STA, 12 October 2019 - The Austrian gaming group Novomatic has taken over Casino Riviera in the Slovenian seaside resort of Portorož, which means it now controls nine out of 26 licensed casinos in the country.
It was the newspapers Delo and Dnevnik which reported about the takeover on Saturday. The acquisition was made a few days ago.
Acting through the company Novo Investicije, Novomatic acquired Casino Princess in Nova Gorica in June. The casino had been indirectly owned by the Turkish chain Princess Group International.
In the past few years Novomatic acquired the casinos Kongo near Grosuplje just south-east of Ljubljana and Lev in Ljubljana from Slovenian entrepreneur Joc Pečečnik.
Under the Admiral Slovenija brand the Austrian group also operates casinos and hotels in Kozina (Admiral Casino Mediteran), Škofije (Casino Carnevale) and Ptuj (Casino Poetovio) and gaming parlours in Maribor (Casino Joker) and Lesce (Casino Tivoli).
Novomatic Group is one of the largest gaming technology companies in the world. It is owned by Johann F. Graf, who places 181st on the Forbes list of the world's wealthiest billionaires with EUR 10 billion.
The group employs around 30,000 people in more than 50 countries. Last year it posted around EUR 5 billion in sales revenue, Dnevnik writes.
Novo Investicije, which employs more than 300 people, last year generated EUR 32 million in consolidated sales revenue, up 60% on the year before, as net loss rose by 171% to EUR 2.17 million.
The sales growth came as the companies acquired from Pečečnik's Elektronček had been folded into the Novo Investicije group.
