I don’t know whether anyone has noticed, but we are fast approaching a notable anniversary. In 2018 the AWP machine celebrates its 50th anniversary. How we mark that – if we choose to mark it at all – remains to be seen, but it is fair to say that the AWP is easily the most significant coin-operated amusement/gaming device ever to enter service in Europe.
There are currently around 1.2 million of them in Europe; interestingly, the AWP is a European phenomenon. Only South Africa has anything similar and they call it, perhaps more appropriately these days, an LPM - a limited payout machine. That is more appropriate because the AWP of today is nothing like what was originally envisaged when it was birthed.
"Amusement with prizes" meant just that - an amusement machine with just a little "ginger" added by way of a small cash prize. With prizes of £100 or €500, no-one is going to tell me that is an "amusement". And to be fair it is generally not called an AWP in most countries now. In Britain it is Category C, in Spain Type B, in Italy Comma 6a.
But we digress. In my 49 years in the industry I have seen the AWP come and go – more often go than come, incidentally. I have seen it permitted, banned, permitted again, banned again and finally permitted in Spain. I have seen it come and go in Poland, Greece, France (anyone apart from me remember that?), Norway and other countries.
Today Italy has the most – after stumbling its way through comings and goings – with about 420,000 machines. Germany comes next (probably just for the moment), then Spain and then the UK followed by the Netherlands. And it can be found in varying numbers from Ireland in the west to Romania in the east.
A chequered history, therefore, but the AWP remains the core, the backbone, the foundation, of Europe’s arcades, pubs and bars.
The threats to the AWP come in the usual form, regulation and taxation. Both can be – and often are – designed to be repressive, rather than supervisory. Germany, for example, might in the next year or two lose 50 per cent of its AWPs for no other reason that blatantly unconstitutional self-seeking vindictiveness by its 16 Bundesländer, or provinces.
There are internal threats too, from within the gaming machine industry itself. The growth of online products, from VLTs to FOBTs, threaten the AWP simply because they have design and content advantages and because the lawmakers love them; being online their performance can be constantly monitored and the contents of their cash boxes (and therefore their taxation returns) can be more easily assessed.
A discussion on this very topic at the Euromat Summit in Barcelona a week or two ago acknowledged the threats but concluded that despite all of that, the AWP in its many guises, would survive and thrive.
The industry would be much poorer if it were otherwise.
