The CEO of the upcoming TribalNet conference and tradeshow said American Indian casinos can lead a gaming industry-wide conversion toward cashless operations and can also band together to offer sports betting.
The 20th annual conference takes place Nov. 11-14 in Nashville.
TribalNet CEO Mike Day said the event offers an opportunity for tribes an opportunity to understand and advance the use of gaming and hospitality technology, surpassing commercial casinos.
“I think tribes tend to be equal where commercial is at, but they have the opportunity to be way ahead and lead more than follow,” Day said. “That’s one of our goals is if you can work with your own gaming commission, you need to be leading. You have the ability to take some of this technology and innovation and put it in place. Let others chase what we’re doing in native gaming.”
Instead, tribes are choosing to play it safe when they can be leading the way on handling cash.
“They have the ability to do it, and they have the partners available to them where they have the products to do this. I think they should be taking the lead on making this the way we move forward in gaming,” Day said.
In the sports betting issue, tribes can combine forces where possible within a state, as long as its legal. Such a move allows the tribes to reduce their risk and build a bigger brand to compete.
Such a move could help small tribes in remote areas.
“They can combine and create a bigger brand that can be more dominant in the market and be a better revenue generator as a larger organization than they could ever do individually,” Day said.
The topic was discussed by tribes at a regional TribalNet conferences this year in Minnesota y and Michigan. Tribes also brought up the idea during discussions at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas.
It takes tribal leadership, however, to push forward new initiatives. Day said those ideas will be the focus of the Nashville conference. Tribes are in a better position because they may have one or two casino properties compared to a corporate organization.
“Tribes are smaller and nimbler and have less layers than publicly traded companies where you have things go through layer after layer of approval in order to do things,” Day said.
Shannon Bouschor, TribalNet’s director of operations, said this will be its largest conference ever with an attendance expected around 600. Registration is 30 percent higher than its conference a year ago in Las Vegas.
TribalNet includes about 300 organizations and about 200 tribes across the country, Bouschor said. The conference focuses on technology across the entire tribal organization, including gaming and hospitality and government services such as health care.
Day said interest continues to grow because tribal organizations recognize that technology extends beyond the IT department and that everyone in the organization is responsible. Because of the demand there are plans to add more regional conferences in 2020 with the Pacific Northwest, Oklahoma, California and Northeast among the possibilities.
“Right now technology is changing the game in organizations and what’s driving innovation, new revenue and opportunities,” Day said.
There will be 130 vendors at the conference, many which are technology providers. https://www.tribalnetconference.com/details/list-of-exhibitors-full/
To register for the conference, go to https://www.tribalnetconference.com/.
