THE Isle of Man was well represented at the iGaming Asia Congress in Macau last week.
The event is the official conference and expo for all those involved in online and mobile betting, gambling and lotteries in Asia.
A key date in the calendar for the Manx egaming community, corporate service providers and hosting companies supported representatives of the Department for Economic Development’s e-gaming team.
The Isle of Man Government’s head of egaming Tim Craine was one of the key speakers.
Meanwhile, Manx Telecom was represented by data centres director Stuart Paul, sales director Fergal McKenna and account manager John Dunne, and SMP Partners by group director David Hudson and Lorna Coniglio-Burrows.
Among a long list of major businesses represented at the Congress were 188Bet, Bodog, footballbet.com, Hutchison Global Communications, Sportsbet and Unibet.
Mr Paul said: ‘Social gaming attracted a lot of attention from the industry in general. The challenge ahead is how to monetise this within legal frameworks and push forward with convergence of the social gaming opportunity which is predicted to be a market worth up to $4bn per annum by 2015. Egaming continues to thrive and is still demonstrating significant growth in the Asia markets.
‘Operators who have licences and established businesses in the Asia-Pacific regions are looking at the EU market as their next strategic step.
At iGaming Asia, Manx Telecom engaged in discussions with operators looking at strategic expansion plans that will require global hosting solutions. eGaming now accounts for 8 per cent of the Isle of Man’s GDP with around 700 employees in the sector – figures which indicate the growing importance of egaming to the island’s economy.
Manx Telecom’s Data Centre at Douglas North is regarded as providing a vital role in the island’s strength as an eGaming jurisdiction.
The Douglas North centre offers data security, super fast and highly resilient connectivity, fully outsourced managed platforms, plus expandable hosting, network capacity and cloud-based services.
Mr Hudson said: ‘This is the fourth year running that SMP Partners has attended the conference, and the level of interest this year suggests that the Asian facing e-gaming community has clearly recognised the value of our in-depth knowledge and understanding of their specific market.
‘As a primary contributor to the growth of the island’s gaming sector over the last four years, it is immensely satisfying to see that across the Asian gaming community, the Isle of Man remains the jurisdiction of choice.
The iGaming Asia Congress was held at the Grand Hyatt in Macau from March 12-14.