International Game Technology Slot Machine

Introduction to IGT PLC

Leave it to the Pros IGT Rent-A-Tech is a project-driven resource, scheduled in advance with Field Services. This service provides customers with skilled labor for specific, time bound project support. Maybe you're dealing with a floor-wide conversion, or a major machine move. Tem are demonstrated at International Game Technology in IT’s About Business 8.1. International Game Technology (IGT) manufactures slot machines and lottery machines in factories in Reno, Las Vegas.

International Game Technology PLC (IGT PLC) is a multi-national company that manufacturers slot machines. As a primary and world-leading gaming manufacturer, IGT PLC also provides gaming technology for casino operators, the lottery, sports betting, online gaming, and more.

IGT PLC filed their annual 20-F financial report with the SEC on March 3, 2020. Because of the legal requirements for SEC reports to be honest and easy-to-read, reviewing their report annually allows us a glimpse into the future of slot machine gambling in the U.S. and abroad.

Most people who read these reports are financial investors, not slots players looking for advantage plays which is the intent of this post. If you plan to invest in IGT PLC, naturally you’ll want to perform your review of their annual and quarterly reports.

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Overall Risk Factors

Form 20-F annual financial reports filed with the SEC begin with describing risk factors for the industry segments where IGT PLC does business. Included in this section are forward-looking statements by company officers, both required to be honest assessments. These statements are not meant to be a profit forecast.

Because IGT is an international company with its headquarters not based in the U.S., this annual report is a Form 20-F rather than the more usual Form 10-K for U.S.-based companies.

These are the best thoughts of gaming experts regarding their overall corporate position within the gaming industry. As International Game Technology PLC is a world-leader alongside Scientific Gaming Corporation, we’ll learn the state of the gaming industry wherever IGT PLC does business.

Risk factors are known issues which are having a negative impact on IGT PLC. Factors include possible future risks and uncertainties in the portions of the world’s gaming industry where IGT PLC does business. Even consolidated into general topics, there are 37 risk areas, far too many to fully mention here.

Forward-Looking Statements are how IGT PLC lays out its expectations, plans, and strategies for the future. These company plans are dependent upon risks and uncertainties in the world’s gaming industry. I’ll focus on ten areas in which a slot enthusiast might be interested.

My selected Top 10 risk areas include:

Less overall leisure time and discretionary spending by players creates other forms of entertainment as competition
Consolidation among gaming equipment and technology companies allowing them to better compete through increased scale and efficiency
Entry of new competitors into the internet gaming market due to low costs of entry
Reduced demand and level of play due to changes in social mores
Inability to develop and manage frequent introductions of innovative products and respond to technological changes in the gaming industry
Consolidation among casino operators with capital spending cutbacks
Being unable to protect intellectual property may harm its ability to compete
Lower revenues due to a slowdown in the lottery and gaming markets
Hazards within supply chain, cybersecurity, and failures of business technology
Brexit has created uncertainty which could impact the company

For you and I as slots enthusiasts, what does all this mean? It means that being a slot machine manufacturer is a risky business. And, while IGT PLC is working hard to keep us entertained, in some ways it’s possible they might fail.

These risk factors may turn into reality at a gaming jurisdiction where you play slots. If so, you may be disappointed. But perhaps you won’t be as disappointed if you know these risks exist.

Further, some of these risk factors apply to the entire gaming industry. If they occur, they’ll most likely affect all slot machine manufacturers. In turn, such risks to these companies are also risks to our general entertainment with playing slots. I suggest we wish IGT PLC and its competitors well.

Filing of this annual financial report was during the first week of March 2020. Therefore, it briefly references COVID-19 prior to its identification as a global pandemic.

However, it clearly identifies the coronavirus as a significant risk with its associated temporary workforce reduction, self-isolation, quarantine-impacted employees, and more.

Overview

International Game Technology PLC has its headquarters in London with facilities in Providence, Las Vegas, and Rome. IGT’s ~12,000 employees at the end of 2019 remains roughly the same number since 2016.

IGT PLC began in 2014, although it was initially the shell company Georgia Worldwide Limited for its first seven months of existence. The parent company name change occurred after purchasing the original International Game Technology from GTECH. No public takeovers had occurred before 2019.

From their balance sheet, International Game Technology PLC has total assets of just over $13.6 billion and total equity of $2.48 billion attributable to IGT PLC. Total revenue in 2019 was $4.79 billion.

Since the end of 2018, total assets, revenue, and total equity have roughly remained unchanged. This is an improvement over IGT PLC’s financial performance of the last two years.

International Game Technology PLC has five categories of products and services:

Lottery
Machine Gaming
Sports Betting
Digital
Commercial Services

Lottery

IGT PLC has more than 100 lottery systems customers worldwide, including with 37 of the 46 U.S. lotteries. The company supports over 450,000 point-of-sale lottery devices worldwide and provide secure processing systems capable of up to 500,000 transactions per minute.

Most of the company’s revenue comes from licenses and management contracts. These contracts include designing, installing, and operating the lottery system and retail terminal network for five to ten years. Contract extension options are one to five years.

Many contracts include providing additional services for instant lottery ticket games such as marketing, automated validation, inventory, and accounting. In return, IGT PLC gets either a fixed fee or a percentage of sales of all instant ticket games.

IGT PLC also gains revenue from lottery management agreements based on lottery game performance metrics as well as a percentage of ticket sales. Deals include lottery systems and day-to-day activities along the lottery supply chain.

Product sales and services contracts include constructing, selling, delivering, and installing lottery systems and equipment, along with related services and software.

In these contracts, the lottery authority is responsible for lottery operations. IGT PLC also provides equipment and services contracts to expand existing lottery systems. Case-by-case negotiations determine the revenue from sales and services.

Machine Gaming

International Game Technology PLC’s machine gaming business includes slot machine design, development, manufacturing, and distribution. Revenue for machines includes fixed fee, participation, and product sales contracts.

Machine gaming includes slots cabinets and electronic systems such as the operating software with a game theme. IGT PLC’s primary competitors for machine gaming include:

International Game Technology PLC offers machine gaming products and services, which include:

Gaming machines and game content
Video lottery terminals (VLTs) and amusement with prize machines (AWPs)
Gaming management systems

IGT PLC designs gaming products for player appeal and entertainment.

Game themes are either premium games or core games. Premium games are two types of progressive slot machines: wide-area (across multiple casinos or gaming jurisdictions) and multi-level (across a casino’s gaming floor). IGT PLC holds more than 450 global gaming licenses.

Core games are non-progressive machines. These machines have video or mechanical reels as well as video poker machines. Core machines are occasionally leased, but often sold.

Other types of games include:

Centrally-determined games
Class II games
Random number generated and live dealer electronic table games

Centrally-determined games are games connected to a central server that determines the game outcome. Class II games are electronic video bingo games found in tribal casinos as well as South Africa. Electronic table games include baccarat and roulette.

IGT PLC’s machine gaming revenue primarily comes from progressive game content and cabinets. Services fees include percent wagered, net win, or fixed daily fee.

Casino management systems offered from IGT PLC are comprehensive, offering infrastructure systems and applications for all areas of the casino including:

Casino management
Customer relationship management
Patron management
Server-based gaming

These casino operating systems included customized applications for:

Player messaging
Tournament management
Integrated marketing and business intelligence modules

The modules include analytical, predictive, and management tools for maximizing casino operational effectiveness. The server-based applications include electronic game delivery and configuration of slot machines.

Sports Betting

International Game Technology PLC’s sports betting category services Italy but also in eleven U.S. states where sports betting is legal. They offer Software as a Service (SAAS) and turnkey managed service solutions.
IGT PLC’s sports betting customers include

FanDuel (Flutter plc)
PointsBet
FoxBet (Stars Group)
Delaware North
The Rhode Island Lottery

The company’s primary sports betting services competitors in Italy include:

BET365
Betfair/PaddyPower
Eurobet
Sisal
SNAITECH
William Hill

Digital

The digital category of products and services from International Game Technology PLC is iGaming, which enables gameplay via the internet for real money (interactive gaming) or for fun (social gaming).

IGT PLC designs, manufactures, and distributes products, systems, and services for interactive gaming. They have 20 digital gaming licenses worldwide, with a minimal presence in the U.S.

Social gaming solutions are in partnership with DoubleU Games. Being social gaming, players spend in-game money virtually but cannot win it. By many interpretations of gaming, social gaming is not gambling and, therefore, not illegal.

IGT PLC is a mostly business-to-business provider of their digital products and services. Italy is the exception, where the company acts as both an internet gaming operator as well as a mobile casino operator.

The competitors to digital products and services are from other operators, including 888 Holdings, bwin.party, Playtech PLC, and Microgaming. Competitors in the digital space from other gaming industry suppliers include Scientific Games Corporation.

Commercial Services

Because of their in-depth knowledge of lottery technologies, International Game Technology PLC offers innovative commercial services for these customers. These products and services leverage their distribution and secure transaction networks.

With this infrastructure in place, the company offers high-volume processing of commercial transactions including:

Prepaid cellular telephone recharges
Bill payments
E-vouchers and retail-based programs
Electronic tax payments
Stamp duty services
Prepaid card recharges
Money transfers

These business services are primarily outside of the U.S. and Canada. In Italy, tobacco shops, bars, petrol stations, newspaper stands, and motorway restaurants commonly use these commercial retail services.

Summary of IGT PLC

International Game Technology PLC is a world leader in the gaming industry, including slot machine manufacturing of physical cabinets and game themes.

By reviewing IGT PLC’s latest annual financial report, we learned of potential company risks such as our current global pandemic from their forward-looking statements.

IGT Slot Machine Reviews

Wheel of Fortune

Types of IGT Slot Machines

IGT designs, manufactures and distributes two different types of slot machines. The company offers both video reel and classic “spinning reel” slots with over 400 game titles in total. While video slot machines use the latest gaming technology, their classic slots have stood the test of time and remain extremely popular in casinos to this day.

Classic Slots

International Game Technology Slot Machines

All of IGT’s classic slot machines utilize old fashioned mechanical reels. There are currently over 100 different game titles in this category, and machines are available in either 3-reel or 5-reel varieties. Some of IGT’s most popular games fall under the classic slot machines category, with titles like Wheel of Fortune and Top Dollar, which both offer exciting bonus features.

Video Reel Slots

There are more than 300 different IGT video slot machines available with 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 19 or 20 reels. While some newer titles were developed specifically to be used on video slots, IGT also adapted many of its existing games for these types of machines. IGT’s video slot machines generally have better graphics, are more interactive and have more unique in-game features.

Mobile Slot Games

International Game Technology Reno Nv Slot Machine

As slot apps and casino apps have become more popular in the Apple and Google Play Stores, IGT has taken advantage of this trend by acquiring Double Down Casino. They now feature many popular IGT games as well as new slots on the Double Down Casino app. This not only lets players enjoy their favorite games while they’re away from the casino, but it also allows IGT to test out new games before releasing them inside of real casinos.

IGT Progressive Jackpots

With thousands of their slot machines being spread across casinos in the United States and several other countries, IGT has taken advantage of this by offering progressive jackpots in over 20 different US markets. Many of their slot machines are linked to a progressive jackpot network which are each pooled together and build up over time as more people bet on machines in a network.

These jackpots can range from as low as a few hundred thousand dollars all the way up to tens of millions of dollars depending on the denomination and type of game. The markets where IGT progressive jackpots are available are listed below:

IGT Progressive Jackpot Networks

Arizona
British Columbia
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Florida
Idaho
Iowa
Kansas
Louisiana
Manitoba
Michigan
Mineesota
Mississippi
Nevada
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Dakota
Oklahoma
Oregon
Rhode Island
South Dakota
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming

Within each of these markets, there are different games available. Among them, Wheel of Fortune and Megabucks generally have the largest progressive jackpots. While some of these games have different machines, denominations and variations, the core progressive jackpot slot titles are listed below:

Best Home Slot Machine

Progressive Jackpot Games

Megabucks
MegaHits
Money Madness
Powerbucks
Quarter Mania
TV Hits
Video Poker (Game King machines)
Wheel of Fortune

International Game Technology Megabucks Slot Machine

History of International Game Technology

While today it’s a massive corporation with thousands of employees as well as offices and manufacturing facilities all over the world, International Game Technology came from humble beginnings. The company was started in 1975 by William Redd under the name “A-1 Supply”. The company didn’t change their name to International Game Technology (IGT) until 1981; right before they held an Initial Public Offering and went public on NASDAQ.

The company’s success in the gambling industry can mostly be attributed to their early video poker machines, which became immensely popular and helped IGT establish important relationships with many casinos in the United States. IGT released their first video poker machines in the early 1970s, when they were still operating under the name “A-1 Supply” – just a few years after the company was founded.

International Game Technology Slot Machine Manual

Over a decade after the company went public, in 1996, they developed and released the Wheel of Fortune slot machine which featured large progressive jackpots. This would be, and continues to be, one of their most popular slot games ever. Today the Wheel of Fortune slot machine is available inside of virtually every casino within the United States; from California and Las Vegas to New York.

2014 Acquisition by GTECH

All Slot Games

In 2014 IGT and all of its assets were acquired by another gaming company, GTECH, for $6.4 billion. Up until 2015, GTECH was an Italian-based company who manufactured and distributed their own casino gaming equipment to European markets. After the large acquisition – realizing the value of the IGT name – GTECH decided to keep all games under IGT, and moved all GTECH products under the IGT brand as well. To accomplish this, both IGT and GTECH would now be controlled by a UK-based holding company; International Game Technology PLC.

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