Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | March 2012 34 SPIELO International S PIELO International’s Casino Systems Division has been delivering complete systems to the industry for more than 20 years. It says it was the first to deliver a floor network product based on the Ethernet protocol. As part of Italy’s Lottomatica Group— one of the largest companies in the global gaming industry—SPIELO International has the financial strength and broad expertise to give customers of all sizes in all regions the right products for their business needs. Inside Asian Gaming spoke to Marc Attal, Managing Director Casino Systems, during ICE 2012 in London, to find out more. IAG : What’s the current state of development of your Asian systems business? Marc Attal : We’ve been in Asia with systems for the past eight years; and in the last two years we’ve had an incredible boost in Asia, acquiring new territories. We started our first Asian activity for systems in [South] Korea. We signed our first casino there— Walkerhill—in cooperation with our local distributor. We have enjoyed a successful installation with our CRYSTAL.net ™ floor network platform and our GALAXIS™ range of casino management tools. CRYSTAL.net and legacy CRYSTAL.WEB™ are the foundation for our systems. They provide a floor network on which the GALAXIS applications reside. GALAXIS is our casino management system consisting of several modules for the different domains in the casino: marketing, player solutions, slots, bonusing, cage, cashless, jackpots, tables, display and vision. Also in Vietnam and the Philippines we have had quite significant growth through RGB, our Asian distributor. We have won a lot of market share with ten new customers on board last year alone. What were the key factors that led to that growth? I think what customers enjoy is that first of all, we are part of a big group—SPIELO International, being part of Lottomatica Group. They feel that by partnering with us they are going with a strong company with a strong future in front of it. The second thing is that the market is moving toward convergence now between Internet gaming and land-based casino operations. At SPIELO International we do represent all those market segments. It’s not like we just bought a company to add a market segment. The different segments are integral parts of the company. We have our G2 [interactive business], a full service provider for online gaming and sports betting. We have the [gaming] machine activity, we have the system activity, and we have the VLT activity. So basically a customer talking to us can have all those segments. “If a customer wants to buy a system he’s got three main reasons—it has to simplify his life; it has either to bring in increased revenues or reduce the [operational] costs; and the supplier needs to be there when the operator needs him. That means not just during the opening hours of your European offices, but on Saturday morning at 2am when the casino is full.” With our system activity they [the operators] also have something where they can grow in the future. The system is very scalable and offers customers a lot of innovation. We have a philosophy that when we sign with a customer it is the very beginning of a relationship. We have a number of customers where we are celebrating our ten-, 15- and 20-year anniversaries with them. We are building relationships with the market today, always with an eye on the future. Can you give us some specific examples of why operators choose SPIELO International casino systems? Usually when customers make a decision on a system, they look for the bells and whistles and they buy the standout feature. With us they see the innovation we can bring to them and the scalability. We can install a system for 150 machines. But we can also scale the system up to 1,500 machines and put new functionality and innovation in. We also provide local support. It’s not like we bring a team from somewhere else in the world. We believe strongly in cultural exchange. We have people talking in the customers’ own language, with the backup of our support behind them, including level twoandlevelthreesupport.Thewayweserve the region is something that is appreciated and recognised by the customers. Can you explain a bit more about level two and level three support? If a customer wants to buy a system he’s got three main reasons. One is it has to simplify his life. Second, it has either to bring in increased revenues or reduce the [operational] costs. Third, the supplier needs to be there when the operator needs him. That means not just during the opening hours of your European offices, but on Saturday morning at 2am when the casino is full. That’s when they need the support. So in that respect we have—with our distributor—level one support on-site, in their own language. Level two support is available from Europe 24/7. If they have a more complex issue we can support that via level three. Some of our Asian customers we have had for eight years came to us and said ‘Marc, we have seen a lot of systems, there’s a lot of innovation in Asia. But we came back The Big Picture SPIELO International is ramping up its systems business in Asia thanks to proven reliability combined with innovation