Global perspectives, real data, practical AI, and urgent conversations on prediction markets—plus what happens when casino leaders stop working in silos and start learning together.
What happens when you bring together gaming leaders from around the world—Tribal, commercial and international—and ask one simple question: what actually matters right now?
That was the tone set at the Raving NEXT: Casino Strategy and Operations Summit last week.
The annual event, created in 2001, returned in a fully virtual format—intentionally—to widen access and bring leaders from across the organization into the same conversation. CEOs and GMs, marketing and player development, general counsel and compliance, HR, surveillance and security, operations and analytics all learned side-by-side.
That diversity of roles was deliberate. A core goal of Raving NEXT is to break down functional silos—and this year’s discussions consistently crossed departmental lines in the same way real gaming decisions are made today.
Raving’s CEO Deana Scott shared, “Our goal is to broaden industry education and networking at all levels of the organization—and create access to professional development, because that’s how better decisions get made and stronger teams are built.”
The opening session grounded the entire program in data.
Based on Raving’s Gaming Insights Survey, completed just ahead of the conference, most operators are neither retreating nor charging ahead. Nearly half are budgeting for growth, while more than 40% are planning flat. Revenue is holding, but margins are tighter, regulatory demands are increasing and day-to-day operations are becoming more complex.
The opening session also spotlighted an immediate operational and player-facing issue: the federal jackpot tax reporting threshold increase from $1,200 to $2,000. Speakers focused on system and vendor readiness, necessary regulatory updates, and how fewer hand pays could reduce service touchpoints unless properties intentionally redesign guest engagement. Experts also raised concern about recent loss-deduction changes and their potential impact on frequent players and local markets.
The message was clear early: gaming remains resilient—but leadership decisions are getting harder.
Several sessions built directly on that reality, including focused discussions on strength-based leadership and asking better performance questions—moving beyond reports and dashboards to understand which decisions and behaviors actually drive results.
Artificial intelligence became one of the most closely followed sessions of the event.
In AI That Pays: Top Five Integrations Changing Casino Profitability Right Now, Andrew Cardno, co-founder and CTO of Quick Custom Intelligence, moved past high-level AI conversation and into practical execution—showing how teams are already using generative tools and prompts to reduce administrative burden, speed analysis, remove operational friction and give managers more time for people and performance.
The closing executive discussion brought the industry’s most immediate strategic risk into sharp focus: prediction markets.
Leaders described a rapidly evolving landscape that challenges existing regulatory frameworks and, for Tribal nations in particular, long-standing sovereignty and exclusivity structures. The discussion highlighted an increasingly rare alignment between tribes and state regulators as both confront products operating outside traditional gaming oversight—and the urgency for operators to closely monitor how these cases unfold.
What tied these conversations together was how the learning happened.
Raving NEXT leaned heavily on interactive roundtables and real-time peer dialogue—supported by the event app—where attendees compared notes across roles, properties and markets. During the summit, participants generated more than 1,000 community discussion posts, exchanged hundreds of direct messages, and created several peer-to-peer meet-ups.
This event was about creating space for leaders to test assumptions, learn from peers and leave with sharper questions—about performance, technology, leadership and risk.
In a year defined by tighter margins, accelerating technology and growing regulatory complexity, Raving NEXT offered something the industry increasingly needs: a place to think together—before the next decisions have to be made.
Raving will be hosting their signature, in-person, Casino Marketing & Technology and Host PD Conferences, July 14–16, 2026 in Southern California. Attendees can expect the active and immersive learning environment they’ve branded since 2001.