Soft2Bet and SportsGrid at NEXT Summit New York 2026

NEXT Summit: New York 2026 is shaping up to be a key early-year barometer for where North American iGaming and online sports betting are heading next, not just in product and regulation, but in the way the industry communicates, networks, and builds capital momentum. Two announcements set the tone ahead of 10–11 March at Convene 225 Liberty Street, Brookfield Place, with Soft2Bet confirmed as Headline Partner for a third consecutive year and SportsGrid returning as a renewed media partner to syndicate event coverage across its streaming and digital platforms.

On the surface, sponsorship and media partnerships can look like standard conference playbooks. In practice, the combination says something more specific about the market in 2026. Senior decision-makers are converging in New York not only to talk about growth, but to debate how growth happens in regulated environments, how new verticals fit within compliance frameworks, and how trust and brand durability are built when customer acquisition costs remain a board-level obsession.

Why NEXT Summit New York has become a litmus test for US focused strategy

NEXT.io positions the Summit as the definitive US-focused iGaming and sports betting event on the East Coast, and its timing matters. Being one of the first major gatherings of the year gives it leverage, it is where strategies get compared, narratives get set, and deal conversations start before budgets and roadmaps calcify.

The scale is also part of the story. One official event preview expects over 1,600 industry professionals with a curated audience dominated by C-level executives, founders, and directors, while another states the event will bring together 1,400 senior-level delegates. Either way, the emphasis is consistent, this is a senior room designed for high signal discussions and networking rather than broad trade show footfall.

This year the agenda focus is explicitly commercial and structural. Themes listed for the Summit include regulation, market entry, M&A, player engagement, brand trust, and long-term value creation in regulated markets. Those topics are not accidental, they map to the friction points that have defined North America’s online gambling evolution across state-by-state rollouts and increasingly competitive operator landscapes.

Soft2Bet and NEXT.io move from sponsorship to strategic alignment

NEXT.io confirmed Soft2Bet as Headline Partner for the third consecutive year, describing the relationship as an evolving strategic alliance that has helped scale the event’s seniority, relevance, and commercial impact year after year. That phrasing is telling because it frames sponsorship as more than logo placement, it becomes a platform to convene the kind of dialogue that influences investment and regulatory positioning.

Soft2Bet’s stated intent is also clear. Andrew Cochrane, Chief Commercial Officer at Soft2Bet, said the partnership is built on alignment and that sustainable growth in regulated markets comes from open dialogue, transparency and collaboration across the ecosystem. In a market where operators, suppliers, and regulators often talk past each other, the event format becomes a practical venue for pressure-testing what “sustainable growth” actually looks like in policy, product, and consumer outcomes.

From a content and strategy perspective, Soft2Bet’s presence is not passive. The company will have senior executives participating in sessions, including a keynote by Andrew Cochrane and a panel appearance by David Yatom Hay, General Counsel at Soft2Bet, exploring evolving dynamics of player engagement. That legal and regulatory lens on engagement is increasingly important as personalization, retention tooling, and responsible gambling expectations continue to converge in the same conversation.

Soft2Bet is also described as widely recognised for its innovative approach to iGaming product development, including its proprietary Motivational Engineering Gaming Application (MEGA), and for its expanding presence across regulated global markets. For conference audiences, that combination tends to land well, innovation is only valuable when it can survive compliance and scale in real jurisdictions.

SportsGrid returns, and distribution becomes part of the event value

SportsGrid has confirmed its renewed media partnership with NEXT.io and will attend the Summit to cover key discussions and insights, with content syndicated across SportsGrid’s streaming and digital platforms. In event terms, that is not just a press note, it is an extension of the room.

Conferences increasingly compete on what happens after the panels. The on-site audience may be 1,400 or 1,600 senior delegates, but the influence of the event depends on how quickly the most relevant takeaways reach the broader ecosystem. With SportsGrid on the ground covering sessions, interviews, and key discussions, the Summit’s narratives can move beyond attendees and into wider industry and consumer-adjacent media channels.

Jeremy Stein, CEO of SportsGrid, said the Summit continues to set the standard as North America’s premier meeting point for senior leaders in online sports betting and iGaming and highlighted that with Emerging Verticals joining the Summit, conversations expand into disruptive and fast-moving areas. Pierre Lindh, Co-Founder and Managing Director at NEXT.io, emphasized that having SportsGrid on-site strengthens the mission to share critical insights with the broader iGaming community.

Emerging Verticals enters the program, and the industry admits what is changing

The most consequential programming update is the addition of Emerging Verticals accompanying NEXT Summit: New York. It is positioned as a dedicated focus on fast-growing sectors reshaping the industry, including sweepstakes, micro-markets, crypto, esports, new betting formats, and the evolving intersection of technology and capital.

This matters because those areas sit at the edge of current frameworks, sometimes adjacent to traditional licensing models and sometimes challenging them. By giving them a dedicated focus, NEXT.io is effectively acknowledging that the next wave of product and monetization experimentation is not confined to classic sportsbook and casino categories.

For operators and investors, Emerging Verticals is also a useful filter. It groups together themes that often get discussed separately, but share overlapping implications for risk, compliance interpretation, and customer experience design. If you want a single snapshot of what the industry is watching, this is it.

What the Emerging Verticals list signals

• sweepstakes are part of the mainstream iGaming conversation, which elevates questions about market structure and consumer messaging,
• micro-markets and new betting formats point to product innovation that pushes beyond pre-match and standard in-play, often demanding sharper integrity and trading controls,
• crypto, esports, and the technology and capital intersection underline how financing, infrastructure, and user expectations are increasingly linked.

Notice the shared thread, speed. These verticals move quickly, and the policy and investment communities typically lag unless they are placed in the same room as product builders. That is exactly what a New York summit can do well, especially with a senior audience.

A speaker lineup built around operators, capital, and regulation

NEXT Summit: New York is leaning into its role as a cross-functional meeting point. Leaders from influential operators, investment firms, regulators, and technology providers will take the stage across the two days.

Confirmed speakers include Adam Greenblatt, CEO of BetMGM, and also a strong capital markets bench, Adam Rosenberg, Senior Advisor, Gaming & Leisure at Blackstone, Benjie Cherniak, Principal at Avenue H Capital, Lloyd Danzig, Managing Partner at Sharp Alpha Advisors, Roger Ehrenberg, Managing Partner at Eberg Capital, Ramy Ibrahim, Managing Director at Moelis & Company, Joey Levy, Founder and CEO of Betr, and Gavin Isaacs, Former CEO of Entain.

The regulatory, legal and association landscape is also represented with Tres York, VP of Government Relations at the American Gaming Association, Paul Burns, President and CEO of the Canadian Gaming Association, Kelci S. Binau, Gaming Law Attorney at McDonald Carano, and Katie Lever, General Counsel, Chief Privacy Officer and Corporate Secretary at Great Canadian Gaming Corporation.

On the operations and technology side, sessions include Brooke Hilton, Head of Casino at PointsBet Canada, Chris Garrow, Director of Gaming at Prairie Band Casino and Resort, Davis Catlin, Managing Partner at Discerning Capital, Jeffrey Haas, Venture Partner at DreamCraft VC, Jamison Selby, CEO of Rubystone, Desiree Dickerson, Founder of THNDR, Kevin Scott, Chief Technology Officer at PGA of America, and Darren Woodson, Former NFL Player.

What stands out is the intentional mix. When you put CEOs, dealmakers, counsel, and product leaders on adjacent panels, you get a more realistic debate about what can be shipped, what can be approved, and what can be financed. That is often the difference between optimistic innovation talk and strategies that actually survive a regulated market.

Why New York is the right stage for regulation, M&A, and trust narratives

NEXT Summit: New York is held in partnership with Morgan Stanley, and the agenda themes include M&A and long-term value creation. That pairing reflects the macro reality of the sector, capital discipline and consolidation pressures are now as important to competitive advantage as marketing creativity.

New York also carries symbolic weight as a financial and media hub. It is an environment where industry stories can be interpreted through the lens of governance, brand reputation, and institutional readiness, not only user acquisition. Bringing regulators, associations, and legal voices into that same environment makes the conversations more grounded.

There is also a practical reason, regulated gambling growth depends on credibility. When brand trust is explicitly on the agenda, it signals that the market’s next stage will reward operators and suppliers who can demonstrate robust compliance, responsible engagement frameworks, and transparent messaging.

Soft2Bet and SportsGrid show two sides of industry influence

If Soft2Bet represents the supply-side engine room, product, tooling, and how engagement is built, SportsGrid represents the distribution layer, how narratives travel and how audiences make sense of what the industry is doing. Those are distinct forms of influence, and both are increasingly strategic in 2026.

For NEXT.io, the combination supports a specific ambition, to be more than an event organiser and to act as a year-round community hub. That is consistent with how NEXT.io describes itself as the world’s iGaming community, with in-depth coverage, expert analysis, and a portfolio of events including NEXT Summit: New York and NEXT Summit: Valletta, plus retreats.

For the broader market, it is a reminder that iGaming’s competitive dynamics now include communication advantage. The companies that win are not only the ones with the best product or the best licensing footprint, but also the ones that can articulate their approach to regulators, investors, and consumers in a way that builds confidence.

What to watch at NEXT Summit New York 2026

Based on the official agenda themes and the addition of Emerging Verticals, several watchpoints stand out for attendees and for anyone following coverage through SportsGrid and NEXT.io channels.

• how regulation and player engagement are framed together, especially with Soft2Bet’s General Counsel joining an engagement-focused panel,
• how market entry and M&A conversations are shaped by the presence of major investment and advisory figures on the speaker roster,
• how Emerging Verticals are positioned, whether as adjacent opportunities, near-term revenue drivers, or longer-run innovation bets.

Those conversations are not abstract. They feed into product roadmaps, partnership decisions, and compliance interpretations that can influence competitive balance across jurisdictions.

Where to find official information and why media coverage matters

For registration and official Summit details, NEXT.io directs readers to its event page at https://next.io/summits/newyork/. Soft2Bet’s announcement also references partnership opportunities via https://next.io/summit/new-york/.

SportsGrid’s presence means the event will not be confined to those links or those who can attend in person. SportsGrid describes itself as a multimedia content and technology company focused on the convergence of sports content and gaming, with destinations including its FAST Video Network, Radio Network, SportsGrid.com, mobile applications, and studios. It also notes that SportsGrid intelligence and data are provided by Sportradar with integrated real-time data feeds and content solutions.

In the current market, that kind of distribution affects how quickly themes like sweepstakes, crypto, and new betting formats move from niche debate into mainstream executive priority lists. It also shapes how the industry’s controversies and commitments are perceived, especially when topics like trust, compliance, and engagement sit on the same stage.

With Emerging Verticals joining the Summit this year, the conversations are expanding into some of the most disruptive and fast-moving areas of the industry. SportsGrid says it will bring on-the-ground coverage to a wider audience across its streaming and digital platforms.

The bigger picture for iGaming in 2026

NEXT Summit: New York has always been about more than panels. It is a convergence point where the iGaming industry’s cultural reality, gambling as mainstream digital entertainment, meets its structural constraints, regulation, licensing, and scrutiny. The 2026 edition makes that tension explicit by elevating both the core business topics and the new edge categories through Emerging Verticals.

Soft2Bet returning as Headline Partner for a third year suggests continuity and an appetite for sustained, senior-level dialogue. SportsGrid returning as a media partner suggests a parallel trend, the market now expects these conversations to be captured, packaged, and debated in near real time across modern streaming and digital ecosystems.

Put together, these developments frame NEXT Summit: New York 2026 as a venue where the industry is not just networking, it is actively negotiating what the next version of regulated online gaming should look like, who gets to shape it, and how fast it can responsibly evolve.