The event, which this year was held at the Westin Hotel in Valencia, was inaugurated by Inmaculada Domínguez, Director General of Taxes and Gaming of the Generalitat Valenciana, who highlighted the recovery of the sector and pointed out the importance of education "as an instrument to prevent addictive behaviour" and also the need to "guarantee the full economic activity of the sector in our territory". In this sense, the Director General of Taxes and Gambling pointed out that the improvement of the industry in the Comunitat "requires the collaboration of everyone".

A collaboration which, according to the participants at the first round table, entitled The Gaming Industry in the Valencian Community, has not taken place in recent years. According to Juan José Tébar, vice-president of the Valencian Association of Gaming Machine Operators (Asvomar), currently, with the new Consell, "we are seeing that we are being listened to and that we can talk to them and convey our concerns, and support responsible gambling and training within the sector. Cooperation is essential between the two. The new administration has made a good start; the previous ones gave us a hard time, and I am grateful for the change".

An aspect also highlighted by the president of Asvomar, Luis Portolés, "with the previous administration, we didn't know which way to go, they only dictated, they didn't consult. They wanted to eliminate private gaming little by little, without caring about anything". The President of Asvomar also criticised the Valencian Gambling Law "it is an interventionist law, which goes against rights, and is not appropriate for a democratic system". In this sense, Juan José Tébar, vice-president of Asvomar, stated that the sector is highly regulated, "the sector needs legal certainty, regulatory agility, transparency in regulation, and fair regulations. I don't know where they have been able to get the reports used to make these decisions and pass this law".

Joaquín Iniesta, president of the Asociación Levantina de Bingos (Alebin), and Marina Sánchez, director of Bingo La Bolera, also took part in the round table, which focused its intervention on the reality of bingo in the Comunitat, a sector made up of small companies that have seen their costs increase, on some occasions, by more than 200%, according to Marina Sánchez. For his part, Joaquín Iniesta pointed out that the traditional bingo activity maintains losses of 19.18% compared to 2019.

The bingo sector had its own panel at this edition of Expojoc, where representatives of the other two associations of bingo companies in the region took part, including David González, president of Grebin, and Santos Martínez, secretary of Asobing, as well as Juan José Sánchez, manager of the Spanish Confederation of Bingo Business Organisations (CEJ), and Vicente Pechuán, director of the Autonomous Valencian Association of Legalised Games Businesses (Ejuva).

The challenge of modernisation

The round table highlighted the need for modernisation, not only in terms of the sector's image, but also in terms of taxation, and urged the Administration to change things. "It is necessary to see how it is possible that here there is a 40/50% on the win. We are partners in the 'business'. You take half of the profits, and we pay expenses, staff, etc. We have to sit down and do the maths. We have to sit down and crunch the numbers, and look at more plausible possibilities", demanded Juan José Sánchez. For his part, David González commented that there are eleven communities that have already implemented a form of bingo that is balanced in terms of rate and structure. 
 

While Vicente Pechuán has insisted on the urgency of this being added in the next accompanying law. "The business model has to be completely changed. For bingo to remain we have to have an attractive model". A model in which traditional bingo has to be combined with electronic bingo, according to Santos Martínez: "Electronic bingo is necessary, more dynamic, and apart from that it should not be so constrained as in some communities by certain machines. Traditional bingo may be in the doldrums but, in my experience, electronic bingo gives life to the hall, and many halls survive thanks to this modality".

Another of the round table discussions held at Expojoc focused on payment methods, with the participation of Ignacio García, country manager for Spain at Okto; Héctor Iglesias, director of business and clients at PaynoPain; Alejandro Cereto, account executive at IPS, and Javier Manceñido, senior sales manager for Gambling at Paysafe.

One of the topics on which the speakers agreed the most was that with the pandemic, other payment methods such as cashless have started to be used much more. "The trend is evident, and the new generations do not leave home with money," said Ignacio García. In this sense, Hector Iglesias recalled the PaynoPain study in which they state that 85% of people pay with another payment method and Alejandro Cereto highlighted that "we are at an ideal moment for cashless, because we have seen a change in the dynamics, the volume may be the same, but the percentage of that money that comes from a bank transaction has increased a lot. It allows for a more fluid transfer, and allows for an easier to control framework to protect the customer and the operator.

For his part, Javier Manceñido agreed that the pandemic accelerated this change, "but also the regulations regarding gambling change this environment. We have to adapt our offer to each country. Each one has its own payment solution, and we have to integrate them.

The importance of personalisation and omni-channeling

The importance of creativity, technology, marketing and communication in differentiating the product was the focus of the debate at another of Expojoc's round tables. Participants included Jorge Guerrero, CEO of Pastón; Roberto Bértolo, CFO of Luckia; Ramiro Atucha, CEO of Vibra Gaming; Pere Moliné, B2B marketing director of GiG, and Giovanni Falcone, CEO and co-founder of The Power Plugin. "Of course technology is fundamental, but, at the same time, to differentiate yourself, you don't have to wait for that technology, you have to implement a different strategy," said Giovanni Falcone.

For their part, Ramiro Atucha and Pere Moliné pointed to personalisation as the key. "The first key to retention is personalisation," they pointed out. But, as Roberto Bértolo pointed out, the main difficulty for this personalisation is the volume of requirements established with the regulator, and he gave the example of blockchain: "It is the greatest example of transparency and information. If the regulator does not understand what it is, it will be difficult to bring it down to the real world. It needs to be simpler. The benefits are clear, such as traceability, ease of transactions and so on. Today, tracking players with the blockchain is not that difficult. What is difficult is for the regulator and, of course, the tax authorities to understand it. There is a lot to be developed.

Sports betting also had its own panel discussion, with the participation of Karen Marcela Sierra-Hughes, vice president for Latin America, the Caribbean and Spain at GLI; Jorge Justicia, CEO of Jokerbet; María González, general director of Apuestas de Murcia, and Antonio Stanzani, country manager of Stanleybet Spain. The participants discussed eSports, a modality that, according to the participants, does not have a large number of followers in terms of betting in Spain, despite having a growing number of fans and important functionalities such as streaming.

It also highlighted the importance of omnichannel, which has gradually been generating synergies and opportunities with the retail world, thereby enhancing the customer experience, and analysed the functionalities offered by the platforms.

The Expojoc event consisted not only of the different conferences and round tables, but also included the participation of a good number of companies, which took advantage of the opportunity to exhibit their main innovations in the business area and the Learning Carousel. "Expojoc is a benchmark event that has become increasingly important over the years. From the first edition until now we have tripled the number of stands, attracting professionals from all over Spain and even from Europe and Latin America," said J. Ignacio Ferrer, founder and director of Expojoc.