VIDEO LOTTERY TERMINALS
La Dolce Vita T
here were fireworks, there was entertainment from Cirque du Soleil, but most important for the gamers congregated at the opening of the new Timecity slot room at Rome’s Parco
Leonardo this summer, there were 60 video lottery terminals: the first in the country to go live.
Operated by Lottomatica and built by Spielo, the
new machines – better known as VLTs (and less misleadingly, because they’re not actually used for lotteries in Italy) – were the culmination of a frantic rush toward deployment. Little more than a year had elapsed between the decision of the regulator AAMS to permit the networked devices, in part to raise funds for reconstruction in the region affected by 2009’s Abruzzo earthquake, and their first encounter with consumers.
“Internationally, the Italian VLT market is the most
exciting opportunity the gaming industry has seen in years,” said Luke Alvarez, CEO of Inspired Gaming Group. “It’s still early days, but consumers have been very positive towards the new VLTs and venue operators are excited about the potential of the machines. Over the next few months, we expect the first VLTs to be very well received in Italy. Over the next year, it will soon become clear which VLT products are performing the best and generating the highest incomes.”
The regulator had to get tough on the positioning of VLTs within premises
The AAMS has authorised about 57,000 VLTs, and
they will have a major impact on a country already in love with gaming to the tune of ¤53bn annually – roughly half of that on slots, likely to be the gambling category that the VLT market most resembles.
The rollout was not without headaches. AAMS helped the operators by cracking down on illegal
40 OCTOBER 2010
Life is good for Italy’s VLT operators and their suppliers; despite a few rough patches on the road to rollout, the new machines are finding favour with gamers and venues alike. Could Greece be next? Barnaby Page reports
systems that it was feared might hold back revenue from VLTs, most notably the Internet terminals called “totems”; although only legal for sports betting, they were widely used for other forms of online gaming.
But the regulator also had to get tough on the
positioning of VLTs within premises, reminding operators that they are only allowed in dedicated gaming rooms – not, for example, in bars.
Testing, too, was arduous. Recalled Inspired’s
Alvarez: “The testing process is much more demanding than for the [slots] market, as it encompasses a full central system, auditing, random number generation and a wide-area networked gaming solution. Having been through the process, we are very aware of the thorough testing process and how many challenges there are for suppliers with less
Inspired’s Luke Alvarez
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