Review ICE TOTALLY GAMING 2015
THE SITUATION IS BLACK & WHITE FOR SYNOT EXPANSION
The announcement that Synot would be one of just four suppliers to the Greek VLT market has catapulted the Czech-based VLT and AWP experts onto the global stage
The short-listing of Synot as a supplier of VLTs to the soon-to-open Greek market is a landmark moment for the Czech-based company, which is dominant in its home territories and has now placed its marker in one of the most high profile new international markets. The Greek VLT market is to become one of the most strictly regulated, technologically advanced and heavily scrutinised in the world. It’s therefore hugely significant that Synot, from a tough and transparent tender in which 32 companies applied to supply VLTs, was chosen by the Greek government alongside GTECH, WMS Gaming and Inspired.
“Greece will place 35,000 VLTs into the market,” described Synot’s Roland Andrýsek at the ICE show in London. “In a market that has imposed a gaming ban since 2002, the introduction of VLT gaming will have a significant impact not only in Greece, but at the regional level too. We are currently in the process of selecting our five best games for the opening of the market as OPAP has set a limit on the number of new games that can be introduced at the outset. Our advantage, we believe, is that Greece has set the technology bar at a very high level, in which there isn’t a parallel anywhere else in Europe. Our cooperation with GTECH for over a decade has meant that we have cleared this hurdle easily, having adopted G2S protocols as part of our market-leading VLT technology.”
Technology might not be a barrier to Synot’s entry into Greece, but the country’s legacy of over 120,000 illegal gaming machines is an obstacle that every new market entrant will have to overcome alongside robust policing of the law. It’s infuriating that just as Synot is bringing a solution to the Greek market to help legalise gaming, provide taxation to a cash-strapped government and help remove illegal machines from the market, the company is having to also fight a rear-guard action in its domestic market in which the government appears hell-bent on helping to establish an illegal back market in the country.
“Synot does not operate in unregulated markets, which has meant that we’ve declined many opportunities in the past to participate in international markets,” describes Synot’s Miroslav Valenta. “Unfortunately, the Czech
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Recent Czech legislation has given local authorities the powers to close local gaming parlours and retrospectively deny licences to legal operations that should be able to operate until 2017-18. In reneging on these agreements the country is plunging the market into chaos. “Pub owners depend on the profits made by gaming machines to support their income and in many cases provide their only means of profit,” says Mr. Valenta. “If the draft law, which currently states that gaming machines must only be operated in arcade and casinos, does not support the legal operation of machines within their premises then they will find means by which to continue through alternative measures.”
government is currently considering a law that will impose taxes on the domestic gaming market that will cripple legal operations in the country. Tax duties are expected to rise to 25 per cent for sports-betting, 30 per cent for number lotteries and 35 per cent for land-based gaming operation, having previously been 20 per cent for all. In addition to the tax changes, the law will also establish a variety of complicated obligations upon operators, including lowered stake levels, player loss per hour limits, and a statutory break of 15 minutes after one hour’s play.”
Mr. Valenta believes that the current changes are part of a politically motivated programme to increase taxation levels for the gaming industry to unsustainable levels. “If the current draft law passes into legislation then we will see lots of venues and machines in the Czech market disappear from public view. They will be operated on the black market which will benefit no-one,” states Mr. Valenta. “There are so many black market machines in Czech already, many classified as ‘skill-games’ to try to circumvent the law, but which are in fact slot machines that it makes a mockery of any new legislative proposals. We didn’t have a black market in the Czech market in the past, but now we see illegally operated machines everywhere.”
Recent Czech legislation has given local authorities the powers to close local gaming parlours and retrospectively deny licences to legal operations that should be able to operate until 2017-18. In reneging on these agreements the country is plunging the market into chaos. “Pub owners depend on the profits made by gaming machines to support their income and in many cases provide their only means of profit,” says Mr. Valenta. “If the draft law, which currently states that gaming machines must only be operated in arcade and casinos, does not support the legal operation of machines within their premises then they will find means by which to continue through alternative measures.”
Mr. Valenta also claims that while the government is politically motivated to implement these changes, it does not have a public mandate to impose the changes on the gaming industry. “Politicians claim that the public do not like the current gaming environment in the Czech Republic, but that’s rubbish,” says Mr. Valenta.
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