Here we go again, in a year of major consolidations in the gaming industry, Free Slot Money brings you news of yet another as Scientific Games is set to acquire Las Vegas-based slot game manufacturer Bally Technologies in a deal worth $3.3 Billion. Scientific Games is a smaller company, with instant win lottery games and sports betting technology, which makes it even more interesting. The total value of the deal is $5.1 billion once the $1.8 billion in Bally debt is factored in. Bally Technologies, a maker of slot machines and lottery systems, had just acquired Shuffle Master a year prior in a $1.3 Billion Deal. Scientific Games has also done their own purchasing when they acquired WMS Industries Inc. for $1.42 Billion. The deal won’t be finalized until next year upon Bally shareholders and gambling regulatory approval.
It would appear that the global economic slump is really affecting these slot machine production giants. If casinos aren’t doing well, they aren’t purchasing new products and therefore you see these developers really struggling.
So let’s re-cap the consolidations this year thus far. GTECH, the Italian Lottery giant, acquires IGT in a deal worth $6.4 billion. Amaya acquires Rational Group in a reverse takeover deal set at $4.9 Billion, and now Scientific Games will acquire Bally Technologies to the tune of $3.3 Billion. That’s a whopping $14.6 Billion in consolidations this year alone. Free Slot Money is not sure we like where this is headed. With consolidation comes giant corporations and thus the loss of creativity and independence. There will be a lot to answer for when it comes to shareholder meetings (keeping in mind an enormous amount of debt that is packed into these deals) and often with these kinds of consolidations, the focus is on the share price rather than the advancement of technology and creativity. That’s just our personal opinion but we’ve seen it time and time again.
On the bright side, we’re seeing major development in the online casino space with very innovative new video slot developers coming into the market. Many of these we have been pointing out including Thunderkick, QuickSpin, Play N’Go, and of course Net Entertainment. In addition, we’re seeing incredible innovation in social casino games from the likes of such companies as High 5 Games and Dragonplay. It’s becoming more and more clear what direction slot play is going and we’re seeing a major trend towards the merging of popular online video slot games with social casino games or skill games.
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