Vegas, baby: Alberta Minister Dale Nally travels to Sin City to talk iGaming

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What happens in Vegas isn’t likely to stay there for Service Alberta Minister Dale Nally, as the province hopes to attract more iGaming providers to the province.

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“The more regulated operators we attract to Alberta, the more we can crowd out predatory, unregulated operators,” Nally told Postmedia on Saturday.

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The architect of Alberta’s regulated iGaming market is setting off to the gambling locus of Las Vegas this week on government business to promote the province’s new market and speak with partners in the industry.

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A Friday news release said the minister will attend the Global Gaming Expo to showcase the Alberta iGaming market, but also to chat about ways to strengthen player protections.

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“The iGaming space is evolving quickly, and attending G2E helps us stay on top of it so our player protections continue to reflect how people are actually gambling,” Nally said in a statement to Postmedia.

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Nally’s itinerary includes attending sessions, meeting with industry people, roundtable chats, and networking.

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It’s a four-day event held on the Strip at the Venetian Resort and brings in 400 exhibitors and 25,000 industry professionals from over 120 countries across the world.

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Nally will be speaking at one of those panels on Tuesday afternoon alongside Cory Fox, who is a senior vice-president with iGaming company FanDuel, Elizabeth Cronan from GeoComply, and the Alberta iGaming Corporation’s Steve Inglis.

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David Hodgins, a research co-ordinator with the Alberta Gambling Research Institute and a professor in the department of psychology at the University of Calgary, said it makes sense for the government to try to get a sense of what industry leaders want.

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“This perspective needs, of course, to be supplemented with other perspectives, including individuals and families experiencing harm, players at all levels of involvement with gambling, objective evidence and more,” Hodgins said.

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He added the government’s regulatory plan should also allow for transparent oversight of the benefits and harms of the current safeguards.

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