Why Europe’s regulated gaming industry needs a meeting place of its own, who it is for, and what happens when the people running, regulating and building licensed markets finally share a room.
Talk about “the European gaming market,” and you are already simplifying. Europe is a collection of regulated markets, each with its own licensing regime, tax structure, advertising rules, player protection requirements and competitive landscape. Each sits at a different stage of its journey. Some have been regulated for more than a decade. Others are opening up now. Some are rethinking decisions they made years ago.
That patchwork has grown fast. In 2009, just seven of the 31 European markets analysed by the European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) operated multi-licensing systems for online gambling. By 2024, that figure had reached 27.
More regulation is good news for consumers and for the credibility of the licensed industry. It also means more rulebooks, more definitions of compliance and more places where a decision taken in one capital changes the picture in another.
And yet the industry does not behave like a patchwork.
Operators hold licences in several jurisdictions at once. Regulators in different countries are wrestling with the same questions, often at the same time and often without comparing notes. Suppliers build for many markets, investors weigh them against each other and associations speak for their members while watching what happens next door.
Europe is made up of many different markets, but it is one interconnected industry. SBC Summit Europe exists because that industry has never had a single place built around it.
Europe’s meeting place for regulated gaming
SBC Summit Europe is the Home of European iGaming, with regulated markets at its heart. It is the annual meeting place for the people leading, regulating and building European gaming, and it takes place at RAI Amsterdam from 19-21 April 2027.
Three things define it.
It is built around regulated markets. Regulation is not a panel topic but one of the main reasons the event exists. Taxation, advertising restrictions, player protection, affordability, licensing, compliance and channelisation are changing how businesses operate across the continent, and the event explores them in a practical, cross-market context.
It is meeting-led, not just content-led. The conference programme matters, but the real value is turning insight into conversations, relationships and commercial outcomes, including conversations that would be difficult to arrange any other way.
It is an annual moment in the calendar. A shared point each year for the industry to take stock, look ahead and make decisions. The ambition is for Amsterdam to become a trusted, recurring home for European gaming.
Why Europe needs an event like this
No single national event can fully reflect the regulatory, commercial and technological picture across the continent. National events do vital work, but by definition they look through one market’s window. The questions that now define European gaming do not respect borders.
Consider what the industry is asking right now:
- Which approaches to regulation are working, and which are not?
- How do jurisdictions protect players without pushing them towards unlicensed alternatives?
- How can responsible gambling requirements sit alongside commercially viable licensed businesses?
- What can one market learn from another, and which mistakes could others avoid?
- Where is regulatory thinking heading, and how should businesses prepare before new rules arrive rather than after?
These questions are being answered market by market, in parallel, and the answers are rarely shared openly. That is Europe’s complexity, and it is the strategic justification for bringing everyone together. Fragmentation is not just a challenge to talk about. It is the reason a shared meeting point is needed.
As SBC CEO and Founder Rasmus Sojmark puts it, those conversations are “much more useful when you have the people responsible for making the decisions in the room.”
Regulators are part of the conversation, not just the subject of it
One of the strongest differentiators of SBC Summit Europe is the ambition to bring regulators and policymakers into the same space as the businesses they oversee. Too often, regulation is discussed by the industry in isolation, and regulatory thinking is shaped without a full view of commercial reality. Equally, commercial developments and changing consumer behaviour create new challenges for policymakers that they may only see from a distance.
SBC Summit Europe is designed to bridge those perspectives. Regulatory decisions have direct consequences for investment, innovation, market entry, competition and long-term growth. The event makes the relationship between regulation and business impossible to ignore, with the people affected by regulation and the people responsible for it in the same room.
It is also a meeting place for regulators with each other. There is real value in gaming authorities from different jurisdictions exchanging experiences, comparing approaches and learning from one another. SBC’s partnerships with IAGR (the International Association of Gaming Regulators) and IMGL (the International Masters of Gaming Law), alongside relationships with regulatory bodies and industry associations, are helping to bring representatives from gaming authorities across Europe to Amsterdam. The aim is for the event to become a forum for regulatory knowledge-sharing, not only industry networking.
Built around licensed operators
Regulated operators are at the centre of SBC Summit Europe. The event is being built around the needs of businesses operating in Europe’s licensed markets, with more than 3,000 operator representatives expected. Major European operators, established national brands and businesses navigating several regulatory environments at once will all be represented.
This operator-first approach shapes everything: the conference content, the networking programme, the exhibition and how the audience is built. For an operator, the event is a place to understand new markets, see how regulatory thinking is developing beyond the jurisdictions they know, and meet the regulators, peers and partners who influence what they can do next.
European perspective, jurisdiction-level depth
A European event could easily become a surface-level tour. SBC Summit Europe is designed to avoid that. Established, newly regulated and evolving markets will all have a voice. Dedicated market-focused sessions will explore individual jurisdictions in detail, while broader discussions pick out the trends, challenges and lessons that apply across borders.
The result is local expertise meeting European perspective. Attendees can go deep on the markets they already operate in without losing sight of the wider picture, and they can see what is coming in the markets they might enter next. Which markets should a business enter, invest in, prioritise, partner in or potentially exit? The event is built to help people answer those questions with a clearer view of where regulatory and commercial environments can support sustainable growth.
Why regulated markets only work if players choose them
The starting point is a simple reality: demand for gambling exists whether or not a licensed market is there to serve it.
When players cannot find an attractive, competitive regulated offering, they do not stop gambling. They go elsewhere, often to operators that offer no consumer protection, no safer gambling tools and no accountability.
A regulated market only protects people if players actually choose it, which makes the strength of the licensed offering a player protection issue as much as a commercial one. That is why the relationship between regulation, channelisation and market competitiveness is a particular focus of the programme.
Some jurisdictions are achieving strong channelisation and building sustainable licensed industries. Others are confronting the growth of offshore gambling and asking whether the balance is right.
SBC Summit Europe is a place to examine not only regulatory intentions, but their real-world consequences. That means honest discussion about what is working, what is not and how regulators and operators can work together to keep consumers inside the licensed market. The event does not claim to resolve Europe’s regulatory differences. It gives the people involved a place to understand one another, challenge assumptions, share experiences and identify better ways forward.
The issues shaping Europe’s regulated markets on the agenda
The programme reflects the diversity of Europe’s commercial and regulatory landscape. Discussions will explore:
- Channelisation and black-market competition
- Taxation
- Advertising restrictions
- Player protection and affordability
- Licensing and compliance
- The impact of new technology and AI
Alongside regulation, the event will examine the commercial and technological forces shaping the next generation of regulated European gaming, including compliance technology, payment systems, sports betting platforms and data, casino, marketing and changing player behaviour. The event is forward-looking by design. The question running through it is simple: what will European gaming look like next?
The decision-makers who will be at SBC Summit Europe
Senior decision-makers are central to the audience. The objective is to bring the right balance of people who influence how Europe’s regulated gaming markets develop and operate. Who is in the room matters as much as what is on the agenda.
- Licensed operators and operator executives, including CEOs working in Europe or considering entry, who want to understand new markets, regulatory direction and the people shaping both.
- Regulators and policymakers who want to connect with the industry, understand it better, share best practice and learn from one another as well as from the businesses they oversee.
- Industry associations representing different European markets and speaking for their members.
- Legal experts and regulatory stakeholders, the wider ecosystem that helps interpret, influence and implement regulation. Their presence gives the event greater depth and opens up dialogue that is hard to achieve within a single national market.
- Suppliers and technology businesses, who remain essential. The focus is on solutions that address the practical challenges of licensed operators navigating different European markets, and give them a competitive edge.
- Affiliates, investors and media, who need a clear view of where opportunity and risk sit across Europe’s regulated markets.
Different people come for different reasons, and the event works for all of them. A regulator can exchange experiences with peers. An operator can learn about a market they are considering. A supplier can meet potential customers. An association can represent its members. An investor can see which markets offer the stability and clarity that long-term capital needs.
Get a sneak peek at who will be attending SBC Summit Europe.
The cost of not being in the room
The feeling SBC Summit Europe is built to create is simple: the people I need to know are going to be there.
Attendees should leave better informed, better connected and clearer on where opportunities and risks sit, including which markets to enter, invest in, prioritise, partner in or potentially exit. They should understand how regulatory thinking is evolving, not just respond once new rules have already been introduced.
There is a commercial argument too. Important people, markets and conversations are converging in one place, and being absent is a risk. The participation of regulators and major licensed operators is what makes the audience itself part of the proposition.
SBC Managing Director Andrew McCarron describes the ambition this way: Europe needs a meeting place that reflects what the industry actually looks like today. That means putting regulated markets first, bringing leading licensed operators together and making sure regulators are part of the conversation rather than discussed without them.
Why Amsterdam?
SBC Summit Europe is about Europe, and Amsterdam is where Europe meets. Few cities make that easier. It’s one of the most accessible capitals on the continent, a short journey from Schiphol and well connected by rail, so delegates can arrive from almost anywhere and be in the room the same day. RAI Amsterdam is built for large international gatherings, with the space to bring a conference programme, a show floor and a full networking schedule under one roof.
The city also does something a conference centre alone can’t. It’s compact, walkable and easy to enjoy, which turns the gaps between sessions into opportunities. A coffee that becomes a meeting, a dinner that becomes a partnership, an evening on the canals that carries a conversation further than any schedule could. That is the kind of access the event is designed around.
There’s a market reason too. The Netherlands is one of Europe’s most closely watched regulated markets, with a licensed industry that has been through the questions many others are only starting to ask on taxation, advertising and player protection. Hosting the event here means those lessons are on the doorstep rather than discussed from a distance, and SBC’s partnership with the trade association for licensed Dutch online gambling operators VNLOK brings Dutch licensed operators directly into the programme.
For the industry, it’s also a homecoming. A major gaming event is returning to a city that people know, like and want to visit, with a new purpose: bringing Europe’s regulated markets together in one place.
Looking for practical details about the city? Find more information on the Discover Amsterdam page.
SBC Summit Europe: Key event details
- Event: SBC Summit Europe
- Dates: 19-21 April 2027
- Venue: RAI Amsterdam, the Netherlands
- Focus: Europe’s regulated gambling and iGaming industry
- Audience: Operators (3,000+ operator representatives), regulators, policymakers, associations, suppliers, affiliates, investors and wider industry stakeholders. 8,000 attendees in total.
- Sponsors, exhibitors and speakers: 250 exhibitors & sponsors and over 250 speakers
Join us in Amsterdam
Europe’s complexity is not going away. Markets will keep diverging in some areas and converging in others, and the pace of change in regulation, taxation, technology and consumer behaviour is not slowing. The industry can work through that separately, or it can do it together.
SBC Summit Europe is where it happens: a trusted annual meeting point for the people leading, regulating and building European gaming.
Operators, regulators, and qualifying affiliates can apply for complimentary passes. Registration will open soon. For now, register your interest for SBC Summit Europe.
