Barack Obama sends message of support for G2E Asia

“…this prominent trade exhibition is an excellent venue for developing new business. US Commercial Service staff are here working diligently to connect U.S. companies with international buyers – providing leads, trade counseling and market research,” says the letter from President Obama.

The message of US political support at the highest level for G2E Asia comes four months after Macau businesses said they planned to set up their own casino industry conference and trade show in Macau, and just under a year since a trade dispute at last year’s event threatened to boil over into a U.S.-China diplomatic incident.

G2E Asia is organised by two bodies from outside Macau – the American Gaming Association, a trade body made up of casino operators and equipment suppliers, and Reed Exhibitions, a global events organiser with corporate headquarters in the United Kingdom. In the past year however, the event’s monopoly as a Macau-based casino equipment trade show has been challenged.

A new local trade body – the Macau Gaming Equipment Manufacturers Association – had its official launch in January. Macau casino executives including most prominently Angela Leong On Kei, an executive director of SJM Holdings, a company founded by former Macau gaming monopolist Stanley Ho Hung Sun, attended it.

Local show

The association chairman Jay Chun announced during the event that the body would hold a convention and exhibition annually to “set up a platform of technology exchanges and trading for Macau casino equipment”.

In August last year, Chun told Business Daily that the new association was not meant as a rival to either the AGA or to the Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers – another U.S. –based trade body. Many of the firms that currently supply gaming equipment to Macau casinos are members either of one or both.

“In the future we will need more technically-qualified people to understand the gaming business. And how to educate the young people is our association’s target. It’s not really like we want to organise [industry] exhibitions. That’s not our target,” Chun told Business Daily at the time.

Chun is chairman of LT Game, which has been in a protracted Macau patent dispute with U.S.-based casino games maker SHFL entertainment (formerly Shuffle Master) over multi-game electronic table games in the Macau market. That dispute flared again during G2E Asia 2012. A SHFL multigame product was covered for most of the first full day of the event on the orders of Macau customs officials, though a Macau court later lifted the requirement. The AGA threatened to expel LT Game from the show because of what the AGA’s president Frank Fahrenkopf described at the time as an attempt by LT Game to “leverage” its litigation.

Diplomatic moves

Fahrenkopf told Business Daily at the time of the incident that he had called the U.S. Consul General’s Office in the region to ask him to attend the show to make those concerns known. Fahrenkopf – who retires as AGA president after this year’s G2E Asia – is politically well connected in the U.S. He was chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1983 to 1989 – covering most of President Ronald Reagan’s time in office.

Mike Johnson, event director & general manager, G2E Asia, told Business Daily yesterday at a press conference previewing G2E Asia 2013, he was confident there would be no trade disputes played out on the show floor this year. “We don’t anticipate any issues on site at the show this year. We’ve worked very hard [on that].” He added: “I want to stress we respect the laws that are in place here in Macau. We don’t get involved in that. But in terms of how it [such issues] impact the event and in terms of running a smooth event, we’ve been having a constant dialogue with both those companies.