The three-day-long South American Gaming Expo and Congress (SAGSE) Buenos Aires took place from Nov. 13-15. CEM was there to cover the show and talk to some of the key players. Here’s what they shared.
SAGSE
Alan Burak,
Event Organizer
“This year we have more than 120 international exhibitors presenting their solutions to the gaming industry in general. All companies are out here to present their newest products with the latest technology. This year we hope to receive some 10,000 visitors in three days of the show.
“SAGSE Buenos Aires is not just an exhibition; it is also a tool in communication. We have sent and hand-delivered, more than 20,000 leaflets, mailed 22,000 invitations to all parts of Latin America as well as the rest of the world and sent more than 100,000 e-mails to our exclusive database. The results are excellent.
“In this new edition of SAGSE, we will award three prizes to three personalities from three different sectors. The idea is to display individual qualities, enhance the image of the candidates, their actions and achievements throughout the history of the sector to date, as well as to encourage public recognition of professionalism and excellence in these areas. Our main goals are very simple: Good deals for operators and exhibitors.”
Austrian Gaming Industries
Max Lindenberg,
Marketing and Business Development
“The second day of the show is usually a good [one] for us because traditionally it’s the meeting point for lots of people—not just people from Argentina, but also from other countries on the continent. We have a lot of colleagues here from Chile, Mexico, Colombia and Paraguay. We had a fantastic first show day and we are quite happy—the prospects are very good for us. There has been great interest and feedback regarding our new products, which we are presenting here.
“One new product that we are showing to the South and Central American market is our Pinball Roulette, a very innovative new approach to the traditional game of roulette. It is a single player roulette machine, but it makes the casino guest the player and the dealer at the same time because they can shoot the roulette ball into the wheel by themselves using a mechanical pinball mechanism. For this game, there has been huge interest here in this market already.
“Another focus on the show is our Noble Line Interactive Platform, which we’ve brought here. It’s a stand-alone but server-based ready gaming platform. It’s extremely powerful in terms of computing power and functionality for the operator, and we are presenting a stunning range of new games in these latest cabinets that work with this new platform.
“Novomatic has been active in the Latin American market for many years. One of the first markets that we’ve been active in is Peru, where we are not only the biggest operator, but also the biggest supplier of casino products. Over the last few years, we’ve been able to further strengthen our structure on the whole continent with new subsidiaries, such as in Colombia. We have subsidiaries in other countries such as Mexico, Paraguay and Chile, and it is very important for us to not only to be a supplier but also an operator, because this gives us knowledge and know-how about the clients concerning player preferences, which goes directly back to our R&D facilities.”
Bally Technologies
Michael Bertetto,
International Marketing Manager
“Bally Technologies continues our strong partnership with SAGSE, and we always enjoy the opportunity to share our latest innovations directly with operators in Latin America. Bally has been in Latin America for more than 10 years and has never been more committed to offering the latest innovations in both games and systems technology to casino operators. This year’s SAGSE highlighted that commitment.
This was another great year for Bally in Latin America as we continue to fine-tune our focus and ensure that we are developing and delivering products that will deliver a strong return on investment for operators in the region. Peru, Uruguay and Colombia are countries with strong potential, and we’re making the necessary investments to grow our leadership position. Bally has recently opened offices in Peru to be closer to our customers and provide even more responsive service, and this move is yielding high growth and helping us build stronger relationships.
“SAGSE attendees also experienced Betty Boop’s™ Fortune Teller, the new companion game to the hit Betty Boop’s™ Love Meter, which offers an unprecedented 15 bonuses at any bet. Bally takes play mechanics to new a new level with SKEE-BALL™ and All That Jazz™. An arcade favorite, SKEE-BALL includes a bonus feature in which players touch and slide to ‘bowl’ the SKEE-BALL, winning ‘tickets’ that enable them to Pick a Prize on the game that reveals credit awards. All That Jazz has a revolutionary iDeck™ feature called U-Play, where players touch and spin virtual piano keys to play along to favorite songs. Both SKEE-BALL and All That Jazz feature new levels of player interaction that add tremendously to the game-play experience.
“Bally is showcasing three games that have been translated into Spanish: Michael Jackson King of Pop™, SKEE-BALL and China River™. Michael Jackson King of Pop features one of the most widely beloved and influential artists of all time in an exciting, music-filled game on Bally’s Pro Series™ V22/32 cabinet with the custom Pro Series surround-sound chair. Offering everything from mystery wilds bonuses and free games bonus events featuring hit songs “Bad,” “Beat It,” “Billie Jean,” “Dirty Diana” and “Smooth Criminal,” this game is highlighted by a U-Spin™ Platinum Record Bonus.”
Interblock
Tom O’Brien,
Vice President of Sales
“This year we are presenting our Organic Roulette games and our Blackjack game. Our Organic Roulette has 12 play stations around it, and we are allowing our customers to pick and choose a double roulette wheel. What that means is if a customer is playing one play station, they can choose whichever wheel they like, and in most cases this appeals to players who may be superstitious. So if they are having bad run on a wheel, they can move onto the next wheel without even having to change the play station.
“The advantage of not having a dealer is that you don’t have to worry about back of the house operations. You’re not supplying labor. You’re not taking care of chips. You’re not changing cards. Everything is ticket-in/ticket-out so the money is not handled anymore. And of course there is the speed of the game. That increases the amount of revenue you are bringing in. In an average game of roulette, you’re probably dealing anywhere from 28 to 35 spins per hour. In our games, you are doing up to 60, so you’re getting 25 percent more because of the speed.
“This is our first time at SAGSE, and we are very excited to be here. For the most part, it’s about quality not quantity. We were able to close a few deals yesterday, which was great, and so far it’s an awesome turnout. I think it’s going to be an awesome turnout for us. South America is a relatively new market for Interblock. We are working with a distributor here and even have our first deal in Concepcion, Chile. We have another deal in Peru and another deal in Uruguay. So we’re starting to hit the market pretty strongly here. We think South America is going to be a fantastic market. We are going all over the place, and pretty quickly too.”
Konami
Vice President International Sales,
Eduardo Aching
“As always, SAGSE has been a pretty good show for us. It is a good opportunity for us to meet all the customers and thank them personally for the business they gave us over the last year. On products, our major launch is our Konami Casino Management System, SYNKROS, and we are launching it officially for the Latin American market and trying to offer a new option for operators here so that they have more options to try to improve their casinos. In addition to this, we are launching also the Podium slant, a new cabinet. It’s a slant model that follows in the footsteps and success of the Podium upright. It is very popular in Latin America. A lot of customers prefer the slant models, so now they will have another option.
“We also have several new game titles that we will be releasing over the next six months, specifically in the Latin American and Spanish markets… In SAGSE I would say that our mathematical models are designed for the type of casinos they have here. Our success here over the last three to four years has been very good and our customers continue to ask for more and more machines. We are pretty much established in all the markets today. We are present from Uruguay to Mexico. In the Caribbean, we are now established in all those markets and we provide products to all of the key operators, and we are now expanding our brand especially with the systems.”
SHFL entertainment
Gavin Isaacs,
Chief Executive Officer
“We’ve refocused as a company. Shuffle Master is still the core of what we’ve done for 30 years and we figured that with all the acquisitions we’ve made over the last five or six years that it was an opportunity to really get everyone behind a refocus, specifically as we launch our new interactive business as well. We’ve got five business units going, so it makes a lot of sense.
“One of the strengths of our company is that we have the majority of the proprietary table game content. We believe this has an initial attraction to the i-gaming market. The feedback we have is that they are very popular games in the i-gaming market.
“We have both a Gibraltar and an Alderney license. Nick Gabriel is running our interactive business out of Gibraltar. Our servers are in Gibraltar and then we are going to be a pure B2B provider, but we will hook into people’s systems, so if they want to play our portfolio of games then they can do it off our servers.
“We’ve brought our slots from Australia, which we’ve begun to expand around the world. They have done so well in Australia that we’re now moving them into Latin America. Our first installations here in Argentina are doing incredibly well. We’ve moved them into other parts of the country.
“We have an office in Mexico already covering Central America. So really any jurisdiction where gambling is legal, we’re interested in. We are making a big commitment to this region. We are opening an office here and we really have a very strong team leadership wise. The investment choice we are making is to focus on the region.”