Last week’s ICE Totally Gaming in London proved to be an historic moment for Romanian manufacturer Baum Games, which showed its first AWP for its domestic market.
The company also welcomed a representative of the Romanian National Office for Gambling to its stand on the first day of the show.
Romania has never had legal AWPs before. The street market used to consist of largely unregulated slot machines, however, concerns over problem gambling led the government to create a new gambling law, which came into effect from January 1, 2016.
Horatiu Coldea, chief operating officer of Baum, believes that the potential market for AWPs in street locations in Romania is possibly around 50,000 machines. The company operates machines as well as manufacturing them, and is one of the first companies to be able to successfully connect its AWPs to the Finance Department, which is a pre-requisite for operation.
“We have extensive experience of international AWP markets, so we were ahead of the game when it came to creating the new machine and ensuring it was connected to our server,” said Coldea. “We have watched the trends in other European jurisdictions and we have even included some features which were not outlined in the current legislation but which we feel certain will be required further down the line.”
