ICE Barcelona 2025: Industry Excellence and CEO Insights

_{ICE Barcelona brought together the entire gaming industry. (Image: Courtesy of ICE)}

The ICE Show Barcelona 2025 kicked off on a high note, celebrating excellence within the gaming industry at the prestigious Global Gaming Awards EMEA. 

Global Legal & Compliance (GLI) stood out at the event, being named the Services Provider of the Year. This accolade was accepted by GLI’s President & CEO, James Maida, who expressed gratitude for the dedication of teams worldwide that contributed to this achievement.  

The winners of the Global Gaming Awards EMEA 2025 were announced at an exclusive ceremony held on January 21, 2025, at the Fira Barcelona Gran Via. Mariya Savova, event manager of the awards, commended all shortlisted companies and emphasized the rigid selection criteria, with winners chosen by a panel of 50 industry executives. 

This year's event was supported by various partners and sponsors, including BetConstruct, KPMG, and Clarion Gaming, which helped establish a successful platform for recognizing industry leaders. 

Among the major categories and winners were:  

• Retail Operator of the Year: Superbet 
• Online Sports Betting Operator of the Year: bet365 
• Casino of the Year: The Hippodrome Casino 
• Online Casino of the Year: BetMGM 
• Services Provider of the Year: GLI 

In total, 16 categories highlighted the achievements of the gaming industry, reflecting a diverse array of accomplishments, from product launches to social responsibility.  

Key Speaker Andrew Rhodes Delivers GB Market Overview 

A notable highlight of ICE 2025 was the World Regulatory Briefing delivered by Chief Executive Andrew Rhodes of the Gambling Commission.

He emphasized ongoing efforts to tackle illegal gambling operations and the importance of regulatory clarity, particularly in light of the Gambling Act Review.

Rhodes used the gambling sector in Great Britain to highlight statistics that revealed gambling in Great Britain has reached the highest Gross Gambling Yield (GGY) ever seen: £15.6 billion.

He also relayed that the Gambling Survey Great Britain (GSGB) is continuing to see a stable four-week participation rate of 48 percent, reflecting the market activity of some 22.5 million consumers in Great Britain.

Rhodes pointed out that horse racing has the highest GGY on record. Speaking about the impact of inflation, he said, “We have not seen evidence that if inflation rises to 10 percent, that someone’s normal £10 or £100 bet becomes £11 or £110.”

Spotlight on National Lottery and Prize Draws 

Looking at the latest industry statistics the GC published in November 2024, Rhodes added, “The picture gets bigger again and some things stand out as we go into 2025. For the first time, large society lottery sales have passed the £1 billion mark, as they continue to grow, which is a consideration around the National Lottery.

White Paper

Turning his attention to the Gambling Act Review White Paper, he said that a change in government had not seen a particular political change to the fundamentals of the government direction on the regulation of gambling. 

He said, “Our Government Minister, Baroness Twycross, stated her support for continuing the implementation of those recommendations and gave everyone her view on the path ahead in late 2024.”  

GC Targeting Illegal Operators 

Rhodes acknowledged the presence of illegal operators in the UK and said that it is one thing to set the direction for the licensed market. It is quite another to do so for illegal gambling. 

“Operators who are not regulated and who are often more likely to either cheat those people who choose to gamble with them or leave them open to higher risks of harm.” 

Rhodes said that the GC’s aim was to prevent the illegal market from operating at scale in Great Britain. 

“A significant part of our strategy in doing that is to target our efforts as far upstream as we can—at the level of hosts, payment providers, software providers, search engines and others.” 

Since the start of the financial year, the GC team has issued over 770 cease and desist and disruption notices; this includes 262 cease-and-desists issued to operators and 205 to advertisers. 

Over that same period, the Commission has referred over 102,000 URLs to Google, with 64,000 of these removed by the search engine and 264 websites taken down. This is more than a tenfold increase in URL takedowns in comparison to the whole of 2023 to 2024. 

More Work to Do 

Rhodes acknowledged that there was more to do both for the GC and others in the sector. An ongoing investigation is underway looking at a leading supplier of gambling games to the GB sector. It focuses on their games being available to consumers in Great Britain from operators who do not hold a license from the GC. 

Rhodes said, “I have also made clear to licensed operators that whilst it is not their job to take action against illegal operators, I have firmly encouraged everyone to ensure they have undertaken due diligence regarding their own activities and those of any suppliers they rely on. 

"If the Commission detects illegal activity in any operator—B2C or B2B—we may well immediately suspend their license, and, in any event, they face the very real prospect of having their GB license revoked, which means anything they are supplying to anyone else in Great Britain will cease immediately.” 

Common Cause Amongst Regulators 

The GC has been working closely with other regulators around the world and created through the International Association of Gaming Regulators the Illegal Gambling Working Group, which now covers every populated continent in the world. 

Rhodes said: “Respectable regulators around the world all want the same thing – illegal gambling to stop, which is why we are active in signing Memorandum of Understandings (MOUs) with those regulators and sharing information to help them as well as us.” 

Estimating Rates of Problem Gambling Difficult 

Speaking about the area of problem gambling Rhodes said that the evidence base is sometimes bitterly fought over and estimating gambling participation and rates of problem gambling has been challenging. 

Rhodes added, “I think it is important for regulators to have access to the best evidence base they can, as frequently as they can.”

Rhodes stated that lotteries remain the largest area of participation with sales now for large society lotteries over £1 billion annually, but large prize draws, which are not regulated as gambling, have a very large presence in terms of participation and are just behind betting and far ahead of bingo and land-based casinos.

Online casino games have continued to grow in terms of market share and consumer spend looks to be spread over a longer period of time and potentially a wider range of products, according to some operators. 

According to Rhodes, “The debate is tense and with a lot of work still to be done implementing the 2023 White Paper, perhaps that is to be expected.”