SBC Summit North America is still a couple of weeks away, but attendees are already amping up for the big event. Continent 8’s Chief Product Officer Justin Cosnett spoke about how much he is looking forward to the gathering.
For Cosnett and Continent 8, the opportunities in the United States and Canada are still plentiful. Gathering the industry together to explore those opportunities is something Cosnett sees as invaluable for anyone in gambling.
What makes SBC Summit North America stand out as an event?
SBC Summit North America is dedicated to the fast-growing online sports betting and casino industry in both the USA and Canada, making it an exciting event. Also, it is located in New Jersey, one of the first and largest legal online gambling states in the US, and brings together executives and representatives from all of the major operators, suppliers, and other stakeholders, making it a must-attend event for Continent 8 and many others.
Not only does it provide vital networking opportunities, but it also allows delegates and attendees to share and exchange ideas and experiences about how to continue to drive growth in what is undoubtedly one of the biggest legal online gambling markets in the world.
We are hugely excited to be sponsoring that amazing networking event once again and this year we have taken this a step further by taking a booth too. If you are attending the summit, make sure to stop by – Booth 221.
What would you highlight as the biggest opportunity in the US gaming industry over the next couple of years?
The scale and scope of new states embracing regulation and opening their doors to legal online sports betting and iGaming for the first time. There is no other market in the world that compares when it comes to untapped potential and the desire among lawmakers in the vast majority of states to get in on the action. We are currently live in 24 US states with many more to go online over the coming months.
That is why we have such an ambitious and aggressive roadmap for the US and Canada and remain committed to our first-to-market strategy so that our customers are able to enter a state or province from day one. This has seen us become the managed hosting, connectivity, cloud, and security partner for the vast majority of tier one operators in North America, including FanDuel, Scientific Games, DraftKings, PointsBet, 888 Holdings, BetMGM, and OpenBet to name a few.
What industry innovation will capture the most attention in the next 12 months?
Industry innovation comes in all different forms but for us, innovation is about constantly strengthening our Connect, Manage and Secure product suites to ensure that we not only meet customer needs and expectations but exceed them. This has led us to introduce countless innovations to the market, but the most recent is our Gaming Exchange. This is a private internet and an exclusive community exchange for iGaming businesses in North America and beyond, allowing them to connect faster and more securely than over the standard internet and with no need for additional configuration. It means that our customers can connect directly to other Continent 8 customers via an MPLS Layer 3 VPN across our private backbone network, rather than the public internet. It has only just launched but has already captured a lot of attention.
What core challenges do you help solve for your customers/partners?
Continent 8 protects the world’s most valuable information via a suite of managed hosting, connectivity, cloud and security solutions. Our ultimate goal is to be the leading global service provider specialising in high availability, real-time transactional services to operators and suppliers in regulated markets across North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. The foundation of this is our connected network of data centres and strategic points of presence in more than 85 locations around the world covering four continents, which we combine with our 20+ years of experience to deliver a superior service to our customers.
Who have you especially enjoyed working with over the past year?
At Continent 8, we are a customer-centric business, so all of our customers are important to us no matter their size or location. While the continued, rapid expansion has been challenging, we’ve been able to maintain a first-to-market approach to ensure our customers can capitalize on the opportunities available to them. We work with multiple partners, regulators, and specialists along the way, but it’s the hardworking and dedicated Continent 8 team that ultimately makes this happen.
The most enjoyment for me of late has been working with the three or four early-adopting customers of the Gaming Exchange. Being able to show them the power of the analytics and the data dashboard, which allowed us to create the product, is extremely satisfying, and then using that to get some of the biggest industry B2B customers to adopt this new capability.
What are you hoping to learn from the conference at SBC Summit North America?
There’s a jam-packed agenda covering sports betting, iGaming, regulations, and payments. The US iGaming and sports betting market is still nascent, and therefore there are plenty of learnings we can take from hearing from operators, regulatory authorities, and suppliers to the industry.
I’m looking forward to taking part in the session ‘Understanding market entry and compliance’ to discuss the technological infrastructure that powers the industry and how we ensure compliant solutions across multiple states in what is a complex regulatory landscape.