G2E Focuses on Sports Betting, eSports – Indian Country Today Media Network

Sports betting will be a major focus of the Global Gaming Expo (G2E), which kicked off yesterday and runs through September 29 at the Sands Expo and Convention Center in Las Vegas. The annual event, billed as the world’s largest gaming convention, attracts as many as 25,000 attendees.

Hosted by the American Indian Gaming Association (AGA), G2E will hone in on potential regulatory frameworks and monitoring for sports betting.

Former NBA commissioner David Stern will join AGA president Geoff Freeman for the closing conversation on September 29 to discuss legalizing sports betting. Stern was vocal in his opposition of sports wagering throughout his 30-year tenure as commissioner, but since his retirement in 2014, has changed his stance. Fantasy sports betting has opened doors for legal sports gambling across the country, and Stern thinks the NBA should “go all in,” he has said, reported Yogonet.com/gamingtoday.com. “It seems to be an inexorable march, and it’s time to come up with a strategy that gets the various stakeholders together and see what changes, if any, make sense,” Stern told the site. When daily fantasy “became a place where people could bet money and make a financial return, I thought that was one of the last barriers to the opposition to legalized gambling on sports.”

Stern’s successor, current NBA commissioner Adam Silver, has also voiced his support of e-sports and urged Congress to create a federal framework of regulations to permit sports betting.

After the presidential election, the AGA has said it is forming a lobbying coalition to promote federal sports betting legalization in the U.S., reported ESPN.

In a related vein, Gamblit Gaming, a technology provider for real-money and skill-based gaming for mobile and land based casinos, is unveiling an eSports gaming platform at G2E called G-Sports with the hit PC and Console game Road Redemption.

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The games are not “gamblified” but a set fee for entry is charged on a time-based tournament. Players compete and rank on a leaderboard that is updated in real-time with top players being rewarded at the end with cash prizes.

The acclaimed driving combat game Road Redemption is the first game to be featured on the G-Sports platform. Players will defeat rival biker gangs in post-apocalyptic America with prizes awarded to the highest scores on the leaderboard. G-Sports allows casinos to appeal to more of the midcore gaming market with the ability to organize events around a popular game with tournaments scheduled at flexible intervals.