GTECH used to be Lottomatica, an Italian company that is the license holder for the Italian National Lottery, and hence one of the biggest lotteries operators. Lottomatica also provided numerous other gaming services and has its offices in Rome. In July 2014, GTECH joined forces with the American company International Game Technology (IGT). IGT are known as the world’s most prolific slot machine manufacturer. The merger went through with a $6.4 billion price tag, most of which was in cash and only 25% in assumed debt. The new holding company is now based in the United Kingdom, under the name of International Game Technology PLC.
The combination of IGT and GTECH has created perhaps the leading end-to-end gaming company. GTECH, itself, now has control of some 60% of the worldwide online lottery business market, and has improved its worldwide business activities with permanent employees now established in a number of countries. GTECH operates in 52 countries and on every continent. The company complies with the principles of the International Labor Office’s Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises.
The Effect on Product Offerings
Since the merger of GTECH and IGT, the depth and breadth of their product offerings have expanded. This should result in even better recognition of customer needs with respect to the games, systems and solutions. In addition, the private and public sectors recognise the increased capabilities of the organisation, thus the increased trust as service proving partner. Reliability, security and innovation should all be increasing over the next few years, and obviously corporate revenue and profitability too.
Technology and its Ramifications
Advancing technology makes the world much smaller. Global companies are finding communications easier and geographical restrictions less inhibitive, making a properly shared vision easier to achieve than expected, which bodes well for the GTECH and IGT venture.
The GTECH and IGT new venture aims to secure promising new and replacement business throughout the world. There is much intellectual property, meaning the scope of the products that this company produces is broad and this factor, combined with the strength of pre-established relationships, is set to help IGT leverage its range of product offerings. As the world economy improves through 2016 and 2017, projected growth is expected to rise even further. New casino ventures in Macau and the Philippines are expected to come to fruition, as is the Australian market. IGT and GTECH even expect good growth in South and Latin America.
Bigger is Better
The very fact that this casino group invests well more than the average in research and development is the overriding factor in the huge production of games and casino systems. This would mean that the R & D element of such a huge conglomerate is sure to not only meet, but in fact exceed operator and player demand throughout Europe and the world.
This strength of the GTECH and IGT merger in the coming years is going to be measured in their ability to meet the different gaming expectations around the world. Different regions demand different types of game play experiences. These range from higher volatility pure gambling style games popular in Asia, to more entertaining games with excellent graphics and sound that many American players choose. The European market favours interactive games. The GTECH, IGT conglomerate is big enough to cater to all tastes.
