It was evident at last week's Spring ENADA trade show in Rimini, Italy, that US giant Bally Technologies is attacking the Italian VLT market with its big guns.
Games which have become premium products in casinos worldwide have been reworked into the VLT format. "We have adopted a strategy in this market place to differentiate our products and come up with some very unusual VLTs," said vice president and managing director EMEA Marco Herrera. "Because they are different to traditional VLTs, we expect them to do well."
He added that it was also important to understand the products of competitors. "Location is crucial and we have to measure the performance of our products against those of our competitors. We will have to carefully gauge the reactions of players."
Herrera added that there were currently 10,000 VLTs out on site in Italy out of a possible total of around 57,000. "The performance numbers of our products have been excellent and we are confident that we can increase our market share. We currently have 10 per cent, which is not bad considering that we were late to enter the market place, and we will continue to try to increase that."
Bally has four cabinets, several casino-style games and some stepper products available in Italy. "By putting famous casino games into VLTs we are making sure that these premium products are working for us in terms of branding," said Herrera. "Playboy Premium and Fireball were the first releases and next out will be both video and stepper versions of new game Cash Spin."
Outside of Italy, Bally is making good progress in other regions, especially Latin America. "Our Quick Hit Platinum is one of the best performing games worldwide because of the math. It is where the market is going - towards increased interactivity," added Herrera.
The company’s new Alpha 2 cabinet, which will permit a huge increase in the quality of graphics, is now ready to be launched in the US, although it will be a few years before it makes its way into the Italian market.
