How Mark Balestra and iGNA are advancing online gaming in the U.S. QuadJacks » The Gaming World
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After co-founding iGaming North America in 2011, BolaVerde Media Group director Mark Balestra plays an important role in uniting and educating the industry. In 2011, a team of representatives from four different companies – Steven Rittvo (The Innovation Group), Tony Cabot (Lewis and Roca LLP), Sue Schneider (eGamingBrokerage) and Mark Balestra (BolaVerde Media Group) joined forces to organize the inaugural iGaming North America conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Right click save as to download Subscribe in a reader Subscribe to QuadJacks » The Gaming World by Email Over a +15 year long career in interactive gaming, Mark Balestra had been a longtime collaborator of Sue Schneider at the River City Group, a publisher with Clarion Gaming, and an advisor to numerous conferences including the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) and the Global Interactive Gaming Summit and Expo (GIGSE). With iGaming North America, however, Balestra and his colleagues were trying to create a unique foundation. “We had it in our heads that it would be great to do something for the igaming industry in North America. We had done a lot of events in Canada, and had moved things around to Europe at one point,” Balestra told The Gaming World on March 27, 2012. “In around 2007 and 2008, things started coming together in the United States, and the time had become right to base an event in the U.S. focused on interactive gambling.” As the co-founder and co-director of what became known as iGNA, which held its second conference earlier this month (March 2012), Balestra and his team are helping to bring the online gaming industry together in the United States at one of its most defining periods. This puts Balestra in a position to intimately witness the behind-the-scenes of the gaming world. Things are already looking quite distinct than they did as recently as one year ago, in 2011, when the first iGNA event took place hardly a few weeks after April 15. Black Friday was certainly one of the turning points and may have cast a shadow over much of the 2011 conference. But this year, the legal momentum that has been taking place since then was the real star of the show. EURO-AMERICAN RELATIONS “There are always certain developments taking place in the industry that take precedence in the conference discussions, regardless of how the program is designed. One of the big themes this year was the DOJ letter, which became public in December and certainly remained a story to be looked at for how it will affect the industry in the next several months.” Sometimes the conference must not only catch up with the most recent developments preceding it, but adapt to breaking ones during it. This was definitely the case when Las Vegas-based Shuffle Master Inc. announced on Monday, March 5 – in the middle of day 2 of iGNA 2012 – that it had officially acquired the poker network Ongame. But Balestra and the team were prepared. “The formal announcement brought up a great...
After co-founding iGaming North America in 2011, BolaVerde Media Group director Mark Balestra plays an important role in uniting and educating the industry. In 2011, a team of representatives from four different companies – Steven Rittvo (The Innovation Group), Tony Cabot (Lewis and Roca LLP), Sue Schneider (eGamingBrokerage) and Mark Balestra (BolaVerde Media Group) joined forces to organize the inaugural iGaming North America conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Right click save as to download Subscribe in a reader Subscribe to QuadJacks » The Gaming World by Email Over a +15 year long career in interactive gaming, Mark Balestra had been a longtime collaborator of Sue Schneider at the River City Group, a publisher with Clarion Gaming, and an advisor to numerous conferences including the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) and the Global Interactive Gaming Summit and Expo (GIGSE). With iGaming North America, however, Balestra and his colleagues were trying to create a unique foundation. “We had it in our heads that it would be great to do something for the igaming industry in North America. We had done a lot of events in Canada, and had moved things around to Europe at one point,” Balestra told The Gaming World on March 27, 2012. “In around 2007 and 2008, things started coming together in the United States, and the time had become right to base an event in the U.S. focused on interactive gambling.” As the co-founder and co-director of what became known as iGNA, which held its second conference earlier this month (March 2012), Balestra and his team are helping to bring the online gaming industry together in the United States at one of its most defining periods. This puts Balestra in a position to intimately witness the behind-the-scenes of the gaming world. Things are already looking quite distinct than they did as recently as one year ago, in 2011, when the first iGNA event took place hardly a few weeks after April 15. Black Friday was certainly one of the turning points and may have cast a shadow over much of the 2011 conference. But this year, the legal momentum that has been taking place since then was the real star of the show. EURO-AMERICAN RELATIONS “There are always certain developments taking place in the industry that take precedence in the conference discussions, regardless of how the program is designed. One of the big themes this year was the DOJ letter, which became public in December and certainly remained a story to be looked at for how it will affect the industry in the next several months.” Sometimes the conference must not only catch up with the most recent developments preceding it, but adapt to breaking ones during it. This was definitely the case when Las Vegas-based Shuffle Master Inc. announced on Monday, March 5 – in the middle of day 2 of iGNA 2012 – that it had officially acquired the poker network Ongame. But Balestra and the team were prepared. “The formal announcement brought up a great...