Aristocrat Leisure Limited

(Image source: https://www.ggrasia.com/)

Aristocrat Leisure Limited (ASX:ALL) is an Australian manufacturer of gambling machines with its administrative center in North Ryde's Sydney suburb, although most of its research and development is also carried out at its North Ryde location. The company is Australia's leader, with a market share of about 60 percent. The country also accounts for over half of the revenue of the group.

Upon securing a license for the all-important Nevada market in 2001, the company moved closer to this target. The U.S. accounts for over 26 percent of the revenue of the company. Over the years the company has spread out to South Africa, Japan, New Zealand and South America along with Europe.

Aristocrat manufactures casino chairs, fixtures, and signs in addition to the design and manufacture of gaming systems. The company also provides services and technical support, including consulting and design services for casinos.

Aristocrat, listed on the Australian stock exchange, remains controlled by the founding Ainsworth family at about 40 percent? although founder Len Ainsworth is no longer interested in the company itself.

History and Success Story

Leonard Ainsworth started out by manufacturing dental equipment and later moved to manufacturing poker machines. Ainsworth started to examine the market. Although the country had begun to import slot machines as early as the late 1890s, an Australian gaming equipment manufacturer had never been there. The passage of the 1951 Johnson Act, which limited U.S. casino gambling to the state of Nevada, had the side effect of causing many large slot machine manufacturers to fail.

The already undersupplied Australian market then represented a potentially vast market? indeed, that country was soon to become the second largest slot machine market in the world, trailing only the United States.

Ainsworth was not satisfied with the production of machines based on existing designs. Rather, the company has quickly proved to be an innovator in the industry. In 1956, the company was ready to launch its first poker machine, the Clubman, the first to deliver multi-line and dispersed payouts in the industry.

Ainsworth's timing was spot on: the New South Wales state voted to legalize poker machines that same year, and sales of Ainsworth took off. Increased sales led the company to establish a new production facility in Roseberry, Sydney, in 1961. A major breakthrough was the launch of their new poker machine design which they named as the Aristocrat Nevada. For its time, this model's success was considered groundbreaking. It also remained for the company a long-lasting brand, forming the basis for Aristocrat Leisure's 1990s name change.

By the end of the 1970s, Ainsworth again proved to be an innovator in the industry. That decade saw the rise of a new form of entertainment, the video arcade machine, which grew rapidly in line with the mechanical pinball machine. Ainsworth realized that the same video and computer technology could be applied to the slot machine, and the company introduced "Wild West" as the world's first all-electronic game in 1979.

In other markets, Ainsworth had more success. The business was granted an application for entry into the New Zealand market in 1988 and there soon became the dominant player. As several states began legalizing gambling, the company also entered several U.S. markets.

Back home, the company grew effectively into Victoria state, just then legalizing gambling, completing Australia's coverage. The company got a further boost when the New South Wales gambling commission loosened restrictions on gaming machines in the state, enabling clubs and hotels to apply for poker machine licenses, a step that greatly increased the demand for Ainsworth.

Transition to the new brand name

Post being declared healthy after a spell of cancer and the public family dispute that happened over the company, Ainsworth founded a new company called Ainsworth Gaming Technologies. The company continued to innovate and created the MK gaming system. They also slowly expanded to cover the markets of Peru, South America and South Africa. The next step that the company took was to get listed on the Australian stock exchange and finally taking the name that is now ? Aristocrat Leisure Limited.

Around the end of the nineties the company laid out a refurbished computer division and named it Jublee. This was targeted to get into the under developed markets Eastern Europe, Africa and sother such identified parts of the world.

Business Lines

• Land based businesses

Aristocrat Class III

Their range of licensed and proprietary games are well known and loved across the globe. They are brought to life for an extraordinary gaming experience with the aid of their market leading technology and a team of gaming enthusiasts.

Class III games are played against the house, and the results are determined by a random number generator. They include: slot machines, blackjack, craps, roulette, and house-banked card games, i.e. games that are not Class I or Class II games.

VGT Class II

VGT is known to be a leader in casino games distribution and manufacture. It majorly operates out of American. VGT "creates winners" and their excellent customer service and customer relationships for decades are a source of great pride for the company. With more than 20,000 terminals in more than 140 locations across the U.S., VGT offers outstanding customer service and some of the industry's highest ' uptimes'

• Digital Businesses

Plarium

Plarium Global offers weekly compelling smartphone and browser games to millions of players around the world across a wide range of game genres. Building on its fun gameplay and excellent production values, Plarium's popularity and dedicated fan base.

Big Fish Games

Making available strong doses of fun to its loyal customer based, Big fish is appropriately placed as the world?s largest free-to-play games distributer and producer as well. It flaunts a diverse portfolio of games across its three segments - Social Casino, Premium Paid games and Social gaming.

Product Madness

Product Madness takes its Class III content to digital platforms to give an experience of an online casino. It was launched in the year 2013 and popularly gained the tag if being 'Heart of Vegas'. It has over these years entertained millions of players and is one of Australia's top-sized Facebook games / iOS apps.