Novomatic

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Novomatic group

logo
legal form Corporation
founding 1980
Seat Gumpoldskirchen , Austria (Novomatic AG) AustriaAustria 
management
  • Ryszard Presch and Johannes Gratzl
    (board members)
  • Bernd Oswald
    (Chairman of the Supervisory Board)
Number of employees 30,000 (2018, group)
sales 5.0 billion euros (2018, group)
Branch Industry
Website www.novomatic.com

The Novomatic Group is a global gaming group with headquarters in Gumpoldskirchen (Austria). The group operates casinos , electronic casinos and sports betting shops , rents gaming machines and develops and produces gaming equipment and gaming systems. In 2018, the group of companies employed more than 30,000 people worldwide, including around 3,200 in Austria. With Admiral Sportwetten GmbH , the Novomatic Group also includes the sports betting provider in Austria with the largest number of branches with over 200 locations.

The Novomatic Group is active in more than 70 countries around the world and generated sales of 5 billion euros in the 2018 financial year. The EBIT was EUR 264.1 million.

Novomatic head office Gumpoldskirchen (2013)

history

The trained butcher Johann F. Graf founded Brodnik & Graf GmbH together with the electrical dealer Gerhard Brodnik in 1974 and started importing Belgian pinball machines . The career of the two entrepreneurs began at the point at which the switch from electromechanically operated slot machines to electronic ones took place. Graf's start-up capital at that time was 50,000 schillings (3,634 euros).

In 1980 Graf left the company and founded the Novomatic Automatenhandels GmbH , which was supposed to deal mainly with the manufacture and sale of gaming machines and which has been restructured into a stock corporation to this day. The group's area of ​​activity also includes the planning and construction of turnkey casinos and casino management systems. The majority of the company's shares are still in Graf's hands today.

In 2010, the Novomatic subsidiary Astra Games Ltd. 70% in the Austrian online games company Greentube . In September 2011, Astra Games Ltd. acquired the remaining 30 percent shares.

In the winter of 2012 casino licenses for six Austrian cities (Bregenz, Innsbruck, Salzburg, Graz, Linz and Vienna) were put out to tender by the Austrian Ministry of Finance. Novomatic also applied. The award went in favor of the Casinos Austria Group , which was thereby able to keep its licenses.

On June 2, 2016, the Administrative Court of Lower Austria declared that the issue of the vending machine license from 2012 to the Novomatic subsidiary Admiral was unlawful. There were four other applicants, and although up to three licenses would have been possible, only one license was issued for small-scale gambling. The administrative court overturned the decision of the concession issue because of a "violation of procedural rules". However, Novomatic is still allowed to operate the machines in Lower Austria without a license, as the state gaming law states in one passage that machines can continue to be operated for up to 18 months after the license has expired.

EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn (ÖVP) was on the board of Novomatic from 1997 to 2003 during his time as a member of the Viennese state parliament, the former Interior Minister Karl Schlögl (SPÖ) was a member of the supervisory board from 2004 to 2011, and ex-Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer (SPÖ) advised the company in South America and Eastern Europe and was also a member of the supervisory board of the German subsidiary Löwen Entertainment . The former federal spokeswoman for the Greens, Eva Glawischnig , has been Head of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability since March 2018 . Barbara Feldmann (ÖVP) has been a member of the Novomatic Supervisory Board since 2014 and of the German subsidiary Löwen Entertainment since 2017.

At the end of 2017, the Novomatic Group withdrew from online gambling in Germany. Since then, players from this region can no longer use the offers.

In 2020, Harald Neumann resigned as CEO, Ryszard Presch and Johannes Gratzl took over the previous board agendas from Harald Neumann.

Group structure

All companies of the Novomatic Group are consolidated and owned by the two parent companies Novo Invest GmbH (Austria) and  NOVO Swiss AG (Switzerland). These two parent companies have a network of over 300 companies. Johann Graf is the sole shareholder of the parent companies. The Novo Invest GmbH holds 89.96 percent of the shares of Novomatic AG . NOVO Swiss AG holds 10.04 percent of the shares .

According to its own information, the group has locations in more than 50 countries.

Subsidiaries & participations (excerpt)

  • Novomatic AG (Austria, 100%) R&D, production, sales
  • Admiral Casinos & Entertainment AG (Austria, 100%) operator of gaming facilities
  • Admiral Sportwetten GmbH (Austria, 100%) sports betting provider
  • Admiral Sportwetten GmbH (Germany, 100%) sports betting provider
  • Casinos Austria AG (Austria, 17.19%) operator of casinos
  • Österreichische Lotterien GmbH (Austria, 23.25%) lottery operator
  • Greentube Internet Entertainment Solutions GmbH (Austria, 100%) Production, operation and sales of online and mobile casino solutions as well as server-based terminal solutions
  • Löwen Entertainment GmbH (Germany, 100%) R&D, production, sales
  • Spielbank Berlin Gustav Jaenecke GmbH & Co. KG (Germany, 59.5%) Operator of casinos
  • Novomatic Italia SpA (Italy, 100%) distribution
  • Allstar SrI (Italy, 100%) operator of arcades
  • Luxury Leisure Ultd. (Great Britain, 100%) operator of arcades
  • Talarius Ltd. (Great Britain, 100%) operator of arcades
  • Alfor SIA (Latvia, 60%) operator of gaming facilities
  • Novomatic Netherlands BV (Netherlands, 100%) R&D, production, sales
  • Novomatic Gaming Spain SA (Spain, 100%) production, sales
  • Admiral Operations Spain SL (Spain, 100%) operator of arcades
  • GiGames SL (Spain, 80%) production, distribution
  • Novomatic Americas Sales LLC. (USA, 100%) sales
  • Kurhessische Spielbank Kassel / Bad Wildungen GmbH & Co. KG (Germany, 100%), casino
  • SIM Spielbanken investment, investment and management GmbH & Co. KG (Germany, 100%), casino holding company
  • Ainsworth Game Technology Ltd. (Australia, 52.90%) R&D, production, sales

Controversy

Austria

Suspicion of attempted purchase of the law

In October 2014, the Public Prosecutor's Office for Business and Corruption (WKSta) arranged for the house of ex-general director Franz Wohlfahrt of the gaming company Novomatic AG to be searched . Specifically, it was about the suspicion of paying a bribe to Karl-Heinz Grasser (ex-finance minister) for his support in the liberalization of the gaming monopoly and the attempted granting of a gaming license to Novomatic AG in 2005. According to the magazine FORMAT, the raids took place in the office and in Franz Wohlfahrt's apartment in Vienna and in his former office in the Novomatic headquarters in Gumpoldskirchen. Karl-Heinz Grasser, Walter Meischberger and a former board member of Novomatic AG were listed as suspects. Shortly before the raid , Franz Wohlfahrt resigned from his position as Novomatic AG boss in July 2014. The new boss was Harald Neumann, who previously worked at the Federal Computing Center, where Novomatic has now connected its slot machines to the tax office in order to enable the latter to monitor the level of the profits. The proceedings were discontinued in April 2017.

Vienna

Around 80 players claimed back the money they had lost in gambling and reported them. A subsidiary of Novomatic had to repay 107,420 euros of the 138,350 euros that a player gambled away in the Novomatics Admiral Casino in Vienna's Prater between 2005 and 2012. (Judgment not final, Novomatic appeals.) The argumentation was that the player would have had no incentive to play if the "small game of chance" compliant with the Gambling Act (GSpG) (now prohibited in Vienna), i.e. 50 cents maximum bet and 20 euros maximum win. With a bet button, however, the bet can be increased and with the automatic start button series games can be carried out. The court conducted an on-site inspection and made a video. In the case of automatic play, there is only a rattle, but no sequence of individual games can be heard. “The amount displayed in the credit field is reduced by euro amounts in a fraction of a second.” It only took 32 seconds for 50 euros to be lost in a certain game - despite an interim win of five euros.

Italy

Penalty - accounting system not connected to the tax office The Novomatic subsidiary G. Matica had not installed the accounting system for the mandatory networking of machines with the Italian tax office and was fined EUR 150 million in 2012. Novomatic considered the claim to be "completely unjustified" and appealed against the decision of the first instance. In June 2014 Novomatic paid a settlement sum of EUR 47.5 million.

Poland

Black Jack Gate

In 2009, the Polish government under Prime Minister Donald Tusk planned to increase gaming taxes to finance the budget for the European Football Championship 2012 (organized jointly with Ukraine). As a result, lobbyists from gambling operators, among others, exerted influence on members of the Polish government against this tax increase. The daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita published tape recordings of the anti-corruption authority CBA as a so-called "Black Jack Gate" . As a result of the publication, several ministers resigned: Interior Minister Grzegorz Schetyna , Justice Minister Andrzej Czuma and Deputy Economy Minister Andrzej Szejnfeld . Against the head of the anti-corruption authority CBA, Mariusz Kamiński , allegations of abuse of office were made because of the transmission of the recordings to the press.

Corruption allegations in Romania

According to an ORF report from October 4, 2015, the Romanian anti-corruption agency is investigating in connection with a joint venture with the state company Lotteria Romana. Under the 2013 contracts, 10,000 gaming machines were to be delivered and the prizes shared. Another passage guarantees the Romanian partner a one-time minimum payment of 75 million euros per year if the 10,000 machines are reached.

According to a press release from Novomatic on October 22, 2015, the implementation has not yet been completed because not enough locations have been provided for the play equipment to go into operation. A post on a blog from Belgrade on April 18, 2016 cited the most likely explanation for the allegations as a concerted negative campaign by some politicians and the media who used Novomatic as a scapegoat to generate a corruption scandal against certain officials.

Ibiza affair

In a video that was secretly filmed in July 2017 and leaked to Spiegel and Süddeutsche Zeitung in May 2019 , the then FPÖ party chairman Heinz-Christian Strache claims that billionaires such as René Benko , Gaston Glock , Dietrich Mateschitz and Heidi Horten as well as the Gambling company Novomatic would donate to the FPÖ's election campaign through a cover club of the FPÖ in violation of party funding in Austria . All the people and companies named in the video as donors disputed the process on the same day.

In August 2019, there were further allegations of alleged collusion , which Novomatic denied as unfounded.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Novomatic: Management. In: Novomatic. Retrieved August 19, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b About NOVOMATIC
  3. ↑ Novomatic AG / Novomatic Gaming Industries GmbH , from noeindustrie.at, accessed on September 14, 2017
  4. ↑ a b Annual Report 2018 at novomatic.com. Retrieved January 13, 2020.
  5. ^ A b Johann Graf made Novomatic a global company. In: The Standard. March 8, 2012, accessed November 14, 2017 .
  6. ^ Johann Graf website of Club Carriere. Retrieved May 15, 2013.
  7. ↑ Novomatic buys at Greentube. In: derStandard.at . December 13, 2009, accessed September 10, 2014 .
  8. ^ A breath of fresh air at Greentube: New CEO Thomas Graf. In: Boerse-Express.com. January 13, 2012, accessed September 10, 2014 .
  9. ↑ Andrea Hodoschek: Casino licenses city package goes to Casinos Austria. In: Courier. December 12, 2012, accessed November 17, 2017 .
  10. ^ Günther Oswald: Supreme Court overturns Novomatic license in Lower Austria. In: The Standard . June 2, 2016. Retrieved October 24, 2016 .
  11. ↑ orf.at: Glawischnig resigns from the Greens . Article dated March 2, 2018, accessed March 2, 2018.
  12. ↑ Curriculum Vitae: Barbara Feldmann. Retrieved August 19, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Change at SAP, Novomatic and Hypo OÖ. In: extrajournal.net. March 5, 2020, accessed March 6, 2020 .
  14. ↑ a b NOVOMATIC AG: Annual Report 2018. In: pp. 5-7. Retrieved January 13, 2020 (German).
  15. ↑ a b Rainer Fleckl : The Novomatic Universe at a Glance , Addendum , October 13, 2017, accessed on November 14, 2017
  16. ↑ Final terms of the Novomatic AG issuance program , page 15 on wienerbörse.at, January 17, 2013, accessed on November 14, 2017
  17. ↑ Novomatic owner Graf received a princely reward in 2015. In: The Standard. April 29, 2016. Retrieved November 14, 2017 .
  18. ↑ Annual Report Novomatic 2016 , PDF 16 MB, page 3
  19. ↑ Half-yearly financial report 2017 Novomatic AG. Retrieved September 14, 2017.
  20. ↑ wirtschaftsblatt.at ( Memento from July 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  21. ↑ trend.at
  22. ^ Causa gambling against Grasser, Meischberger and Wohlfahrt discontinued Die Presse. Retrieved September 14, 2017
  23. ↑ Criminal charges filed against Novomatic for illegal gambling
  24. ^ Judgment against Novomatic following a private individual's complaint. In: ORF . October 6, 2015, accessed October 25, 2016 .
  25. ↑ derstandard.at
  26. ↑ derstandard.at
  27. ↑ Spiegel Online: Poland: Tusks ministers resign due to gambling affair ( memento of the original from April 24, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.spiegel.de
  28. ^ The Poland magazine: Government crisis due to gambling affair
  29. ↑ Corruption affair in Romania reaches Novomatic - news.ORF.at. In: news.ORF.at. October 4, 2015, accessed March 17, 2016 .
  30. ^ Corruption affair in Romania reaches Novomatic> Kleine Zeitung. In: www.kleinezeitung.at. October 4, 2015, accessed April 10, 2016 .
  31. ↑ Gambling0.com: Novomatic corruption - news about affair in Romania ( Memento of the original from May 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed on May 3, 2016. Verbatim: The most likely explanation is that there has been an orchestrated, negative campaign by some politicians and the media against certain public officials which used Novomatic as a scapegoat in order to create a corruption scandal. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / gambling0.com
  32. ↑ ORF at / agencies red: German media: secret recordings burden Strache. May 17, 2019, accessed May 27, 2019 .
  33. ^ Revelations by SPIEGEL and "Süddeutsche": Federal Chancellor Kurz wants to comment on the Strache scandal . In: Spiegel Online . May 18, 2019 ( spiegel.de [accessed May 27, 2019]).
  34. ^ Statement by NOVOMATIC AG on the allegations that have been rumored. In: Boerse Express. August 14, 2019, accessed August 15, 2019 .

Web links

Commons : Novomatic  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 48 ° 2 ′ 11 "  N , 16 ° 17 ′ 39.4"  E