Sue Schneider: Holding the door open for igaming innovators

Hannah Gannagé-Stewart

8 July 2025 at 9:22am UTC-4

Source: Sue Schneider

Email, LinkedIn, and more

There are few people in the igaming industry better placed to advise on its future than Sue Schneider. With more than 40 years in gambling, and the past 30 of those focused on igaming, there is little Schneider doesn’t know about the nuances and idiosyncrasies of this industry.

Fortunately, her latest venture, Defy The Odds, is all about sharing that wealth of experience to boost innovation, break down barriers to entry, and keep igaming on its ascendancy.

Article continues below ad

Launched with fellow igaming leaders Paris Smith and Kelly Kehn, Defy The Odds is a startup launchpad on a mission to improve diversity in the industry while supporting a pipeline of fresh ideas and talent.

“Collectively, we figured out that we have 80 years in the industry,” she tells me, “Which is kind of weird given that this is such a young industry.”

Schneider’s career on the igaming side started in around 1995, when her igaming publication effectively became an early affiliate site.

Article continues below ad

She went on to found seminal industry trade shows GIGSE and AIG, which were sold to Clarion in 2006. In the late ’90s she met and became friends with Smith. A few years later, she got to know Kehn.

Advocating for startups

This past spring, the three were looking for a new challenge to sink their teeth into. They gathered at Smith’s Curacao home to brainstorm ideas, taking a whiteboard down to the poolside to mull the avenues down which their collective experience could take them.

Article continues below ad

“We love startups, we love innovation, we love diversity. So, it just kind of came together,” she recalls. “At first, we were talking about putting together a fund, but we found out what that entails. None of us were much into the bureaucracy and compliance involved in that.”

Ultimately, they realized that between them they had massive and influential networks they could leverage to the greater benefit of the industry. “At first, we figured we all knew a lot of the same people, but we found out that we don’t as we’ve gotten into it. There are all kinds of people that I know that the other two don’t, and vice versa.

“So, we’ve been leveraging that, and the intent is to give a kickstart to startups, challenging them on their thoughts and what makes sense, helping them with relationships, to give them kind of a quick start.”

Smith and Kehn had numerous investors in their networks, which means Defy The Odds is also in a great position to help startups identify and tap into much needed investment opportunities.

The trio’s high profiles have helped them to find the startups that they’ve taken on. With so much media coverage around Defy The Odds, there is no shortage of interest. “We really thought we were going to have to beat the bushes more, to be honest with you,” Schneider says. “But we’ve been very fortunate to have a fair amount of attention, so they’ve been finding us.”

That said, she is keen to reach more new and interesting founders and is sorry to have found that there are fewer incubators for the industry than she expected. “We’re trying to reach out to various universities,” she says. “We partner with one called Zero Labs, which is in Las Vegas as part of UNLV. They don’t just do igaming, it’s a variety of gaming and hospitality. So, it’s a little broader than our more specific niche, but so far, we we’ve had a pretty steady stream of folks coming in for us.”

Defy The Odds has about eight startups on the books. They start with short-term relationships of around six months, but Schneider says they’re starting to renew “so I guess they’re getting some value.”

Building an igaming community

Schneider, Smith and Kehn have plans to expand Defy The Odds so that it can reach more of the industry. An online platform is in the offing, which aims to create more cohesion by bringing investors, startups, regulators, first-year companies and other subject matter experts, together in one community.

“We’re in the process of building that right now. We just hired an intern from St Louis University, where I live, to work with us to get that built hopefully within the next six months,” she says.

There is still work to be done on refining the business model for the platform, including how best to monetize it. Profluence, a similar platform for sports tech startups has been an inspiration for the new site, which Schneider hopes will launch by early fall this year.

Beyond Defy The Odds, Schneider plays a continuing role liaising with legislators and regulators to smooth the path for igaming businesses in regulated markets. She’s pragmatic about the challenges on both sides but is also a passionate advocate for keeping the path clear for new entrants.

She’s not convinced igaming has reached maturity as an industry, seeing it as a progression via newly regulated jurisdictions. “I started in ‘95 and I’ve seen cycles. A new jurisdiction will open up, there’s a gold rush, everybody runs to get involved with it. Then it gets regulated, then it gets kind of stabilized. Then you get things like these loopholes that people are taking advantage of in the US.”

The “loopholes” she refers to are the prediction markets and sweepstakes causing uproar in various US states. Having seen controversial betting methods evolve into common usage in the past, she is sanguine about the controversy. “A prediction market or sweepstakes: Is that a loophole or is that an innovation?” she queries.

She says the industry “has this habit of being kind of stratified”. From the beginning, she says, “there was always somebody saying, ‘I’m more legal than you are’.” She reflects on starting an early igaming trade association, the Interactive Gaming Council, in 1996. “For better or worse, I chaired that for eight years because nobody else wanted to put their mug out there,” she recalls. “But, you know, it was interesting. We went through a point in about 2004 when one of the larger casino operators and suppliers wanted to kick out all of the sportsbooks in US. They’re going, ‘we’re more legal than you are’. And I tried to explain to them, if you asked any state attorney general which one of you is legal, they would tell you, neither of you are.”

Challenges to legalized igaming

The existential threat regulation poses to igaming companies is palpable in Schneider’s stories of regulatory realities past, and still very much ring true today. That ongoing fight for legitimacy against a backdrop of fluctuating regulation and public sentiment is an ever-present fact of life for igaming businesses across all jurisdictions. “I mean, it’s been going on for 30 years now, so it’s probably not going to change,” Schneider says.

All that said, she draws a distinction between sweepstakes and prediction markets. “It’s not a new thing for somebody to use that model as kind of an end run around the state regulation,” she says of the former, “the prediction markets are different”.

Predication markets she can see an argument for. “I never really did understand why we couldn’t do like a Betfair exchange here, because I always thought it would be good. But it goes back to the Wire Act and everything being ring fenced by state,” she explains.

Schneider says she’s “stumped” by the apparent lack of appetite for legalized igaming in the US, with just seven states introducing regulatory regimes since the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act was repealed.

She wonders if that appetite will increase if sweepstakes and illegal operators can be shut down, leaving no alternative but a legalized offering at some stage, but that’s a tall order if channelization efforts in other regulated jurisdictions are anything to go by.

In the meantime, her focus remains on building the influence of Defy The Odds and paving the way for igaming’s next generation of innovators.