About this app
What is Fire Ice?
“We [recently] started asking, ‘What does this mean for the customer? What can the customer actually do with this?’ And I think we would have continued looking for that answer if the customer hadn’t come to us and said: ‘Can we let our AI agent deal with your data streams and use your platform?'”
One customer built its own casino landing page and wanted to use Cubeia’s APIs to make it work with the platform. “Another wanted to use Cubeia’s player account management system to build its own functionality, including personalised bonuses,” Grenstad recalls.
The idea is less about Cubeia providing another AI tool than making its platform and data accessible to AI infrastructure customers are already building themselves. Cubeia is now running a pilot based on the landing-page use case.
How to play Fire Ice
Many top gaming stocks have underperformed relative to the broader market in recent years, and most of the M&A activity has been facilitated by private equity and other institutions that can more readily capitalise on depressed valuations. There had been hope that rates would start to fall and help alleviate those pressures.
“Publicly traded valuations are a reflection of the current interest rate environment,” Chad Beynon, lead gaming analyst for Macquarie, told iGB. “Whether it’s a long-term financial model on a growth company, you’re going to discount that back at a higher rate, or if it’s just a standard four-wall business, the cash flows in a higher interest rate environment are worth less.”
According to data from Yahoo Finance, the resort and casino sector is -41% over the last five years, and the overall gambling sector, which includes major sportsbooks and online operators, is +7%; the benchmark S&P 500 index, by comparison, is +71% during that span.
What is Fire Ice?
Bill Beatty, our Editor-in-Chief, was my guiding light. I learned to think of journalism, the gambling industry, and even life, in whole new ways thanks to him, and I’ll always count on him as one of my mentors.
But I couldn’t have accomplished half of what I did without all of my colleagues, past and present. Our talented team of writers, editors, web site development guys, production team, on screen reporters, Human Resources, Accountants, everyone. It took the whole team to make sure we put up the latest news and opinions every day, and everyone deserves their fair share of the credit.
To all of those I met at the handful of conferences I attended before Covid-19 sent everything to digital, and all of those I met over email or Zoom since, it was a pleasure to meet you. I hope we get the chance to meet again when all of this is over, and you can reach me at any of my contact details listed at the bottom if you want to catch up in the meantime.
