The news: SBC has announced the five finalists for the 2026 First Pitch competition taking place June 11 at SBC Summit Americas in Fort Lauderdale, co-organized with BettingStartups. The annual startup pitch competition gives early-stage gaming and sports betting companies a live stage in front of investors and industry judges, with the winner taking home a prize package valued at over $100,000.

Zoom in: This year’s field spans AI customer service, data infrastructure, and prediction markets. InsightPlay uses AI agents for operator customer support and has already started recovering dormant players in Latin America. Odditt packages ready-made combo and parlay bets for sportsbooks and DFS operators. OddsBlaze gives operators and traders real-time access to odds, market movements, and arbitrage alerts. ParlayX is a prediction market aggregator built for betting syndicates. The Sharps turns bankroll management into a tournament format, combining poker structure with traditional sportsbook wagers.

Why it matters: The last edition of First Pitch, hosted at SBC Summit Lisbon in September, was won by AIstats, a Polish soccer analytics startup that beat out a field covering affiliate tech, messaging-based betting, onchain prediction markets, and a Japanese social sports platform. Compare that to this year’s Americas field, which is almost entirely focused on data, market efficiency, and operator tooling. The Americas ecosystem skews B2B, and the startups that made this cut are pitching squarely at operators looking to move faster and price smarter.