At the Fer-Interazar Madrid 2008 Austrian Gaming Industries GmbH (AGI), wholly owned subsidiary of Novomatic AG, and its subsidiaries Novomatic Gaming Spain S.A. and Admiral Sportwetten GmbH will showcase their comprehensive product offering for the Spanish regions.

The Fer-Interazar gaming show will be held at the Ifema. Juan Carlos Exhibition Centre in Madrid from September 24th to 26th and can be expected to attract large numbers of Spanish as well as international visitors.

After the great success of the previous year’s premiere at the Madrid show Novomatic decided to participate again with three subsidiaries: Austrian Gaming Industries, Novomatic Gaming Spain and Admiral Sportwetten GmbH (Novomatic’s sportsbetting division). On the Novomatic booth no. C16 the companies will present a comprehensive Novomatic product offering for the Spanish market: the latest games, cabinets and popular multiplayer products as well as a complete Admiral sportsbetting installation complete with AGI’s state-of-the-art sportsbetting terminals.   

On booth no. C16 visitors will discover the latest versions of the Super-V+ Gaminator® Coolfire™ II multi-game mixes in the cabinet of the same name as well as a selection of Coolfire™ I Multi-Gaminator®  mixes and the popular Bingo+™ in the sophisticated Slant Top cabinet. The bestselling Gaminator® upright cabinet will feature the single player Multi-Wheel Roulette™ and World of Poker™.

Also on show will be a comprehensive Novo Multi-Roulette™ multi-player installation. This product has already been installed in Spain at Casino Barcelona and Casino Zaragoza and proves to be a major attraction and favourite among the casino guests.

Jordi Pedragosa, Sales Director Novomatic Gaming Spain: ”Our participation in last year’s show brought excellent results and I am convinced that with the increasing regulatory availa¬bility of our products we will have even better results at the upcoming show. The popularity of our multiplayer products has already become evident with the highly successful installations in Barcelona and Zaragoza. Especially the prompt reorder of Casino Barcelona only months after the initial installation certainly proves our market strategy here in Spain.”

Christian Reibenspiess, Managing Director, Novomatic Gaming Spain: “With the constantly growing number of licences for our products in the Spanish regions, the Madrid gaming show becomes significantly important for us as a forum to present the Novomatic product offering to the decision makers of the Spanish gaming industry.”

Casino Rodos, located on the northern tip of the island of Rhodes in Greece, has followed an increasingly popular trend by specifying the MEI CASHFLOW SC for all new games.

“The MEI banknote readers have really proven what a positive difference they make,” said Casino General Manager Mr. Vassilis Tsolekas.  “We will be specifying MEI for all future slots purchases. They provide excellent acceptance of all types of true bank notes with zero maintenance.”

Casino Rhodes has 310 slot machines, ranging from traditional reels to the latest video and interactive innovations.  Slot machines have taken on further importance as over two thirds of the casino floor, 220 machines, are practically new.

“The revenue from slot machines has continued to increase over time,” said Mr. Kostas Vlachogiannis, slots manager. “Today we are at 57%.  That growth, from 15%, has been achieved thanks to the focus on four major slot machine providers: IGT, Atronic, Bally and Novomatic.”

As the importance of slot machines to total casino revenue increased, so did the dedication to the find the right suppliers.  Based on feedback from other Greek casinos, management welcomed the chance to test the MEI Cashflow SC banknote reader through a value-added trial (VAT).

“I had a player come up to me and compliment the validators,” said Mr. Manny Culianos from the technical staff.  “The MEI products are being noticed! They accept a bill in any condition, as opposed to being choosy on the bill's condition like the others.”
Mr. Mark Greenawalt, Director of MEI Gaming Europe and Africa commented, “We are delighted yet another Greek casino is now specifying our Cashflow SC83. Typically casino operators have seen the value of the VAT’s due to more money in the cashbox. The results from this VAT expand the benefits of the Cashflow. When players take notice of the improved performance directly related to the note reader then we can say for sure that the product on the floor has been improved. We would like to thank Mr. Tsolekas and his team for specifying the MEI Cashflow SC83 in his future slots purchases”.

The newest and fastest Kontron COM ExpressTM module graphics engine built around high-end embedded chipset - the Kontron ETXexpress®-690 Computer-on-Module - is now available for evaluation so that developers can immediately begin platform and application testing as well as implementation into application- specific custom carrier board designs.

The Kontron ETXexpress®-690 COM Express™ Computer-on-Module is based on the latest AMD M690E and SB600 embedded chipset with the integrated Radeon™ X1200 graphics core and has been tested for DirectX® 9, OpenGL as well as hardware accelerated MPEG and WMV9 decoding capabilities using the newest range of benchmarking tools. Up to 256 MBytes of graphics memory, anti-aliasing and 3D texture come together to make the Kontron ETXexpress®-690 Computer-on-Module number one on the list of the relevant benchmarks, i.e. 3D Mark 05 and Maxton Cinebench 10.0.

The Kontron ETXexpress®-690 is especially designed for graphic-intensive applications requiring a well-balanced Computer-on-Module that combines comprehensive high-performance 2D and 3D graphics with adequate processing performance. Such applications also benefit from the relatively low thermal design power of 10W to 35W making possible designs with fully-sealed and rugged housings with passive conduction cooling. Therefore, the Kontron ETXexpress®-690 Computer-on-Module is ideal for a wide range of embedded solutions, including medical, industrial and security imaging applications, powerful HMIs for process visualization, CAD and digital mock-up systems as well as POS/POI, gaming and multimedia solutions.

The highly-scalable and cost-effective Kontron ETXexpress®-690 Computer-on-Module offers processing performance ranging from the single core 1.0 GHz Mobile AMD Sempron™ 2100+ processor up to the dual-core AMD Turion™ 64 X2 TL-52 with 1.6 GHz. Performance is further boosted by 800 MHz FSB, 256 MByte shared memory and up to 4Gbyte dual channel DDR2-800 SO-DIMM memory. The two banks of DDR2 memory ensure extremely fast graphics processing performance.

The Kontron ETXexpress®-690 Computer-on-Module is 100 percent COM Express™ compliant and comes with a host of interfaces that conform to the PICMG® COM.0 specification’s Type 2 pin-out. By conforming to the COM Express™ specification, Kontron’s latest Computer-on-Module also supports TDMS for applications requiring DVI or HDMI graphics. Extensive I/O options ensure application flexibility and include PCI Express 3x1 lanes + PEG 1x8, 10/100/1000 Mbit Ethernet, eight USB 2.0 ports and dual video streaming capabilities to mention just a few. For enhanced data safety, the Kontron ETXexpress®-690 offers a RAID 0,1,10 subsystem along with AHCI and 4 x SerialATA 300 ports for quick hard drive access. The Kontron ETXexpress®-690 Computer-on-Module also offers continued support for applications requiring PCI and IDE interfaces.

The COM Express™ compliant Kontron ETXexpress®-690 Computer-on-Module supports Windows® XP, Windows® XPe, Windows® CE, Windows Vista® and Linux.

The Kontron ETXexpress®-690 Computer-on-Module is available for ordering now.

Scheduled for September 25 to 27 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, GTI Asia Hong Kong Expo 2008 has been reluctantly called off by Game Time International (GTI), the show organizer.  The original intention of GTI Asia Hong Kong Expo was to act as a quick springboard for companies interested in entering the vast Chinese market.  However, the approach of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, the restrictions on the electronic gaming/amusement industry by the Chinese government, and the global economic slump have led GTI to call off the September show in Hong Kong, China.

At the Peru Gaming Show 2008 Austrian Gaming Industries GmbH (AGI), wholly owned subsidiary of Novomatic AG, and its subsidiary Crown Gaming Peru s.a.c. will present the latest products for the Peruvian and Latin American markets.

The Peru Gaming Show 2008 will be held at the Jockey Plaza Convention Center, Lima,from August 7th to 8th and as in previous years expects great international presence. AGI and Crown Gaming  Peru will once again underline Novomatic’s total commitment to the group’s expansion not just in Peru but across the entire South American continent with a great range of thrilling products for the Latin American market. 

On the Novomatic booth Nr. XV & XVI visitors will find a large array of internationally success-ful games presented in the latest bestselling cabinets. Among them the sophisticated Super-V+ Gaminator® and Super-R+ Gaminator® game mixes, including the Super V+ Gaminator mix number 20 that is being launched at the Peru Gaming Show. The game mixes feature either a great choice of Coolfire™ II video multi-game mixes only (Super-V+ Gaminator® ) or the highly popular blend of a reel game on three giant mechanical reels and state-of-the-art video gaming technology: Hybrid Technology made in Austria and offered to the world of gaming in the Super-R+ Gaminator®. Further highlights of the show will be the Novo Super-Vision™ and Novo-Vision™ Slant Top I cabinets also featuring a number of hot multi-game mixes that have been especially designed for the Latin American markets.

The new games presented in the attractive multi-game mixes will include a number of newly designed AGI classics that are now for the first time available on the Coolfire™ II platform for the South American continent. Among them are hit games such as the long-awaited Dolphin’s Pearl™ deluxe, Lucky Lady’s Charm™ deluxe, Pharaoh’s Gold™ II deluxe and Queen of Hearts™ deluxe as well as innovative new games such as Luxury Express™ or a number of 20-line games such as Cities of Gold™.

Jens Halle, Managing Director AGI: “After AGI’s award winning in Peru last year we are very definitely looking forward to this year’s event. Our strong sales success in Peru and further afield, not just in the last year but over many years, clearly proves our determined strategy to become a major force across South America, which has become one of the global gaming industry’s hottest regions. We also are looking forward to the official opening of the Monticello Grand Casino & Entertainment World project in Chile in October and certainly the Peru Gaming Show will provide an ideal opportunity, together with our local company Crown Gaming Peru s.a.c., to welcome and meet our customers and partners from across the entire South American region.”