Implementation Coordinator

Meet the nominees: SBC Awards 2026 shortlist revealed. SBC has officially announced the shortlisted nominees for the 13th edition of the SBC Awards, set to take place at Lisbon's MEO Arena on Thursday, 1 October, bringing down the curtain on SBC Summit 2026. Bringing together 1,200 industry professionals, the ceremony will present 38 awards recognising outstanding achievements across the global betting and gaming industry, spanning operators, suppliers, payments, compliance, marketing, platforms and data. Leading this year's shortlist in nominations is Kanggiten, securing nine nominations across the evening, followed closely by Betsson Group and Sportradar, with seven nominations apiece. Other notable nominees include Kaizen Gaming, securing six nominations, whilst BetConstruct AI, Evoplay, GR8 TECH, Playtech and Soft2Bet have each received five nominations. Rasmus Sojmark, CEO and Founder of SBC, said: "Making the SBC Awards shortlist is never easy, but it's also one of my favourite moments in the entire process. "It truly shines a light on the incredible work happening across our industry, whether it's household names returning to defend their titles or newcomers enjoying a breakthrough year. That mix is what makes the SBC Awards so special. We can't wait to welcome everyone to the MEO Arena and celebrate these achievements together." In the operator categories, Kaizen Gaming will seek a third consecutive Operator of the Year - Large award, facing competition from businesses including Codere Online, LeoVegas Group and Megapari. Meanwhile, Betsson Group returns to defend its Casino Operator of the Year title, while 1xBet and NOVIBET are once again shortlisted for Marketing Campaign of the Year and Innovation in Casino & Gaming Entertainment, respectively. This year will also see separate Employer of the Year awards presented to operators and suppliers. The supplier shortlist includes reigning champion SOFTSWISS, alongside names such as Alea, BETBY, GR8 TECH and Playtech. Operator nominees include Allwyn Hellas, Bally's, and Parimatch. The highly anticipated Leader of the Year award will remain under wraps until the night, with the recipient revealed live during the ceremony. In the payments and compliance categories, GeoComply will attempt to retain its Fraud & Compliance Solution of the Year title. PayPal, Trustly, Worldpay and Yaspa are among the businesses shortlisted for Payment Solution of the Year, while MiFinity, OKTO Payments, Pay4Fun and Paysecure feature in the Payment Innovation of the Year category. The supplier categories will span 22 awards covering casino content, sportsbook technology, data, platforms, marketing and player acquisition. Sportradar returns in pursuit of consecutive wins for Sports Data Product and Land-Based Betting & Gaming Product, while Optimove will seek to retain both Marketing & Services Provider of the Year and Acquisition & Retention Partner. Elsewhere, GR8 TECH will defend its Platform Provider of the Year title against a field featuring EveryMatrix, Playtech, Soft2Bet, SOFTSWISS, Sportingtech and Sportradar. The ceremony will once again recognise the industry's emerging businesses through four Rising Star awards spanning casino, sports betting and software innovation. For those interested in the affiliate sector, SBC will also host the dedicated Affiliate Leaders Awards at the MEO Arena on Wednesday, 30 September. The ceremony will recognise the companies, campaigns, technologies and individuals driving progress across affiliate and performance marketing. The complete list of shortlisted companies is available on the SBC Awards website. Please note that a separate ticket is required for attending the ceremony. You can find the available table and ticket options here. FAQs - SBC Awards 2026 shortlist. What are the SBC Awards 2026? The SBC Awards 2026 are annual industry awards recognising excellence across the global betting and gaming sector, celebrating achievements in operations, technology, payments, compliance, marketing and innovation. When will the SBC Awards 2026 take place? The ceremony will be held on Thursday, 1 October 2026, at Lisbon's MEO Arena, concluding SBC Summit 2026. Where are the SBC Awards 2026 being held? The awards ceremony will take place at the MEO Arena in Lisbon, Portugal, one of Europe's largest indoor event venues. Which company received the most nominations? Kanggiten leads the SBC Awards 2026 shortlist with nine nominations, followed by Betsson Group and Sportradar with seven nominations each. Who organises the SBC Awards? The awards are organised by SBC, the company behind SBC Summit and several leading betting and gaming industry events. What is the Leader of the Year award? The Leader of the Year award recognises an outstanding industry leader, with the winner announced live during the awards ceremony. What are the Rising Star awards? The Rising Star awards recognise emerging companies making significant contributions to casino, sports betting and software innovation. Are tickets required to attend the SBC Awards 2026? Yes. A separate ticket is required to attend the awards ceremony, even for those attending SBC Summit 2026. Where can I see the complete shortlist? The complete shortlist is available on the official SBC Awards website, where visitors can also find event and ticket information.

Mediaworks appoints chief customer officer. Gateshead-headquartered Mediaworks has appointed Michael Sherwood as chief customer officer, strengthening its senior leadership team as the agency continues to support its long-term growth plans. Michael joins from Worldpay, where he was director of onboarding, and brings more than 25 years' experience across customer experience, digital, operations and organisational leadership. He has also held senior positions at Atom bank, Virgin Money, Tesco Bank, BGL Group and Orange, with expertise in developing customer-focused strategies and leading large-scale transformation programmes. In his new role, Michael will oversee the agency's client experience, focusing on strengthening customer relationships, improving consistency across client delivery and ensuring Mediaworks' services remain closely aligned with clients' commercial objectives. He said: "I'm delighted to be joining Mediaworks as chief customer officer. "The agency has a strong reputation for combining strategic thinking with digital expertise, and I'm looking forward to working with the team to help clients create better, more effective experiences for their customers. "Strong client partnerships are built on understanding, consistency and commercial focus. "I'm looking forward to bringing my experience in customer leadership, operations and service improvement into Mediaworks to help clients get even more value from their relationship with the agency." Michael's appointment reflects the agency's continued investment in building long-term client partnerships by combining brand, marketing, technology, performance and customer insight to deliver stronger business outcomes. Mediaworks said the move will support its ongoing growth strategy while further enhancing the service it provides to clients across a range of sectors. Brett Jacobson, chief executive at Mediaworks, added: "Michael brings a rare combination of client leadership, customer and operational expertise. "His background across financial services, fintech and large scale operations will be hugely valuable as we continue to strengthen the way clients work with Mediaworks. "His experience will help us build even stronger client relationships, bring sharper customer thinking into our delivery and make sure the work we produce creates greater value for the organisations we support." Want your business, product or service to be seen regionally and nationally? Bdaily helps you get your story in front of the right audience, every day. Find out how Bdaily can help Join more than 55,000 subscribers by signing up to our daily bulletin each morning here. Explore these topics. Enjoy the read? Get Bdaily delivered. * Occasional offers & updates from selected Bdaily partners

Worldpay outage leaves pubs and shops scrambling for cash during England match. Thousands of shoppers and football fans were forced back to notes and coins on Tuesday night after a power outage at Worldpay, one of the world's largest payment processors, knocked out card transactions at pubs, supermarkets and restaurants across the country. The disruption could hardly have come at a worse moment for the hospitality trade. Tills and contactless terminals began failing just as fans settled in to watch England's World Cup group game against Ghana, the kind of fixture that turns an ordinary Tuesday into one of the busiest trading nights of the year for licensed venues. Customers reported being unable to pay by card at a number of retailers, including branches of Tesco, while videos circulating on social media showed queues snaking out of cash machines as drinkers and diners hunted for the funds to settle up. Several pubs and entertainment venues posted notices that they were accepting cash only until the system came back. Worldpay attributed the fault to a third-party power problem rather than any failure of its own platforms. "The UK experienced a power grid disruption, which is causing intermittent transaction authorisation issues for some Worldpay clients," a spokesperson said. "Our technical teams are engaged and working to address the matter as soon as possible." In a statement on its website, the company added: "A third-party power disruption is causing intermittent transaction authorisation issues and tokenisation request errors on some Worldpay platforms. Our technical teams have restored service to some platforms and continue to troubleshoot to restore full service as soon as possible." The monitoring site Downdetector logged more than 1,000 reports of payment problems at Tesco from around 8pm. Responding to a customer on X, the supermarket said: "There is an issue with Worldpay at the moment affecting us and other businesses taking card payments." A Tesco spokesperson later confirmed the problem had been fixed, saying: "An issue that affected payments in store and online is now resolved. We're sorry for the inconvenience." Frustration among consumers focused as much on the timing as the fault itself. "Global outage on Worldpay, leaving busy pubs in the UK unable to sell beer to customers who don't have cash, not great," one customer wrote. Another posted: "Unbelievable, busy England game and Worldpay goes down on card terminals. Multiple sectors reporting issues of terminals down." For all the inconvenience, the episode is a useful reminder of how thoroughly Britain has moved away from physical money, and how exposed that leaves small firms when the plumbing fails. Contactless now accounts for roughly three-quarters of all debit card transactions in the UK, according to UK Finance data, with supermarkets among the most common places people tap to pay. As Business Matters has reported before, contactless is at record levels and there is little appetite to return to cash. That convenience comes with concentration risk. When a single processor handling a large share of the market goes dark, the effect ripples instantly across thousands of unrelated businesses, from the corner shop to the national grocer. A pub that has quietly gone card-only over the past few years suddenly cannot take a penny, and few customers now carry the cash to bail it out. The incident lands against a tougher regulatory backdrop for the firms that run the country's payment rails. Since March 2025, payment and e-money firms have had to comply with the Financial Conduct Authority's operational resilience rules, which require them to identify their most important services, set tolerances for how long disruption can last, and prove they can stay within those limits. An outage that stops shops trading on one of the busiest nights of the football calendar is exactly the sort of scenario those rules are designed to stress-test. For SME owners, the practical lesson is the value of a backup. Venues with a second terminal on a different acquirer, a working cash float or a simple offline payment option were able to keep serving while rivals turned customers away. Many smaller operators have already been rethinking their relationship with the banks' card machines in search of lower fees and better terms, and resilience deserves a place on that checklist alongside price. There is a security dimension too. Nights when systems are patchy and queues are long are exactly when staff cut corners and opportunists try their luck, so it pays to understand how to keep cashless customer payments secure even when the technology is under strain. Worldpay said service had been restored to some platforms within hours and that engineers were working to bring the rest back online. For the publicans who watched a sell-out crowd struggle to buy a round during the second half, the bigger question is not whether the system came back, but how quickly they can make sure the next outage does not cost them the takings. Amy ingham. Amy is a newly qualified journalist specialising in business journalism at Business Matters with responsibility for news content for what is now the UK's largest print and online source of current business news. June 24, 2026