Inside Asian Gaming

March 2008 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 35 manage the complete floor mix.” Furthermore, EGT is one of the best placed companies in Asia to negotiate the acquisition of the most popular products, such as the Star Wars™ progressive, at the best prices from leading slot machine manufacturers. A humble hotel operator in the Philippines or Cambodia would not get quite the same reception from IGT as would Mr Pisano, who incidentally once headed Asia-Pacific business development at IGT. Mr Pisano has thirty years of experience in gaming technology, and along with the rest of the EGT management team, offers formidable experience and insight to start- up gaming venues, which, without EGT, would probably have struggled to even get off the ground, let alone draw crowds with big-name attractions. AlthoughbringingStarWars™toAsiawas a coup, EGT uses its experience to do much more than get deals from manufacturers. Experience enables EGT to determine“what works for what market,” says Mr Pisano, and to set up and run venues in an optimal way. An example of EGT expertise in action was the recent reconfiguration of the slot floor at Casablanca Casino—EGT’s first property—located within the Clark Field Special Economic Zone in the Philippines. Following the reconfiguration, Casablanca Casino’s average net win per machine per day exceeded its annual target of US$125, and the gain was sustained for a month, suggesting it is not a temporary blip. The demand for EGT’s turnkey solution is, unsurprisingly, huge. The company had originally targeted securing commitments to place 3,000 electronic gaming machines on a long-term participation basis around the region by the end of this year. That target has long since been beaten, with EGT announcing in January that it had already secured contracts to place 5,530 machines across 33 venues,with 2,400 contracted at 12 venues in the Philippines, 2,230 contracted at 17 venues in Cambodia, 400 at 2 venues in Vietnam and 500 aboard 2 cruise ships. EGT expects to install about 1,000 units per quarter over 2008, and is on its way to having “an installed base in excess of 2,500 gaming machines by late March/early April 2008,” according to Mr Pisano. He added: “Importantly,at the same time Elixir Gaming’s contracted pipeline continues to steadily grow along with the average daily net win at the venues currently in operation.” Logical cooperation In February, EGT and AsianLogic—a leading Asia-focused gaming company— entered into an Asia-wide co-operation agreement in the gaming machine and server based gaming sector. According to an EGT announcement: “The Companies intend to collaborate on marketing efforts, distribution agreements, game content, gaming software, server based gaming experience, manufacturing and additional gaming technology.” AsianLogic operates online casinos and peer-to-peer (P2P) game platforms across the Asia-Pacific Region, as well as land-based sports betting outlets in the Philippines. It also distributes leading gaming content, software and systems. AsianLogic Vice Chairman Tom Hall elaborated on the benefits of the agreement: “The explosive growth of the slot market in Asiamakes compelling logic for us to formally partner with Elixir Gaming as they are the clear market leader in this space. The senior managementofElixirGaminghasmanyyears of experience in the Asian gaming industry and the Elixir Group is widely recognized in the gaming industry in Asia for its industry leadership and distribution capabilities. Further, Elixir International, a strategic partner of Elixir Gaming, has a research and development team that has developed and manufactured what in our opinion is the best slot machine cabinet currently available. It has been designed to support both the traditional slot machine model as well as the developing server based gaming models. While we fully understand the gaming software and games content industries and represent some of the leading products in Asia, we were struggling somewhat on the physical machine development and ongoing support. By entering into this co- operation agreement with Elixir Gaming, we can delegate this critical side of the business to the Elixir Group and focus on rolling out games and gaming concepts utilizing both of our distribution channels.” EGTExecutiveChairmanandCEOGordon Yuen also gushed about the prospects of the partnership,which would give EGT“access to additional games, gaming software, server based gaming experience and some unique offerings which we believe will enhance net win at our existing and future outlets as well as further strengthen our leading strategic position in Asia. We recognize that AsianLogic, in conjunction with its software providers such as Playtech and Videobet, understands the importance of cross marketing, database mining and gaming across multiple platforms such as land- based, online and mobile. We are confident that through combining the two strengths of the organizations we will continue to offer the leading and optimal revenue generating products to gaming venue operators across the Asia-Pacific region.” Slots and Tech