Irish gaming company Kimble flies its flag worldwide by attending trade shows and pursuing business across the globe. And as Jenni Shuttleworth discovers, all that hard work really pays off

You have to hand it to Irish gaming company Kimble for making an effort. The only manufacturer of gaming machines in Ireland is also one of the only Irish companies that can be seen regularly at trade shows all over the world.

Fortunately for Kimble, its effort has paid off. Thirty-six years since joining the gaming industry, the company’s owner Jim McCann works alongside his son Seoirse McCann, manager of Kimble, to operate, distribute and manufacture gaming machines. Father and son also find themselves with a 4,000sq.ft factory in Ireland, business territories flagged across Europe, an expanding product portfolio and on the brink of a new partnership with a coin-op industry giant.

Jim started in the business as an operator and became a distributor of Mirco from Germany. He made his first poker machine and sold around 600 of them within two years. Spurred on by his early success, Jim began to manufacture as Kimble in 1979. At the time when Russia and Kazakhstan were opening up to gaming, Kimble was importing used machines from the US in huge numbers and shipping to the East. At one stage, the company was turning over £4m a year selling reconditioned equipment. Not bad for a small company from Ireland.

It hasn’t all been easy though. Changes in law meant that these markets closed their doors overnight and Kimble needed a new direction in which to move the company forward. "To say we were ever out of the Irish gaming market is not quite true. While we were no longer selling to Irish customers, we were still operating ourselves and had (still have) eight gaming halls around Dublin and Dundalk," explained Seoirse.

"At the time, video slots were non-existent in the Irish market but because we had been operating the machines we were importing from America, we knew that the market was ready for them and this is the way we presided. We started manufacturing machines here ourselves.

"The first thing we did was to put them out into our own operations and compare the results against machines we were operating. This way we knew that the games we were selling were good."

Seoirse continued: "It’s now a little over four years and the company has gone from strength to strength in the Irish market once again. Over the last three years, we have sold over 400 Astro games into our domestic market. Last year we released our own Kimble Multi Game, which was developed through partners in Germany and was a huge seller in the first 10 months, some even sold to as far a field as India."

Kimble has high hopes for 2009 and is forecasting it will eclipse any previous years the company has had. Judging by the response to its recently released products, this could well be the case.

As well as releasing Kimble Multi Game 2, the company has teamed up with German giant Merkur to present the new Games Unlimited platform in Ireland. Kimble will build the Games Unlimited machines in its cabinets in the Dundalk factory and sell them in the Irish market.

It doesn’t stop there though. At IGE in January, Kimble announced that it will be distributing machines for the Bulgarian manufacturer EGT, which has teamed up with Kimble to pursue opportunities in the Irish market. Kimble’s owner, Jim, said: "We have been using EGT games in our own operations for quite a while.

"The company has now moved into the big leagues with its Vegas Vision machines and we have installed quite a number in our own locations to test. So far the results have been very positive and we can see big sales in Ireland this year," said Jim.

Next on Kimble’s agenda is AMEX, but at least the company won’t have to travel too far to fly its flag at this show. "Dublin is a show like no other," said Seoirse.

"It is our core audience and there is always a great atmosphere. Irish operators come as much for the craic as for the product, but of course there is a lot of business to be done."