Lisbon opens SBC Summit 2026 with 40,000 attendees and a packed payments, compliance, and tech agenda

Lisbon’s mayor, Carlos Moedas, and senior government officials opened SBC Summit 2026 yesterday to a crowd of 40,000 people in the Portuguese capital. For operators and PSPs, the useful part is not the ribbon cutting — it’s the agenda: regulation, AML (Anti-Money Laundering), payments, fraud, cybersecurity, and the practical mechanics of keeping iGaming money moving.

1. Mayor Carlos Moedas delivered the opening remarks before the official ribbon-cutting ceremony, where city and government officials were joined by SBC leadership and key event sponsors. They then took a VIP tour of the exhibition floor at the Feira Internacional de Lisboa (FIL), meeting industry leaders, exhibitors, and SBC Summit partners.
2. The event runs from 29 September to 1 October 2026 at FIL and MEO ARENA. That matters because the conference is split between the exhibition side and the main-stage programming, with the payments and regulatory conversations running alongside the more familiar marketing and product noise.
3. Today’s sessions, 30 September, include “The impact of technology on operator revenue and player retention in Europe,” “Cross-border compliance: Navigating AML regulations in African markets,” “Technology innovation: How can technology keep players safe from harm?”, and “Beyond reform: the new Italian gaming landscape.” For PSPs and operators, that is basically the week’s operational checklist in session form: where revenue comes from, where compliance breaks, and where regulators are moving the goalposts.
4. The speaker lineup also includes “Founders’ Stories III” with Vigen Badalyan, Co-Founder of Softconstruct, and a discussion on the global expansion of the AFA brand with Leandro Petersen, former Commercial and Marketing Director of the Asociación del Fútbol Argentino, and Sergio Goycochea. Useful as a reminder that gaming-adjacent growth conversations now routinely sit next to the payments and regulatory track.
5. Tomorrow, 1 October, the featured presentations turn to AI and branding, including “The big AI disruption: the endgame for old advertising rules,” “From generative AI to agentic systems,” and “Imitation culture: building a brand beyond visual identity.” The agenda also includes compliance and payments sessions such as “Blockchain banking for gaming operators,” “More players, less risk: how to maximize approvals in a regulated world,” and a “Responsible gaming marketing masterclass,” with fraud prevention and cybersecurity folded into the discussion.

For high-risk businesses, the signal is straightforward: this is not just a trade show for networking and logos. It is a concentrated look at the topics that decide bankability, approval rates, regulatory exposure, and whether a market is worth staying in.