“Novomatic already has market-specific games for North America”

How was the show for Novomatic?
David Orrick: G2E this year for Novomatic has marked a very important event. It is the coming to reality of our American team and our ambitions for the North American market. As you know very well from the pages of Yogonet, we’ve highlighted various things during the last 18 months or so, since we first established Novomatic Americas Sales, LLC in Florida. Since then, we’ve been on a gradual progression leading up to G2E this year. Here in Las Vegas we presented our team, we presented the fact that we have licenses in place, with more to come, we highlighted the fact that we have product approvals, with more to come, and we highlighted most significantly the fact that we have machines actually placed on locations in the State of Illinois, in the VGT market. We are licensed in Illinois both for VGT and also for the riverboat casinos. We’ve also opened an office in Chicago, which is the headquarters for our VP of Sales for North America, Rick Meitzler, so he has a satellite team right there, and we also have our main headquarters in Deerfield Beach, Florida.

So bringing all of those things together, we waited to the first day to see the reaction of the American visitors to G2E, and the reaction was warm, was extremely welcoming. It was, of course, expected ahead of time by the visitors, but the nicest comments that we had were from actual customers and potential customers looking at our machines. So the show for Novomatic is fantastic, not just for North America but for our international markets, too. We had many visitors from Latin America, Europe and Asia. As a global meeting place G2E is one of the two top shows in the world; the other one of course is ICE in London. We are proud to be here, we are pleased to be here and we are having a very successful show.

Which is the strategy to grow in North America?
David Orrick: The simple answer to that question is ‘step by step’. Everybody knows and understands that arriving into the North American market takes a lot of time and a lot of effort, because being a heavily regulated market as it is, the licensing program takes time, the approvals program takes time and you have to have a strong commitment from day one. But this is not going to happen tomorrow or next week, or next month. It will build exponentially. So that is the process that we’ve started, we are excited about it, we are committed with it, we are here, and now everybody knows that we are here, they know what we have to offer and we will now press forward with our development programs in our planned step by step manner. 

Are you planning to develop any particular games for US?
David Orrick: We already have some market-specific games for the North American market. The VGT market, for example, in Illinois, has a very close similarity to markets in Europe and in other areas, which are very familiar, it’s a limited payout market, and therefore the games have to be fine-tuned to those regulations. We already have specific game mixes for the North American markets and more of those will be developed. We´ve worked quite extensively with focus groups in Illinois, in Michigan and also in California, because the people that we are most interested in hearing from are the people that will ultimately be our customers. They tell us what they want and we work to successfully provide what they want so, yes, the progress of the development program will absolutely continue. 

There have been many mergers and acquisitions in the sector. What is your opinion on the matter? 
David Orrick: Well, I think we should consider the current position of the market. As you said, the situation within the US market and US companies is one of some confusion. The market is in a transitional stage, and this fact can eventually create success for those companies that have merged. But what it also creates is opportunity; it allows the American operators to look at the landscape that’s been created. Some of them really don’t have so many producers offering them products. The strategies of those integrated companies will of necessity be different, and it thus opens the door to other possibilities. Previously, and without mentioning any names, the American operators were focused on a relatively small number of major producers. Now, as the circumstances with those companies have changed, operators have to look a bit further, maybe they have to be more creative, and if they want creativity, and they want innovation, they can now look at Novomatic. That’s one of the reasons that we are here, to demonstrate the innovation that we’ve become famous for over the last years. And now it’s time to bring those skills and those applications to the North American market. As I said, it won’t happen immediately, but it will definitely happen, and in a timely manner.