The German manufacturers’ trade association, the VDAI, has re-elected Paul Gauselmann as chairman at its annual meeting.
Gauselmann, regarded by many inside and outside of Germany as “the father of the German gaming industry,” continues to head the organisation after 34 unbroken years.
Gauselmann has been a strong defender of the business throughout his career and especially since he was first elected VDAI chairman in 1981. Colleagues from his Gauselmann Group company were also elected to the committee of the VDAI, including Jürgen Stühmeyer, Werner Schroer and Manfred Stoffers.
Members of the VDAI at the meeting voted him back into office without opposition, for the next two years. He now faces the difficult task of leading the industry through some stormy waters, as the 16 German länder, or provinces, attempt to force through proposals to reduce the size of the arcades business in Germany.
Gauselmann has spent the last 50 years shaping the German business in face of varying degrees of opposition from local, regional and central government. At the annual meeting, he pledged to continue to fight not only for the interests of the German AWP industry but also for the interests of the entire German amusement and gaming business, which employs 70,000 people.
He told the meeting: “It is our joint goal to defend gaming centred around playing with small stakes and prizes against public prejudices and political aberrations.
“We’ve been representing amusement gaming with small stakes and prizes for 60 years, a business that brings fun to many millions of people in bars and arcades without them being financially overwhelmed.”
