Having participated in the Global Gaming Awards – Americas for the first time, what were your highlights from the celebration?

First of all, you all do a great job with that program, from beginning to end. The event was great. Early in the show, you see a lot of faces and get to reconnect with folks. When you look through that Shortlist and see the Award winners, the depth and breadth of what this industry has to offer, the quality of product, the quality of company, of the people in this industry, I think it’s something we maybe don’t celebrate enough. We’re happy to be a part of the process to celebrate that.

Where can gaming and services provided by KPMG intersect strategically?

As a US gaming practice, we serve clients across the spectrum in a couple of different ways. One, we serve folks in all the different sectors of the industry, so land-based operators, Tribal, online operators, suppliers, racing, lottery, you name it.

From a geographic perspective, with the way gaming has expanded, we coordinate globally when needed for our clients. Certainly core audit tax services are the bread and butter of any firm like ours, but we’ve seen our strengths go beyond that. This industry goes through cycles of consolidation, deconsolidation, new products, all sorts of things that drive transactions and private equity interest, so we help companies throughout that life cycle.

As someone who can view the industry from a broader perspective, which verticals do you expect to capture attention in 2026?

There’s really no bad opinions or wrong answers when it comes to these things. AI and automation may be a little bit easier to get our head around. As scary as that is given the transformative nature of technology, we definitely see it as a value driver that will be around for years to come. Three years ago, we were all in a froth about the metaverse. We don’t talk about the metaverse anymore, but I don’t think that’s going to happen with AI.

The idea of automation to make us more effective in communicating with our customers, complying with our regulations and in getting our books and records right on the back end is really powerful. We should be doing that with any tool we can and, of course, AI can drive significant efficiency in some of those areas, but there’s a long way to go.

On prediction markets, or just call it any form of emerging gaming, it would be silly for companies to certainly put their head in the sand and hope it goes away. I think the key is going to be finding how to position yourself in these spaces. There are a few different ways to do that in the prediction markets space.

There are probably a few different ways to do that with daily fantasy, peer-topeer or sweepstakes, but my general sense is these things will get resolved, in most cases through our existing regulatory structures. That’ll continue to happen with those types of products. Whether that tug and pull is done through legislation or legal battles, I’m not so sure; but I think it’ll get resolved.

What challenges present themselves with the rapid growth of verticals such as prediction markets, contract trading, etc.?

Prediction markets are harder to foresee because you have so many more factors in play, including the idea of a federal regulatory body, which is just not something we’re used to. It’s an unknown factor for us in terms of how that affects the calculus of how we’re thinking, but one thing we’ve talked to folks about and are starting to hear a little bit is, for all these sorts of products, there is no free lunch in this world.

It’s an economic sort of theory, but I think it’s true here. I’m not suggesting those companies believe they’re going to have a clear path, but markets can be frothy and bullish, right? And that’s what we’re seeing now. I think there will be a bit of a reality check on that path.