Novomatic Wins Casino Supplier of the Year
Austria-based international gambling company Novomatic won the award for “Casino Supplier of the Year” at ICE in London for the third year running. The company managed to hold-off nine other companies that were in the running for the Global Gaming Award.
The “Casino Supplier of the Year” award has kicked the 40th year of operations for Novomatic. The company is also expected to publish very strong financial results for 2019 to continue its roll into 2020. ©stevepb/Pixabay
The prestigious prize is one of the most coveted awards in the gambling industry and is given to organizations in a total of 16 categories for their service and product innovations. The judges are made up of around 50 of the biggest authorities in the industry; well-respected world experts in the field. The judges pick their winners for each category from 175 candidates that are nominated.
The award is considered to be so prestigious because of the rigorous decision-making and auditing of the votes that are cast in favor of the companies that are nominated. Every vote is independently verified by the KMPG – the world’s largest auditing, tax advice, and consulting services firm. This attention to detail means that the Global Gaming Award is considered to be one of the fairest and highest value awards in the industry.
The award is considered to be a clear and unquestionable marker that an organization is doing well and is credible in the market. It recognizes the company in question as a leader and innovator in the market and praises the work that has been put in over the 12 months prior.
Nine companies lost out to Novomatic in the running for the award at the conference dedicated to land-based and digital gaming communities. These included some heavy-hitters in the industry such as Aristocrat, Casino Technology, E-Gaming, SRO, IGT, Interblock Gaming, Merkur Gaming, R Franco, Scientific Games, and Zitro Games.
When speaking on the decision to award Novomatic with the accolade, the chief executive of the company, Harald Neumann, seemed to take it as a sign of more positive things to come for the company. He also emphasized the confirmation of the reliability of Novomatic and the innovative nature of the company.
“We could not have hoped for a better start to our 40th anniversary year”– Harald Neumann, Chief executive officer, Novomatic
The Novomatic Group is very proud of its standing in the world of gambling, and this award has no doubt helped to cement them once-more as an industry-leading company. It is one of the largest international producers and operators of gaming technology and has more than 30,000 employees spread across the globe. The company reported an annual turnover of around €5bn in 2018 from the services it provides, as well as the 230,000 gaming terminals it operates and exports around the world to over 75 countries.
A Strong Year for Novomatic
Winning the award has not been the only cause for celebration at Novomatic recently. At a press conference at the ICE event, Neumann unveiled the preliminary figures for 2019 for the company. He explained that given there are no surprises at the last minute, Novomatic stands to report $5.6bn in revenue for the year.
There was a less than positive start for the company at the beginning of 2019. In the first six months of the year, revenue dipped slightly year-on-year to $1.39m from $1.42m. This slight downturn was rectified in the later stages of the year, however, allowing Novomatic to finish strong.
Neumann highlighted the growth of the company by speaking about the number of employees working for the organization. Over 2019, the number of people employed by Novomatic grew to over 30,000, which he said reflected “a stable development”.
This year marks the 40th year of operations for Novomatic and the company took care to emphasize this in its presentations at the International Casino Exhibition (ICE) in London. The group has made a clear mission statement to maintain its focus on sports betting throughout 2020, as well as to continue to work on biometric data in the gambling industry – a technology that Novomatic once helped to introduce to the market.
Novomatic will begin to work on its core operations with added vigor but will also be looking to get its foot in the door of the growing US sports-betting market, as well as to get its technology adopted by sports-betting operators across the US.
On the biometrics front, Novomatic is working hard to help casinos to adapt to a digital age. Using systems developed by the company, players can more easily access games and facilities, as well as any money that they win. Patented technology from Novomatic is already widespread across Europe and is being heavily used in gaming machines. By using biometric ID, players can access the gaming facilities provided by operators and can have game credit at their disposal.
At ICE in London, it was also highlighted that the biometric system can play an important role in player protection measures. According to Neumann, when the “fingerprint replaces the player card, which is required in many countries”, there is more effective and rigorous player protection in place.
Novomatic will look to build on the success it saw in 2019 as well as at the ICE Awards. If the company carries on having such positive results and feedback for its services, it will continue to grow and to dominate the world’s gambling market for years to come.
