Inside Asian Gaming

INSIGHTS INSIGHTS – Inside Asian Gaming In the second installment of IAG’s video interview series with leading members of the Asian gaming community, we catch up with Shuffle Master CEO Gavin Isaacs, who discusses how he plans to position his company to profit from the booming Asian market. The interview can be viewed online at the IAG website, www.asgam.com G avin Isaacs was appointed CEO of Shuffle Master effective 1st April, 2011. He formerly served as COO of Bally Technologies. With Mr Isaacs’ new role, the product range under his purview has expanded. Whereas Bally is focused solely on slots and systems, Shuffle Master’s catalogue covers slots, table games (including electronic table games), and of course, its market leading shufflers. Mr Isaacs points out that his new job is also much more Asia- focused, since Shuffle Master derives a much greater percentage of its revenues from the region than Bally does. Inside Asian Gaming publisher Kareem Jalal spoke to Mr Isaacs during last month’s G2E Asia Expo, help June 8th to 9th at Venetian Macao, for the second interview in IAG ’s INSIGHTS series, produced in collaboration with Aomen TV, a member of the Ignite Media Group. Below is a transcript of the interview. Mr Jalal : Slots are something that ShuffleMaster has become stronger in since the Stargames acquisition [completed in February 2006]. Is that part of the reason Shuffle Master decided to buy Stargames? Mr Isaacs : They bought it more for the electronic tables. They saw the growth of electronic tables. They have a product in North America called the Table Master, and Stargames’ Rapid Roulette and Vegas Star all complemented that. Then Stargames had a fledgling slot business. What happened was that that slot business, they tried to sell it off, they couldn’t sell it. They reinvented themselves in many ways. The people in Stargames, whom I havemet—a lot of themfor thefirst time yesterday—fabulous amount of innovation. They got together. They built a new game, the Equinox, and all of a sudden they have gone from being down near the bottom of the pack to one of the leaders in the industry in Australia. Launching that product up here in Asia, initially, is the first expansion outside of Australia. The electronic table game space is getting really crowded these days. Is that something you’re worried about losing your position in? I don’t think so. I think each market is different. There is a lot of competition in Asia, but really the installations in Asia, apart from Macau and Singapore, they’re not that substantial—obviously, Philippines, places like that. It’s the revenue in the major markets INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | July 2011 24