Euroslot-JUL-AUG09-PG22-28:Layout 1 02/07/2009 10:20 Page 22
TOURNAMENT FEATURE www.euroslot-online.com
W
ORK
,
H
olding a tournament is a bit like throwing a
huge party – to ensure its success, one has to
make sure several elements are in place. Firstly, you
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&
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have to ensure that the guests know they are
invited. Secondly, you have to make it worth their
while to turn up. And thirdly, you need to make sure
that you have the controls in place in case the whole
thing gets out of hand.
The feel-good factor of tournaments can make a real
impression on cashbox but they do require a significant
investment – in time and money. And a large number
of installed machines certainly helps. It is for this
reason that the most successful industry tournaments
have been managed by the largest manufacturers,
distributors and operators, who have these resources.
Again – like parties – some of the best tournaments
can be small affairs. One machine, a pub full of willing
players and a motivated pub landlord can be a recipe
for success. But for those who would like to be involved
in national or international tournaments, the situation
is far more complex.
“The biggest challenge in establishing a tournament
is creating  a back office server system capable of
managing multiple machines and locations and
updating all the data on an ongoing basis,” says Nick
Hardy, business development manager at Games
Warehouse, which has run the Merit TOURNACHAMP
tournament in the UK since 2006.
“This requires very specific expertise and substantial
capital investment and Games Warehouse has
benefitted greatly from our exclusive access to the
Merit network that has been proven through almost a
decade of successful operation. As others who are
successfully operating this superb genre of
entertainment will confirm, the learning curve is long
and steep, the personnel required have specific skills
and the cost of market entry is immense,” he adds.
Electrocoin, the UK distributor, has been involved in
organizing tournaments since 1995, when the first
Golden Tee golf tournaments began. The company’s
Kevin Weir believes the biggest challenge in organizing
a successful tournament is, “Ensuring that the
message is communicated to the player. Advertising
away from the machine is difficult with many pubs
refusing poster campaigns. The live events are time
consuming and logistically costly but rewarding
because the players that attend are totally committed
to the event and are hungry to win.”
Choosing the right games for tournament play is also
essential. “There has to be something for everybody, so
we select our tournament games very carefully. It is
important to have a balanced mixture, from classic card
games to exciting quiz games to tricky games of skill
and attractive prizes – after all, they offer a substantial
incentive for players to take part in the tournaments.
The chance of winning something makes the
tournament even more exciting and more interesting for
all the players in the struggle for the most points“, says
Siegfried Dattl jun. managing director of TAB-Austria,
which has been holding national and international
tournaments regularly since 2002.
Peter Davis, business development director at UK
operating giant Gamestec agrees that games are key,
“It is essential to ensure we choose a tournament
game that creates incremental play rather than
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JULY/AUGUST 2009
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