The Ministry of Finance in Austria is believed to be close to a major new announcement for the country's street market. Currently AWPs are only permitted in four of the nine provinces or 'Lander' in Austria, Vienna, Lower Austria, Styria and Carinthia.

An arcade or bar in any of the permitted provinces is permitted to operate a machine with a 50 cent maximum and €20 prize. But because of high taxation and limited access in few provinces, the country only has about 7,000 AWPs in all.

The proposal, we understand, would open up the whole country to the operation of AWP machines, but only one licence would be issued and the licence holder must have a minimum of €50m in financial resources. This may limit the market to just one player, the giant Novomatic group.  It would also remove from the market any small operators currently involved with the business there.

If this happens it would be an interesting unofficial trade-off in Austria where Novomatic has complained for years about the government monopoly on casinos, which is held by Casinos Austria. If the proposals happen, then Novomatic would hold the street market while Casinos Austria has the casino business - plus, we understand the right to operate VLTs.