Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | September 2009 32 41 (-) David Kinsman Chief Executive Officer, Weike Gaming Technology 42 (30) Albee Benitez President, Leisure and Resorts World Corp President, First Cagayan Leisure and Resorts Corp 43 (-) Clarence Chung Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Elixir Gaming companies offering online offshore gaming content and services. First Cagayan Leisure and Resorts Corp is in turn majority owned by a Philippines public company—namely Leisure and Resorts World Corp— led by entrepreneur Albee Benitez. Through the latter company, Mr Benitez heads the Philippines’s largest chain of bingohallswith36sites—alllicensedand regulated in turn by the national regulator- cum-operator, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR). The bingo halls are in the country’s major politically following the accidental death of Phnom Penh’s police chief in November 2008, by early January Clarence Chung and his management team at Elixir had signed a deal with NagaCorp to operate slot machines on a revenue share basis in the latter’s NagaWorld Casino in Phnom Penh. Hong Kong-listed NagaCorp is insulated from the political and regulatory turmoil recently surrounding Cambodia’s gambling industry, as it has an exclusive and currently unlimited 70-year casino licence within 200 kilometers of the capital. The deal meant that by the time the final clampdown on Phnom Penh’s 70 slot clubs came in February, EGT was able to relocate equipment from its three slot clubs in the capital and mitigate potential losses. EGT’s primary business is the placement of gaming machines on a revenue share model in three, four and five star resorts, hotels, and other venues across emerging gaming markets in the Asia Pacific region. In its results for the financial year ended 31st December 2008, EGT said it expected growth in the Philippines market in 2009 as well as expansion of capacity at NagaWorld would help to offset the closure of its own Phnom Penh slot clubs. Mr Chung has extensive financial and gaming management experience. Concurrent with his roles at Elixir Gaming, Mr Chung is an executive director and the Chief Operating Officer of Melco International Development Ltd and is also a director of Melco Crown Entertainment Limited. Previously, he served as the Chief Financial Officer at Melco and over the last 20 years has held senior financial positions at a number of multinational companies. The Philippines’ First Cagayan Leisure and Resorts Corp acts both as regulator and operator of gaming businesses in the Cagayan Special Economic Zone Authority (CEZA). CEZA, a freeport set up in the north of the country by the Philippines government in 1995, is Asia’s first and so far only issuer of internationally recognised licences for David Kinsman, the company’s current CEO, was recruited in 2008 as part of the drive to turn the company into a truly global player. “Our aim is to build Weike into Asia’s number one gaming machine company,” says Mr Kinsman. “We do not aspire to be the biggest, but definitely to be the best,” he adds. Mr Kinsman is a passionate advocate of Weike’s products, but also of the benefits of electronic gaming to the whole industry. He points out, for example, that the ability of electronic games to give pinpoint-accurate player odds creates value and levels of player engagement that ultimately benefit the operators. He says that once initial capital costs are covered, an electronic baccarat table in the Macau market can typically be 90% cheaper a year to run than a live table. The company has also been building its gaming systems business in Asia, including slot management, customer relationship management and monitoring systems. Mr Kinsman started his gaming career with Olympic Video Gaming in Australia, which became Australasia’s No. 2 manufacturer under his leadership. The company was eventually sold to IGT Group in 1997 for A$178 million (US$152.8 million at today’s prices). Mr Kinsman also served as General Manager of Vidco, launching multi-terminal gaming products. Vidco was then sold to another group and renamed as Star Games in 1991. His next role was as CEO of Online Gaming Systems in Australia, where he set up the regional office in Sydney to service the Australian, Asia-Pacific and South African markets. Later, the company took over the worldwide assets of its then parent. Between 1994 and 1998, he served twice as Director of AGMMA, the Australian GamingMachine Manufacturers’Association (now known as the Gaming Technologies Association). In 2004, Mr Kinsman was headhunted by the online gaming provider Mansion Group as COO, creating ‘The Poker Dome’, a television series featuring poker games between theworld’s top players betting their own money. It became one of the top-rated shows on the Fox Network in the United States and beyond, generating a large pool of clients for Mansion. Weike passed an important milestone last December when the Singapore-based manufacturer achieved the first of a series of GLI-11 certifications for its equipment. This included approvals for its Infinity platform and gaming machine range, and its multi player electronic table game equipment. The certificates enabled the company to move to the next phase in its drive to build sales in key Asian target markets, including Macau. The company was founded in 1998. Elixir Gaming Technologies appears to have been the most fleet-footed of the slot operators in the Cambodia market, which contracted sharply earlier this year when the government barred locals from visiting slot clubs in Phnom Penh. Seeing the way things were going shopping malls and offer a range of games including traditional bingo, electronic bingo, instant bingo pull-tabs and Rapid Bingo—a keno-type game.