Merit Entertainment announces that it will stop offering its 17” Aurora product as of July 1, 2008.  In keeping with Merit’s 30-year history of outstanding product support, the company will continue to support the 17” Aurora well into the future. Merit will continue sales of the 19” Aurora, the industry’s highest-earning countertop. While the 17” Aurora has been consistently out-earning all competitors’ products, the 19” steadily beats it by 11% or more.


“With the Aurora, we developed both 17” and 19” screens to offer choice to our operators but the market has dictated that the 19” is what players and locations want,” stated Bob Mills, Merit’s Vice President of Sales. “Those operators who have had success with the 17” Aurora should get their orders in to their authorized Merit distributors before the end of June, to take advantage of our limited supply of those models.”

Some mischievous rumours have been circulated about TAB-Austria’s Max Fire digital juke box, which the company has rejected with a statement.

Siegfried Dattl, Managing Director of the Linz-based company, has gone on record as refuting very indignantly any suggestion that the Max Fire does not have PPL or VPL approval. 

"I suspect it is a rumour instigated by competitors - probably because Max Fire's cashbox is consistently higher than their's," said Dattl. "But I can categorically reassure all juke box operators that Max Fire is not just the best-earning juke box on the market, it is also completely covered by every performing rights requirement for every market it enters."

He added that this feature of the box had been in existence right back to the end of 2006.

TAB-Austria also is the first foreign company ever signed a contract with The Official UK Charts and they have access to all official chart lists.

“Also many new features are going to be released within the next few weeks – features which are completely new to the business. Trial test have shown, that there are going to become a great success” says Karin Scheidl, Marketing Manager.

eMillions™ Wide Area Progressive (WAP), by Atronic, awarded a jackpot for the first time this year at Seven Feathers Casino in Oregon. Retiree Greg Stinsman visited the casino to enjoy dinner and play the slots when he hit the one-million-credit jackpot while playing Gold Seekers II™.  He won a whopping $50,000 after putting $200 into the machine. When asked what he was going to do with his winnings, the happy winner said that his first purchase would be a big screen TV.    

eMillions™ is a nickel WAP link which is distinguished  by life changing million dollar and life altering million credit dual jackpots along with a unique Jackpot Re-spins™ feature, multiple new game themes, and an innovative “jackpot button”.  eMillions™  dual jackpots allow players who wager the max bet of 75 credits to qualify for the thrilling million dollar jackpot, and players who wager anything less than max bet to qualify for the million credit jackpot. The award winning eMillions™ product additionally features unique, colour- changing game play coupled with the industries first “jackpot button” which encourages play and facilities player comprehension and enjoyment.

The Facelifting-Kit contains 20 top-designed Versus Pucks (70 mm), two original Versus spare mallets in the well-known Gauselmann quality as well the essential care classic - the original cleaning spray!

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A representative from Northamptonshire Police has called for the industry to have greater involvement and participation with MachineGuard in order to tackle crime more effectively.
Speaking at MachineGuard's 10th National Security Symposium which took place in Coventry last week, Michael Downing of Northamptonshire Police said “a lot more operators need to be accessing and contributing to the MachineGuard database which is an invaluable tool for the police when dealing with criminals that travel around the country.”  Representatives from the Gambling Commission, also in attendance at the meeting, asked what percentage of the industry were accessing and contributing to the industry's national database and confirming that one of their objectives and a condition of an operator's licence is to keep all crime out of gambling.

The Symposium, which was attended by 25 people from 18 companies and organisations was chaired by Gary Pettengell, MD of MachineGuard-UK and top of the agenda was the plan to establish a cohesive national strategy to tackle crime in the gaming industry. 
Pettengell gave a demonstration of the new MachineGuard crime management system used to run the industry's national database and evidenced how it would help the Commission meet their objectives and operators tackle and reduce crime in the industry. He explained that MachineGuard dealt with all types of crime and incidents from anti-social behaviour to robbery and was able to provide the industry, Commission and police with statistics, suspicious activity reports, intelligence briefings, target profiles and briefing packages. The new system has a powerful search functionality and unique gallery system which allows the user to view comprehensive detailed information and high quality digital images of suspects and offenders to assist in identification.

Pettengell told the attendees “due to the development and upgrade to our system there won’t be a Chief Constable or senior ranking police officer in the UK who will not have heard of or studied MachineGuard in the next few weeks. It is now vital that the industry capitalises on this exposure at ACPO level and joins MachineGuard. We can drastically reduce crime in the industry by working together. The time has come for a national strategy meeting between the industry's key stakeholders, MachineGuard and the Commission.” He went on to say the gaming industry was in a unique position as it had been able to access a national crime database for 7 years whereas the retail sector was still looking to set up a national system.  
Pettengell concluded “MachineGuard is continuing to develop its crime reduction systems and over the next few months we expect to complete another of our security projects, the security kit and software database.  This unique system is now partly operational with Barcrest, Bell Fruit, Mazooma and Astra Games data already uploaded and soon to be completed with additional manufacturers' data to be uploaded shortly.  Once completed operators will be able to type in the name of a machine to find out exactly what software version it should be running on and all the security kits that should be fitted. This database should stop those criminals that target out of date machines to fund the development of major frauds.”