Reports
BULGARIA - SOFIA GAMING MARKET
exception - bingo, which has been effectively killed by online play. Another game that Mr. Mihov has seen shift into decline is roulette, with multi-players in each of the halls we visited eerily quiet, despite commanding key positions on the gaming floors. “Roulette is a game that is slowing dying in Bulgaria,” says Mr. Mihov. “Roulette is not adapting or changing as a game and in a market that is constantly looking for something new and fresh, it’s losing out to more attractive games. We still offer multi-roulette to players, but each year the revenues are getting less and less. We are seeing falls of between five to six per cent year on year.”
Mr. Mihov believes roulette is being judged by players against the returns from gaming machines, which are returning 3.6 per cent as opposed to 2.7 per cent from roulette. It’s a significant margin and something that sophisticated local players are recognising and acting upon. Te ever-changing slots floor is also driving players towards slot games, with Mr. Mihov explaining that he changes approximately 10 per cent of his floor every six months and that few machines now remain since opening three years ago. Pointing to seven Megajack machines, the 10 year old cabinet housing a 17 years old game, look out of place
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next to the space-age new cabinets populating the rest of the floor – while every one of the 71 machines on site is a multi-games title.
Te casino is bright, colourful and spacious, something Mr. Mihov says is attractive to the younger players who aren’t looking to frequent ‘dark’ locations, a reference not just to the lighting, but an atmosphere as well. Each of the Palms Merkur’s eight locations, four in Sofia and the rest spread across Bulgaria, offer the same ambience, with the company building new locations from ‘scratch,’ as Mr. Mihov describes, as opposed to taking over existing locations and their inherent ‘issues.’ Every location is open 24/7, as the concept of any downtime is deeply unpopular with the playing public.
Huge tracts of the floor are filled with seated customers at EGT machines, with the EZ Modulo, ARCH and TOWER from Casino Technology providing immediate visual impact and variety. “Now they have a great series of products,” says Mr. Mihov of the latest range from Casino Technology, “I’m eager to place more machines as our players have really responded to the latest cabinets and we can’t wait to add more EZ Modulo machines to our floor.”
Gaming halls are taxed per gaming position, or seat, levied at €250 per month. It’s a fair sum according to each of the operators and managers we spoke to during our visit and one that appears to have eradicated illegal operations, as the rewards for illegal operation as opposed to paying legal taxes are no longer worth the risks.
DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF THE CITY Travelling between locations in Sofia, there are
swathes of the city lying derelict, like some dystopian movie in which nature is trying to claim it back. One boarded up location is signed ‘Bar Casino Flirt,’ a casino and stripclub, closed for many years as the concept, we are told, ‘didn’t work.’ We pass back into a modern district in which shops, bars and restaurants line the street on either side of a busy main road. Tere are three gaming halls within our eye-line as we step into a Palms Bet Casino, the clientele now predominantly male, though the mix of slots machines is markedly similar to the Palms Merkur location. Te major difference, however, is a row of
eCasino.bg terminals at the rear of the hall.
Players can play online games directly from the terminals in the gaming hall, but the overriding use of the terminals is to transfer money from player accounts. Should a player choose to
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