Famously known for its gorgeous beaches, unique wildlife and “the Outback,” Australia is truly one-of-a kind. As TransAct’s vice president of global gaming in Asia Pacific, I recently had the chance to visit the land of the Down Under for the 2018 Australasian Gaming Expo (AGE). Held from August 14 to 16 at the ICC Sydney Darling Harbour NSW, the gaming team and I displayed TransAct’s premium casino printers and software solution to approximately 6,000 attendees.
AGE is the world’s third largest hospitality and gaming tradeshow and the biggest event of its type in Australia. At the show, we displayed the Epic 950, which is the industry standard in ticket-in/ ticket out (TITO) printing and currently installed in over 750,000 slots throughout hundreds of casinos and gaming operations worldwide. We also displayed the Epic Edge™ TITO printer, which is built on the proven long-term performance of the Epic 950. The Epic Edge is the next-generation casino ticket printer that offers operators an enhanced 300 DPI print resolution, delivering a 50 percent improvement over current printers. Attendees at the show also learned about the latest iteration of Epicentral, which is the gaming industry’s only enterprise-level promotion and bonusing software suite that can target customers in real-time while they play their favorite slot machine or electronic table game.
At TransAct, I’m responsible for building customer relationships and driving gaming sales across the Asia Pacific region. As such, I’m pleased to say that Australia has proven to be a great market for the Epic 430 and Ithaca 9000 printers, which are our robust, high-end point of sale printers used in electronic betting terminals. Additionally, since the Pub and Club market is still relatively new to TITO printers in some states of Australia, we predict major growth opportunities as new regulations develop and operators see the benefits of these printers. To increase our presence in Australia, we recently appointed The Bright Group (TBG) to serve as our regional sales partners to help us focus on the country’s local market and give customers the best possible sales and support experience. We have found that working with local partners who know their customers’ needs is much more efficient than having one sole global partner.
In addition to exhibiting at the show, we also had the opportunity to venture out and reconnect with our customers in Sydney’s beautiful Darling Harbour. We couldn’t be more excited for our future in Australia and we look forward to supporting the show once again next year.