Cash still king for Asian casino players: JCM Global

The slowdown in gaming revenue seen in Macau makes no difference when it comes to casinos needing fast, accurate, banknote validation at tableside, says JCM American Corp, otherwise know as JCM Global.

Kunal Mishra (pictured), general manager of new business development for the company – which is a long standing specialist in bill validator technology – was speaking to GGRAsia on the third and final day of Macao Gaming Show 2014 in CotaiExpo at the Venetian Macao.

JCM’s iV8 bill validator (also pictured) is designed to be able to process eight bills per second. The firm says it is sufficiently compact to be fitted at tableside to check the currency of those players who wish to buy chips at the table rather than the casino cage.

Mr Mishra said: “The iV8 product is focused on tables where there are a lot of cash transactions, it’s not focused on the credit transactions. As long as there’s cash on the casino floor, and significant amounts of it, products like this will be successful.”

He added: “Right now, the iV8 is in regulatory trial and back-of-house testing in Australia. We expect positive results from that and from other jurisdictions, where it’s in different stages of regulatory compliance testing.”

JCM recently acquired FutureLogic Inc, a leading maker of printers for casino equipment and other cash transaction-based industries. The consideration involved in the FutureLogic deal – a firm previously owned by Nasdaq-listed private equity firm American Capital Ltd – was worth US$70.6 million, excluding advisory fees.

FutureLogic had sales of US$47.2 million in 2013, up by 9.5 percent in year-on-year terms.

Mr Mishra said of the deal: “You have two complementary product lines – bill validators and ticket printers – that fit into the ‘components’ space. So from that perspective, this is about as clean a merger as has happened [in the casino industry].”

He added: “The trick for us is to bring additional value with the combination of both of these product ranges – both technologically and from a sales and service perspective.”

Regarding Japan – which saw the prospect of legalised casino gaming retreat this week after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday called a snap election for mid-December – Mr Mishra said: “Japan would obviously be an exciting market for JCM. It’s the ‘hometown’ market and we’re the home team in that sense. But that’s in the political process right now.”

JCM Global is part of Tokyo-listed Japan Cash Machine Co Ltd.

He added: “Our job as the sales and marketing and distribution team, is really to run the business that exists today, and we leave the political process to play out the way it does. When it does, we’ll have a better understanding of where the market lies and what kind of products to sell in the market.”

MACAO GAMING SHOW 2014 GUIDE – CONTENTS