ICE Presents ‘Landmark Awards’

Some of the industry’s most influential personalities and best-known commercial organizations were honored in the ICE Landmark Awards, presented at the show last month.

The lineup of Landmark recipients comprise Ernie Stevens, Jr., chairman and national spokesman for the Indian Gaming Association, whose leadership during Covid helped to protect and preserve tribal gaming and secure the vital funding needed to keep tribal casinos solvent through the worst of the pandemic.

Stevens was joined by another U.S. industry stalwart, Roy Student, who celebrated 50 years in the business, a career which included being part of the executive team responsible for opening the original Las Vegas MGM Grand in 1973, and includes such technological advances as central accounting programs, player tracking innovations and server-based gaming. Student was one of the first to emphasize the importance of non-gaming revenue.

European-based Landmark recipients include veteran industry journalist David Snook, who first reported on the exhibition, then known as ATEI, in 1968; and Per Jaldung, who has served as chairman of the European Casino Association since 2015.

The posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award was granted to Jimmy Thomas, who died July 30 at 88 years old. Thomas was a pioneer, innovator and philanthropist whose creative spark changed the face of the U.K. gambling industry. Simon Thomas, who is executive chairman of the Hippodrome Casino, accepted the ICE Landmark in honor of his father.