"Big Stage: Leaders panel" one of the talks held at CasinoBeats Malta

Speakers considered how the sector has coped with the coronavirus onslaught, the opportunities it has brought and the threats that remain.

Dino Stranomitis, COO of Altenar, was the moderator of the talk. Speakers were: Jesper Karrbrink, Chairman, Green Jade Games, Ariel Reem, CEO of Genesis, Alexander Martin, CEO of SKS365 and Pontus Lindvall, CEO of Betsson.

Stranomitis asked Alexander Martin to talk about the situation in Italy due to Coronavirus, because his company SKS365 operates land-based casinos in the country. "When Italy began with restrictions, we prepared our organization in the different countries for the lockdown. At first, we only saw a 10% decline of the activities; nevertheless then it came quite quiclky, so, as you might remember, at the beginning of March the entire North of Italy has been starting to be a red zone and to block completely. And then, a day after, it went all over Italy. There was a decree that enforced us to close all our 1,000 shops in Italy", he said, and added that online gambling has grown. "On the last month, we took in a lot of event that weren't available in Italy in particular, like table tennis, so we´ve seen a lot of attraction. We have a very loyal customer base. We have seen a major shift from pre-match to live betting."

Pontus Lindvall presented his approach and explained what happened in Betsson when the pandemic started. "We followed the local regulations as they were presented in the different countries. We had to shut all our offices at the same time, sending 1,800 people to work from home. That has been working out pretty well. A 30% of our revenues come from sportsbetting, and all the major leagues were shut down in a very short time frame, so we lost our revenues in sportsbetting in over a week. We managed to keep a 10% to 20% of our revenues in table tennis and e-sports, that were still available." He added that when customers don't have sportsbets available they move to casinos. "But now major sports leagues are opening up and we are going to go to a normal state of operation".