Cirsa brings technology to China to start a big network of gambling venues

The company of Lao family will not be the owner of the hall, which will be operated directly for local authorities, although the group is located in a privileged position to enter as operator in the country once the government authorizes it.

“Yes, finally it will be allowed the entry of private companies in the bingo business, we will study the operation”, explained Joaquím Agut, general director of Cirsa.

According to ex president of Terra and Endemol (which was incorporated to the Catalonian group in June 2006), the aim of the Chinese state is to have a computing system which allows them to have the remote and online control of all the national bingos”.

“The Chinese government wants a technology to know instantly all that happens in the bingo halls”, adds Agut, who has also implemented similar systems in Andalucía, Madrid and Catalonia, where it has a network of more than 135 gaming halls.

With the technologic platform developed by the company, simultaneous bingo games can be played, so players of the different halls play the same match, which increases the prizes considerably.

Cirsa has developed a system in its I+D center in Terrassa, in which more than 100 engineers are working. The departament, with a budget of 7.3 million euros, also works for the Italian government, with a system that allows the simoultaneous connection of more than 12,000 gaming machines. Other international clients of the group in this sector are the Virgin Islands, the European lottery Lototrot, Caracas lottery (Venezuela) and electronic bingo systems in Mexico and Norway.

Its executive vicepresident is Manuel Lao Gorina, who pointed that they have a turnover of 1.7 billion euros a year. The company achieved to increment its gross operation benefit (ebitda) of up to 170 million euros.

The debt, according to Agut, remains in around 600 million euros. “In a year and a half, we have increased ebitda from 114 million to 170 million euros”, according to the director, who added that the aim is to “double that figure” in a four-year deadline.

Cirsa manufactures more than 30,000 gaming machines a year, owns more than 60 casinos and employs 15,000 people in 70 countries.