Betson Enterprises celebrated the opening of its brand new Portland location by holding a Spotlight Show and barbecue cookout.
The new office, located at 5211 NE 158th Avenue in Portland, Oregon, showcased many games in its new warehouse, including Bay Tek Entertainment’s Connect 4 Hoops HD, ICE’s Whack-a-Clown and Tons of Tickets, Raw Thrills’ Super Bikes 3 and slither.io.
Over 80 people were in attendance, including 10 manufacturers and customers from over 25 different companies. The visitors were also treated to The AMI Tech School that had to run a second session in order to accommodate interested guests.
Elsewhere, Richard Zayas-Bazan has been promoted to president of the Betson Imperial Parts and Service Company. Having spent the past 22 years with the company in progressive roles, most recently as vice president of the division, Zayas-Bazan brings with him a track record of delivering consistent, profitable growth.
As well as sealing strategic parts distribution partnerships with leading brands he also led the successful launch of www.betsonparts.com, streamlining the sales process to Betson’s customers.
“Richard has been the key cog in Betson Imperial Parts and Service Company’s dramatic growth and his leadership of this company will best serve our vendors and customers with our value-added commitments going forward,” said Bob Geschine, president of parent company H. Betti Industries.
Finally, a long-running legal battle concerning Key Master games has been put to bed.
An operating company named IQ Vending took around 20 Key Master games from Betson Distributing between 2011 and 2013 that were then put out on location, according to reports. An employee of IQ reportedly informed state authorities that the games were based on chance rather than skill and an investigation ensued.
Six years later, a settlement and consent judgement has been reached with the Arizona Attorney General, resulting in Betson agreeing to pay an amount covering the investigative costs, as well as ceasing distribution of Key Master machines in the state.
In the settlement, there was no admission by Betson of any guilt and, as a condition of the original sale to IQ, it advised that the customer agreed in writing to operate the units in compliance with local Arizona law.
A corporate statement from Betson read:
“In April 2019, a subsidiary of H. Betti Industries entered into a Consent Judgement relating to a litigation matter in Arizona. In this litigation, the Arizona Attorney General alleged that on or prior to May 2013, our subsidiary distributed a small number of Key Master games to customers in Arizona and that the sale of these devices with an ‘auto-percentaging system’ constituted a per se violation of Arizona law. Importantly, the Consent Judgment does not constitute an admission of guilt by us or evidence of any liability, responsibility or wrongdoing for any violation of any state or federal statute, rule, regulation or other applicable law. The Key Masters were manufactured by Sega Amusements USA and our subsidiary acted as distributor of these products.
“We fully cooperated with this investigation and ultimately made the business decision to enter into this Consent Judgment in an effort to avoid the time and expense associated with protracted litigation in Arizona. We agreed for Arizona to be awarded $1m, largely related to the reimbursement of its sizable investigation costs, including attorneys’ fees.”
