Keith O’Loughlin and Benjie Cherniak are just two of the Power Players driving the increased US sports betting presence for Scientific Games.
Last month, O’Loughlin (pictured) and Cherniak were named as Power Players by Sports Business Journal, a media organisation which provides coverage of the deals, trades, contracts and boardroom power plays that shape the changing sports landscape in the US.
The Sports Betting Journal released a statement which read: “O’Loughlin has stepped up the U.S. sports betting presence of Las Vegas-based Scientific Games, known mostly as a $3 billion provider/operator of brick-and-mortar and online casino games.
“A deal to provide its OpenSports platform to Caesars’ brick-and-mortar sportsbooks in at least seven states was key, as was the acquisition of Don Best, an oddsmaking and real-time betting information service headed by Cherniak.”
The pair joined Bet.Works’ Dr Laila Mintas, who was also added to the list as a reward for her work in paving the way for legal sports betting in the country.
O’Loughlin is the SVP for Sportsbook and Platforms at SG Digital, the digital division of Scientific Games, while Cherniak is the Managing Director of Don Best Sports – the data services business bought out by Scientific Games in 2018 which now powers SG Digital’s 360-degree managed trading service OpenTrade.
OpenTrade is one of the key supporting pillars for SG Digital’s revamped sportsbook proposition OpenSports, which is still headlined by the world-renowned sports betting engine OpenBet but underpinned, according to O’Loughlin, by OpenAccelerate – a ‘value added’ service for functions such as acquisition, retention and player engagement.
Speaking at this year’s Betting on Sports America conference held across New York and New Jersey, he explained: “OpenBet, OpenPlatform, OpenTrade and OpenEngage are the core products that enable operators in the US to deliver what they want.
“Yet they are all underpinned by what we call our OpenAccelerate program – a suite of services that helps an operator run their day-to-day operations and ultimately win in the market.”
