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About 8 Dragons
The event is positioned as knowledge-sharing infrastructure for the industry rather than a SOFTSWISS sales platform. With SOFTSWISS positioned as host rather than presenter, the focus stays on where senior technologists think the industry should be putting its investment and attention over the next six to twelve months.
Dunn pointed out that ICE saw the same demand last year, with the Innovator Challenge alongside Microsoft and keynotes from the likes of AWS and Huawei.
This year, the team is responding with a new initiative, Hall 7. The launch of Hall 7 represents a stronger platform to drive the next phase of iGaming innovation.
What is 8 Dragons?
“You can go the combative route and ban something that’s federally regulated,” he said. “But what you’ll end up with is a bunch of customers in Texas just going offshore.”
The committee also heard from Brianne Doura-Schawohl, a nationally recognised problem gambling expert. One study cited by Doura-Schawohl found that 52% of Gen Z respondents include sports betting and prediction markets as part of their long-term financial plan.
She also criticised a Kalshi competitor for offering a function that allows minors over 17 to link an investment account with the ability to buy and sell event contracts. A former legislative director for the National Council on Problem Gambling, Doura-Schawohl described the opportunity as “very dangerous” for teenagers susceptible to harm.
How to play 8 Dragons
Helios, a specialist consultant in gambling web traffic, analysed the number of black market websites actively marketing across the 28 markets included in the report, between March and May.
This data was cross referenced with SimilarWeb traffic analysis to confirm the scale of activity. In some markets, the number of illegal sites being actively marketed was much higher than those that have local licences to operate.
This was true of France, Portugal, Netherlands, Germany, Cyprus, Belgium, Spain, among others.