What were people talking about at the International Gaming Conference and Expo in Costa Rica? Poker, US legislation and kick boxing!

A couple of presentations and lots of conversation at the five-star Marriot Resort bar focused on predicting the next big trend in the online gambling business. What’s the next poker? Although providers like GameAccount hope Backgammon will be the next game of strategy to get the attention of new online gamblers, Backgammon hardly came up at the Conference. Mahjong was a hot topic though, since it’s already such a huge game in Asia where explosive growth in online gambling is predicted. But as Alex Czajkowski of Sportingbet pointed out “Those millions of Chinese Mahjong players can already go down to the corner and get in on a game any time they want. It wasn’t like that with poker – that’s why online poker has worked so well.”

Will the U.S. regulate gambling? Will they even comply with the recent WTO Ruling in favour of Antigua? Who knows? Who cares?! The big operators, like David Carruthers, the CEO of BetonSports, said they favour regulation but smaller, privately held operators, like Mickey Richardson of BetCRIS, said they’re happy with the status quo. In the end, the only thing everyone agrees on was that nothing significant is likely to happen either way in the U.S. in the next year at least.

The highlight of the event for me was the night BetCRIS took everyone from the Conference to a Costa Rican Kick Boxing event. After being huddled inside the surreal world of the exclusive Marriot Hotel, this was real world Costa Rica! The fighting was intense, especially the girl-on-girl bout, but only one match got bloody. At one point though, half the grandstand jumped in the ring when the referee was allowing a guy to pound his opponents head a little too long for their liking. BetCRIS was taking bets all night too, and we all know how having a little money on it adds to the excitement!

Calvin Ayre was notably absent from a conference held in his hometown but suffice to say everyone was still speculating on whether or not the recent raid on his San Jose residential compound was totally legit or not.

There were no revolutionary announcements or controversial debates at IGCE, but it’s always interesting when senior executives from the world’s big online gambling companies get together, even if it is mostly just to enjoy a quick company-paid tropical retreat.