Aristocrat Leisure Limited, one of the world's leading providers of gaming solutions, announced today that it has chosen FutureLogic, Inc., as their global printer technology partner, a decision based on FutureLogic's ongoing innovation in thermal ticket printing, promotional marketing and couponing for cashless gaming. According to the agreement, FutureLogic's GEN2™ printers will now be fitted as the default option in all Aristocrat's current and new TITO gaming platforms, including the Slant and the new technologically advanced Viridian cabinets with Gen7 platform. This will take place throughout Australia and the rest of the world for the next three years.

"We are so pleased to be selected as strategic partner by such a renowned and respected company in the gaming industry," said Eric Meyerhofer, CEO of FutureLogic. "It is testament to all the efforts by our design engineers and support teams around the world that Aristocrat has chosen FutureLogic for its leading technology." "FutureLogic's reputation for performance and reliability and its outstanding support for our international expansion and development schedules made them the obvious choice as the technology partner for Aristocrat's thermal ticket applications - both now and in the future," said Gareth Phillips, Chief Technology Officer for Aristocrat. "We chose FutureLogic after evaluating our options and listening to the global markets," said Aristocrat's Global General Manager Marketing, Roxanne Costello.

"FutureLogic's position as the leader in gaming printer technology is preferred with casinos throughout the world, and their focus on customer service and satisfaction is what we require from our technology partners." FutureLogic's John Edmunds, VP International Markets said, "This is a particularly important time for FutureLogic to be selected as the dominant supplier of slot machine printers to the Australian gaming market. This agreement further extends the momentum we have generated internationally and will continue to drive increased sales of our slot machine printers in years to come. Being fitted as the default printer across these markets, as well as in the new markets that are opening throughout Asia and other jurisdictions throughout the world, further demonstrates FutureLogic's reputation as the number one preferred printer in the industry. We look forward to supporting Aristocrat by continually developing innovative printing and marketing solutions that add value for their clients."

Sweden is a country with a relatively short casino history. The first casino was inaugurated in 2001 and its fourth in 2003. The four casinos form the Casino Cosmopol group, which is a subsidiary to Svenska Spel, the largest gaming company in Sweden. Svenska Spel is wholly owned by the Swedish State. The four casinos are located in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö and Sundsvall.

The youth and vitality of the Swedish casino industry is reflected in how quickly casino management can adopt market innovations. The Swedish psychology of consideration and thus choosing the correct market trend is reflected here. The natural move was to adopt a form of cashless gaming but the question was which one. The casino management chose ticket-in, ticket-out (TITO) as the way forward for the 1000 slots in operation. Two major factors weighed in favour of TITO over a card system – its simplicity to handle (for the operator) and the simplicity to understand (for the player). Thus, casino management foresee that their staff will have more time to focus on their guests as spending time “running around” to pay handpays is now a thing of the past.

Having considered the advantages of TITO over cards, the next question was which printer solution to adopt. Again Swedish consideration was key to take a long-term approach of the benefits each individual company could offer. Having weighed up all options, casino management made a clear choice – of the printer solution of FutureLogic’s GEN2 combined with the service of Suzo International.

Erik Wijma, Business Manager of Suzo International’s Casino Group, explains, "European Casinos are witnessing the benefits of working together with Suzo. We have an excellent infrastructure with technical and commercial staff with direct support at the casinos. Casinos appreciate that we can offer them world class solutions and in this case the combination of the support of Suzo and FutureLogic together with the proven printer technology of the GEN2 made us stand out strongly against the competition. This made the decision on which printer to take much simpler for the management team at Casino Cosmopol. We thank them for their trust and look forward to serving them on a long-term basis"

Casinos Stockholm and Gothenburg have now gone live with TITO with Casinos Malmö and Sundsvall to adopt TITO shortly after the summer.
Roger Jonsson is the Senior Gaming Manager at Casino Cosmopol whose team received individual training as both casinos went live with TITO. He sums up his experience with Suzo International and FutureLogic, “We are very happy with the service we got from FutureLogic and Suzo during the start up. We had no major problems with the printers. However, a lot of them were not correctly set up from our slot suppliers and the help from your staff saved us a lot of time and “heartburn”. Our staff also got very good training during the start up and that makes all of us very confident for the future.”

Nick Harding, chief executive officer of Aldgate Capital, is poised to make a high profile return to the low stake high volume gaming sector having agreed a £25m (€31.5m/$49.3m) price to purchase 31 Adult Gaming Centres (AGCs) from H.J.M. Caterers Ltd and E and J Hall Investments.

The deal, which has been agreed with Jon Shipley and which will complete later this month, represents the first part of the jigsaw as Harding launches an ambitious bid to create a pan-European gaming company with earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of £50m (€62.9m/$98.5m) by the start of 2010. Harding, who is current president of British trade association BACTA, confirmed: “We are now in talks with a number of gaming businesses both here in the UK and in Europe. Whilst ‘slots’ will represent an important part of our business mix, we are pursuing a broad range of opportunities which fit into the low stake high volume gaming category.” He added: “Jonathon Hughes will be taking control of our AGC business and will be driving it forwards in terms of acquisition and business development.

“I can confirm that following completion of the purchase we will be retaining the staff and administrative infrastructure based in Nuneaton.”

Joint Venture of MERKUR CASINO and CASINO TECHNOLOGY continues a winning formula -
Second ‘PALMS MERKUR CASINO’ joint loca-tion in Sofia inaugurated

ESPELKAMP. Another electronic Casino saw its grand open-ing in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia in June under the la-bel PALMS MERKUR CASINO. The new modern ref-erence object was jointly designed by MERKUR CASINO and the Bulgarian cooperation partner CASINO TECHNOLOGY and continues to prove that this joint ven-ture involves two competent and professional partners with entrepreneurial spirit.

The new entertainment center with approximately 600 sqm is located right in the heart of the city and is jointly operated by both cooperation partners. The product port-folio includes a total of 62 innovative Casino gaming ma-chines, among them a very special attraction: a black pi-ano with a genuine roulette bowl built in that can be used for both, playing regular roulette and playing piano. In ad-dition, the new PALMS MERKUR CASINO features live music shows on Fridays that contributed to making the entertainment center rapidly one of the favorite and most fashionable entertainment centers in the city’s neighbour-hood.
A staff of all in all 16 attends to the wellbeing of the pa-trons. The new PALMS MERKUR CASINO is open 24/7.

The Gauselmann Group that proudly looked back to its 50 year old history in 2007 currently operates a total of ap-proximately 300 entertainment centers in all of Europe. In FY 2007 the family-managed Group generated aggregate consolidated revenues of more than EUR 1 billion. The Gauselmann Group currently employs more than 5,000 people worldwide and is the only company in the German amusement machine industry to be certified according to ISO DIN EN 9001:2000. The friendly smiling MERKUR sun has meanwhile become a symbol of luck and much appreciated guarantee for innovative leisure time culture in 11 European countries including Germany.

Italy’s best players experienced a unique and massively enjoyable event

The “Italian Open” PHOTO PLAY CUP was held on 8 June 2008 in Caorle. Italy’s best PHOTO PLAY players challenged each other to an exciting competition and enjoyed an unforgettable game event.

For an entire day 13 top players enthusiastically played live against one another in four tournaments: Quiz Maniac, Roman Towers, Shanghai and Twins. They competed in either one or several tournaments and played many exciting games.

Emerging victorious in the four PHOTO PLAY championships at the Italian Open were Ste De Matteis (Twins), Werner Gruber (Shanghai), Filippo Cocchella (Quiz Maniac) and Aldo Tagliaferri (Roman Towers). Afterwards they celebrated their victory together with the other players on an amazing party hilariously.

Enthusiastic game experience
“The national PHOTO PLAY Cup in Caorle was a resounding success for funworld and an unforgettable experience for the players. Italy’s top PHOTO PLAY players met, got to know each other and exchanged experiences. They played passionately and with great enthusiasm and intensively experienced the PHOTO PLAY fascination,” says Andrea Scampini, managing director of funworld italy.

The players were particularly enthusiastic – in addition to the massively enjoyable Italian Open – above all about the unique multiplayer feature, whereby they were able to play online against one another live and in real-time. Moreover they were impressed by the ergonomic design of the PHOTO PLAY RACER PRO terminals and their numerous technical refinements, such as the streaming video, which makes it possible for opponents to interact during the game.