Simon Liddle finds out from humble beginnings, Slovenia's gaming companies have now established themselves on the world stage.
What is considered to be Slovenia’s ‘modern’ casino business began in the ‘60s when the small central European republic was still part of Yugoslavia. In 1964, the picturesque town of Portoro? on the Adriatic coast established a casino in the old Hotel Palace in an effort to attract foreign visitors, as at that time local citizens were prohibited from gambling. As Casino Portoro? developed into a popular destination for Italian tourists, its parent company continued to pursue other properties in Slovenia, most notably a partnership with hotelier Hotel Park in Nova Gorica that led to the creation of one the country’s leading operators, Hit.
Hit now boasts a host of gaming properties, but it was the opening of Hotel Casino Perla in Nova Gorica, now known as Perla Casino & Hotel, in 1993 that helped to shape the future of Slovenia’s - and perhaps Europe’s - gaming industry.
"In 1993 Perla Casino & Hotel in Nova Gorica innovated the European casino market with a large slot floor, informal dress code, a large number of hotel rooms, two restaurants and an entertainment hall all under one roof," said Slovenian casino management systems specialist, Advansys. "Perla was mainly oriented to Italian customers and in the best years it recorded more than 800,000 visits annually."
Slovenia’s accession to the European Union in 2004 ushered in stricter regulation for the country’s already highly-sophisticated gaming market and, as part of this transition, the government stipulated that casinos had to operate a minimum of 50 and a maximum of 200 machines and that each one must be electronically linked to the Ministry of Finance.
An example of the country’s modern casino properties and one of the most recent to open in Slovenia is the state-of-the-art Hotel and Casino Resort Admiral in Kozina. Novomatic invested approximately €10m in the property, which is the company’s first fully automated slots casino in the region. In addition to a range of slot machines, the gaming floor also features three fully automated roulette installations.
Just 2.5km from the border with Italy, the casino was developed on the site of a former two-star hotel that was badly in need of renovation. Completely hollowed out and refurbished, the building now includes 40 hotel rooms, a restaurant and the casino.
"This casino opening marks our desired entry in the Slovenian slots casino market as a licensed operator," said Ulrike Frank, managing director of Admiral. "We are convinced that the guests will appreciate our premium entertainment concept."
One of the casino’s suppliers, Advansys was founded in 2003 ahead of the changes to the country’s gaming legislation and quickly became the market leader in systems technology.
"At that time, Slovenian casinos and slot halls operated more than 4,000 slots and they needed an immediate solution for online systems," the company said. "The biggest casino in Slovenia already had more than 800 slots in operation 24/7 and only a few systems were available on the European market suitable for such sizes of slot floor. Advansys grabbed the business opportunity and quickly developed a reliable and price-competitive online system named Slotscanner, with accounting and cage modules as a base."
In its first year, Advansys took 75 per cent of the domestic market and, encouraged by this success, the company later developed additional modules for Slotscanner, such as money tracking, player tracking, ticketing, mystery jackpot, cashless and reception desk, and began to offer them on the international market. It is now working on an online system for table games that will be officially launched at January’s London ICE show.
Another milestone in the development of Slovenia’s gaming industry - and possibly the most significant - was the opening of privately-owned slot halls in the late ‘90s, which created a huge demand for electronic roulettes. This demand was largely met by several local newcomers to the manufacturing scene; namely Alfastreet, Gold Club and Elektroncek.
"We started our production in 1997," Alfastreet’s Albert Radman told InterGaming. "Back then our only product was our multiplayer automated roulette machine. Then we expanded our product line to different games, including a wide range of cabinets and game platforms. Today, we are famous around the world.
"In terms of manufacturing, Slovenia’s casino industry has developed rapidly over the past 10 years. As Slovenia is a very small country, we had to share a significant part of our resources with some of the other manufacturers. This inevitably led to even faster progress as, in a way, knowledge became common and was partially shared among the manufacturers."
Gold Club was established in 1998, producing automated multiplayer roulettes to feed the country’s - and later the world’s - growing appetite for such equipment.
"The most recognised electronic roulette among the classic models is still the first eight-player roulette, named UFO," Gold Club said. "Even still, Gold Club’s UFO roulette is one of the best sellers despite the flood of competition.
"Of course the UFO of the present day is equipped with all the latest technology and security systems. The roulettes were also redesigned into UFO TS models, where the letters TS are an abbreviation for the use of touchscreen technology. Today, UFO players can enjoy the game using keyboards, touchscreens or a combination of both."
Slovenia’s manufacturers have come to lead the way when it comes to the development of multiplayers and their products can be found in the majority of markets throughout the world. Alfastreet’s Radman believes the country’s location has a lot to do with his company’s success globally.
"Slovenia is actually very conveniently located in the centre of Europe, which gives us logistic access to the air and to the sea," he explained. "On the other hand, we are very close to several gaming manufacturers, both large and small, as well as thousands of casino and club venues, and this is only helping to improve our products and to stay one step ahead of our competitors."
Slovenia continues to produce some of the world’s most innovative and industrious gaming manufacturers that bring to the market their unique vision and finely-crafted products. Continuing this trend is Panter Gaming, which recently came to the attention of the industry when Novomatic acquired a majority shareholding in the company just prior to G2E Asia in June this year.
In contrast to the Slovenian industry’s early multiplayer pioneers, Panter has taken roulette and turned it into a single-player game: Pinball Roulette. The game is activated by the player using a traditional pinball launching device to deploy the ball onto the roulette wheel. The player has the perception that, by varying the speed with which he launches the ball onto the roulette wheel, they can help to determine the outcome of the game. That, of course, is not the reality - Pinball Roulette plays exactly to the defined rules of roulette and the pinball is simply a launching mechanism. Creating this illusion, however, gives the player the sense that they are both the player and the croupier.
Exhibited on the international stage for the first time in Macau, Pinball Roulette garnered a great deal of interest from visitors and was described by Novomatic as "one of the hit products of the show."
"For me, it has been such a fantastic experience to see the game that we have worked on for so long shown to such an enthusiastic audience," said Gino Dominico, the game’s inventor. "What we have believed all along has been proved correct; namely, that the interaction of the player with the game through the pinball launch mechanism has created such a great feeling of attraction and pure enjoyment.
"Roulette is roulette but we have, I believe, taken the game to a whole new level and that makes me proud, happy and of course really excited for the future."
Slovenia has matured into one of Europe’s technologically advanced and highly-regulated gaming markets, boasting some of the continent’s finest manufacturers and games developers. Having established themselves on the international market with their initial multiplayer offerings, they are now branching out and designing a whole host of different electronic equipment solutions.
"The novelties in Gold Club’s offering include table games, such as blackjack, baccarat and Texas Hold’em poker," said Gold Club. "The use of touchscreen technology, interactive croupier animation on the 42ins plasma screen and the exact same rules as the live game combine all the advantages of a live and video game and make the products as interesting for the casino as for the player.
"Last year Gold Club also launched a system that allows multiplayer roulette machines to link into progressive jackpots along with standard slot machines. This means that players on the roulette machines have a chance to win high money prizes, as well as take part in multi-level jackpot bonuses."
In addition to launching a new eight-player electro-mechanical roulette, Integra, Gold Club also moved into the world of slots four years ago with the aim of competing with the big slot brands. Today, the company boasts a portfolio of more than 35 games in either upright or slant top cabinet versions.
Simply developing new products, however, does not establish a brand. Alfastreet’s Radman suggests that this has only been one part of his company’s successful strategy for growth.
"We are proud of having a close and personal relationship with all of our customers but that is not all that one must have to establish the brand name in this competitive market," he said. "Over the years we have reinvested in our network of sales, service and other supporting facilities and that is what really made us a global gaming company and which took us beyond our Slovenia borders a long time ago."
By virtue of the fact that they now operate in markets throughout the world, Slovenia’s operators and suppliers have been impacted by the recent economic downturn, but as Advansys states, the key has been to diversify further and tap into new market segments.
"The economic crisis considerably reduced the revenues of casino operators and the number of new casino projects," the company said. "A consequence of this has been a decreased demand for all casino technology and online systems too but we took this crisis as a challenge. We opened some new markets for our existing products and started to develop new products."
Radman agrees that this approach is key to surviving the adverse financial climate.
"Well, it is obvious that players are becoming more conservative by spending much less than they used to," he commented. "This is the same story from all over the world and operators must invest even more in bringing new and more exciting products to players and by offering extra services and entertainment. As I see, many of the ‘serious’ operators have already modified their strategy and are, like Alfastreet, using this opportunity to stay ahead and bring all the good out of this situation."
