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NEWS


British casino operators investing in new venues


Despite fears of continuing economic hardship, the UK is about to get its biggest-yet casino


Today's Britons may chatter of double-dip downturns and quantitative easing as casually as they dissect the Premier League or The X Factor, but in the casino sector there is little sign of a serious slowdown. Indeed, Aspers Group is about to open the country’s largest venue, a 65,000-square-foot development in the new Westfield Stratford City shopping centre, near the site of the 2012 Olympics. Attracting new or less confident players appears to be a priority for Aspers, with the gaming floor offering 92 betting terminals where customers can play table games electronically, as well as 150 slots. Most likely, many visitors taking advantage of those will have also been


lured to Stratford City by its other leisure facilities such as retail, dining, cinema, bowling and hotels: this is most unlikely to be an exclusive, high- roller-oriented venue.


Stratford City is unlikely to be a casino oriented to high rollers


The casino, opening in December, will also have 40 conventional tables offering standards such as American Roulette, Blackjack and Punto Banco alongside new games including Casino War and Blackjack Switch; a 150-seater Poker room; and a 60-seat betting area in the sports bar. And Aspers is not the only operator investing in Britain. Rank’s Grosvenor unit, for example, continues to roll out its G brand, with a mix of new sites and


revamps. Latest is the Grosvenor G Casino Stockton, a 21,000-square-foot venue with 13 tables, 26 terminals and a 100-seat Poker room as well as slots.


Casinos are beneficiaries of overall recovery in the British betting and gaming sector, although much of that is thanks to strong performance by the National Lottery and remote gambling. The sector was worth £8.86bn (around $14bn) in fiscal 2010, according to market researcher Key Note. That represented a slight rise on 2009’s £8.72bn, following a precipitous 12.2 per cent plunge in 2008-9. The National Lottery, at £5.82bn ($9.5bn), and remote gaming fared best – but this was at the expense of other markets such as Bingo, football pools and bookmakers. Key Note predicts “small but consistent growth” in the next five years, with total spending on betting and gaming reaching £9.87bn ($16bn) in 2015. Next year’s Rugby World Cup and Olympics, as well as the 2014 Commonwealth Games, will add impetus.


And the optimistic outlook for gaming is consistent with other research suggesting that most British consumer and leisure businesses are expecting their turnover to improve over the next year much faster than the economy as a whole. A survey by private-equity firm ECI Partners found that 76 per cent expect to see turnover rise by more than six per cent, while a third predicted an increase of more than 20 per cent. By contrast, the British Chambers of Commerce expects that gross domestic product (GDP) will climb only 2.1 per cent in 2012. Casino operators like Aspers and Grosvenor, however, will be looking for a much sharper rise as consumers undaunted by financial doomsaying try a little quantitative easing of their own in new venues.


INBRIEF


WINNING MOVE Novomatic is to be headline sponsor of January’s Totally Gaming Awards in London.


VLT STANDARD Gaming Laboratories International has released a new standard for video lottery terminals (VLTs), GLI-23.


PLAYER DATA Los Angeles market research firm Meczka is offering casinos a twice-yearly player-research service that analyses consumer behaviour and preferences, market share and “share of wallet”. Some data will be shared among all participating casinos; other information will be site-specific.


BIG NUMBERS DEQ Systems, the supplier of bonusing, jackpot and loyalty systems for table games, has directly installed its thousandth unit. Distributors have rolled out a further 375.


ON A ROLL A new dice game from Brill Entertainment, Scossa, has gained Nevada regulatory approval. With simple rules to maximise appeal, it was trialled at Red Rock Casino.


INSPIRED PARTNERS DigiDeal and TCSJohnHuxley are to distribute Inspired Gaming Group’s new Sabre electronic table product in parts of the US.


AFRICAN FIRST Las Vegas Casino in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania has become the first site in that country to offer a Magic Dreams game, Double Draw Poker. Separately, Slots Management is to become Romanian distributor for Magic Dreams.


GULP Margaritaville Casino at the Flamingo Las Vegas has produced the world’s largest-ever margarita, an 8500-gallon drink.


IBET American Wagering will be allowed to take sports bets from the iPhones of Nevada residents, state regulators have ruled.


MOBILE WEB Nearly 60 percent of US online gamblers play Web-based games via their mobile phones, against just a quarter of their European counterparts.


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