Interview With Nick Khin – IGT President (Global Gaming)

Interview With Nick Khin – IGT President (Global Gaming)

Nick Khin

As we near the end of 2024, we wanted to talk to about the year in general for IGT, can you tell us what was the targets for IGT in 2024 and have those been achieved?
This has been an exciting year for IGT. We’ve made significant progress against our goals and announced the outcome of our evaluation of strategic alternatives for our Global Gaming and Digital business segments. In North America, the launch of Tiger and Dragon slots on the PeakCurve49 and Whitney Houston Slots on the SkyRise cabinet were among our most celebrated product launches. Tiger and Dragon continues to perform above house and zone averages and was named “Best Slot Product” in the 2025 GGB Gaming & Technology Awards. Whitney Houston Slots was the launch title for our SkyRise cabinet and was the #1 wide-area progressive theme in the Eilers-Fantini Report for several consecutive months. In Canada we delivered a leading share of VLT units and launched our second omnichannel wide-area progressive jackpot product, Money Mania. This year in EMEA, we became the first supplier to deploy a historical horse racing (HHR) game outside of the U.S. and delivered ourPeakBarTop cabinets across the Netherlands. In LatAm, our award-winning multi-level progressives (MLP) games continue to deliver strong performance results and our Floor Manager solution has proven to help our customers optimize their gaming floors.

The company was initially founded in May 2022, by Jan Svendsen, and we really started to staff up from Q2 2023. We are proud of what we have achieved in a short time span.

There are now so many exhibitions during the year, more than ever, can you tell us maybe the top three the company attends and what successes do you see from them?
IGT participates in trade shows and events in gaming markets around the world and each one holds its own strategic importance. Each year, G2E and ICE are our largest shows in terms of the number of games and solutions that we display, and the volume of customer meetings we hold. We also have a large, cross-functional contingency of employees at these events. There are also quite a few medium to small-sized shows that are important to IGT and our customers. The Indian Gaming Tradeshow and Convention, G2E Asia, The Australasian Gaming Show and the Balkin Entertainment Expo, for example – these are just some of the tribal gaming and regional shows that help drive the business and serve as great opportunities to connect with our customers.

What would you highlight as the most memorable for the company in 2024?
The most memorable event for IGT in 2024 was the July announcement that IGT and Everi Holdings entered into definitive agreements whereby IGT’s Gaming & Digital business and Everi will be simultaneously acquired byApollo Global Management, Inc. Since then, we have been working to complete that deal byQ3 2025as we position IGT for a successful future. In terms of the day-to-day business, the continued success of our premium MLP portfolio is certainly a high point. Mystery of the Lamp won “Top-Performing New Premium Game” in the EKG Slot Awards and Tiger and Dragon has proven to be an award-winning, standout game. This year was also a banner year for our GameAce ETG solution. With more than 200 units in the field, GameAce currently reigns as the highest-performing uto roulette solution in the marketbased on win per unit. We’ve developed the product for peak flexibility, allowing for live, RNG and hybrid gameplay and have refined nearly every aspect of the player experience. G2E was another hallmark event for IGT in 2024. We dedicated a large portion of our booth to celebrating both the legacy and future of the Wheel of Fortune game franchise and debuted 11 new Wheel of Fortune slot games, three new Wheel of Fortune cabinets and Wheel of Fortune content across video poker, ETG and video lottery terminals (VLT). We also revealed the evolution of our award-winning casino management system (CMS), IGT ADVANTAGE X and a new cabinet, the Sierra27.

Over the year is there any major technology advancements that you have been able to offer your customers that you would like to tell us about?
IGT has made advancements across all our product lines over the last 12 months. One advancement that I am particularly excited about is the launch of IGT ADVANTAGE X casino management system. Significant time and R&D investments were made to ensure that the solution is built to capture the growth opportunities of today and the future. The CMS is built with an open API to ensure our customers can personalize their deployments and leverage emerging technologies such as AI. Furthermore, its architecture allows operators to capture real-time data and turn it into actionable events. For example, a guest may end a carded play session, and the system can almost immediately trigger a personalized offer or message. The benefits and features of this next-generation system are many and we’re very excited to introduce it to operators for on-premise and cloud-based deployments.

Is there any new regions the company are working in and or any new partnerships the company have forged in 2024?
As a global company, IGT regularly evaluates market opportunities around the world. In many ways, defending and growing positions of leadership is just as important as growing our presence into new segments. In terms of growth this year, we’ve focused our attention on increasing our presence in markets such as Spain, Eastern Europe and LatAm, as well as in specialty segments such as HHR, Class II and ETG. Our ICE 2025 portfolio will be anchored in many of the products and solutions that we’ve designed for these markets.

As we near 2025, what are the companies aims and targets for the forthcoming year?
In 2025 we’ll focus on making progress against our growth plan and targets. We’ve developed a dynamic, market-attuned product roadmap and we look forward to getting those products on our customers’ gaming floors. 2025 will mark the official kick-off of our latest, 10-year contract with Sony to leverage the Wheel of Fortune brand. We have big plans for Wheel of Fortune across the enterprise and we look forward to starting that in Q1 with the rollout of Wheel of Fortune Video Poker and Wheel of Fortune Cash Link Big Money. And of course, Apollo’s acquisition of IGT’s Global Gaming and Digital organizations is expected to be complete in 2025, which will bring new opportunities.

For the first time the 2025 ICE Gaming Expo will be in Barcelona, what are the companies thoughts on this?
The IGT team looks forward to connecting with our customers at ICE in Barcelona. With a new venue can come new energy and new interest, and I think both elements will contribute to the success of the event.

Do you think the ICE Barcelona will be bigger than in London?
I think ICE Barcelona will draw significant interest and attendance given the new host city. I’ve chatted with many customers in North America who plan to make the trip in January, in addition to our international customers who attend the event each year.

What does the company have in store for visitors to ICE 2025 that you can tell us about?
We’’ll showcase many products that will make their international trade show debut at ICE, most notably our premium MLP, Tiger and Dragon. We’ll demonstrate Tiger and Dragon on the PeakCurve49 cabinet, and as part of our IGT UNITE bundles for Eastern Europe. We also plan to showcase our Diamond Mania AWP game for Spain, the new Sierra27 cabinet and our first-ever version of Game King video poker developed specifically for the UK-B1 market. ICE will be the international debut for our Wheel of Fortune ETG standalone game for GameAce – this product received a lot of attention and positive feedback in our G2E product demonstrations. As always, we’ll have products on stand representing the depth and breadth of our portfolio, including casino systems technology via IGT ADVANTAGE X.

Apart from the ICE Show, what is the company looking forward to in 2025?
IGT has a lot to look forward to in 2025. We have strong product roadmaps across all of our product verticals and we are excited to get our latest solutions in the field and in front of players. We are very focused and determined on growing our video market share globally and doing this while maintaining our leadership in product categories such as video poker, VLT and CDS. We are also looking to build our footprint in some of the specialty segments such as ETG and HHR. Additionally, I believe 2025 will be a banner year for IGT ADVANTAGE X as it can significantly help operators in all geographies streamline floor performance and leverage the possibilities of data, AI and other cutting-edge technologies.