Austrian gaming giant Novomatic has purchased the UK's largest gaming machines operator Gamestec, plus Bell-Fruit Games, RLMS and Mazooma.

The Office of Fair Trading in the UK will investigate the deal, which is expected to be cleared in around six to eight weeks. The transaction is not believed to include Leisure Connections or On Board Leisure.

This bold move by Novomatic is likely to create a seismic shift in the UK coin-op market, particularly for those with an interest in reel-based AWPs. Following the recent announcement that Barcrest is forsaking the reel-based sector, Bell-Fruit is the last remaining major manufacturer and the supplier of the market-leading Deal Or No Deal family of AWPs.

"It will be very interesting to see what happens next," says an industry source. "Either Bell-Fruit will supply Gamestec alone, or it will continue to supply the whole industry. However, it is clear that Gamestec will ultimately have a preferential purchasing position for its products. Where will this leave the independent operators?"

It is also interesting to consider the position of Sceptre Leisure, another leading UK operator, which has followed a very ambitious expansion plan in recent years and which is supplied by Novomatic's arch-rival Gauselmann for digital product. Would a lack of reel-based AWPs from the UK force Sceptre to look at importing reel-based machines from the German giant?

An alternative view is that Novomatic could simply stop the supply of reel-based product altogether and take a similar stance to Barcrest's new owner Scientific Games and push digital product into the UK. However, given the level of existing demand this seems an unlikely decision in the short term.

One thing is for certain, the other operators in the UK market are going to have to look for new suppliers for reel-based product in order to remain competitive. If smaller manufacturers are to be tempted to compete in the Category C arena with reel products it seems likely that the current exhaustive and expensive system of machine testing needs to be overhauled so that innovation can be encouraged.

"This could be great news for the industry if those not involved in this deal position themselves in anticipation of the changes that are likely to happen. Those who just wait and see are likely to lose out," concluded our source.

First published on Coin-op Community.