because I don’t think there’s any other event that you get all of the key people in the industry in one place.  It’s taken me 20 minutes to go from one end of the hall to the other, because you meet everybody as you’re walking through that you know. So time to get together, have Facetime, in the last 20 minutes I’ve met five people who we both said, oh we must catch up because we’ve been wanting to catch up for a long time.  That doesn’t happen on email, it doesn’t happen on conference calls. So to be able to get people together is hugely advantageous.  To be able to see what’s happening in the industry is brilliant.  So I think all of that together and London is a great venue for that.

What do you think about Betting on Sports America 2019?

Yeah, I think the product that the guys have put together for betting on sports is brilliant and bring that to the US where the market they just don’t really understand the depth of what sports betting is about yet.  This is a brilliant way to educate people and to inform people, and everybody is so excited about betting in the US, and everybody is trying to lap up that knowledge and that information and meet people and want to know what it’s all about.  This is the perfect place.