Brave New World

Modern gaming technology keeps Africa’s old enemy, corruption, at bay

A common query among institutional investors regarding gaming businesses in emerging markets is concern over due diligence issues such as fraud by employees or customers, and money laundering by criminals. Mr Robbins stresses the credentials of his management team, who have experience of working for public gaming companies. He adds that because KaiRo International’s African venues are focused on slot play and managed by state of the art slot management systems, the opportunities for criminals to abuse the casinos have been eliminated.

“I would say our SMS [slot management system] is even more advanced than Vegas. We have full online systems, including tracking. You name it, we’ve got it,” he states.

Slot machines at KaiRo’s venues are fitted with online smart card technology and bill acceptors that the company says guarantees client satisfaction by keeping up to date with modern trends.

“We also have the governments and the taxation systems to comply with, and the regulators via the gaming boards etc, so everything is at the press of button,” adds Mr Robbins.

“We use cashless systems. Everything’s sealed and under good surveillance.

“We do have very experienced, long-serving management. Most of us have come out of a PLC company in Sun International, so we run our operations like that. At floor level, middle management runs our business under systems and controls. We are very comfortable about that. A lot of other operators in Africa are owner operators that actually sit in the casinos and more or less have their families involved,” he says.

“We have full-on audited accounts with major auditing companies, etc. Sometimes running things this way gives us a bit of a handicap compared to some competitors who may not have the official overheads. They have cash power and can develop much quicker. But doing things the correct way is not only essential, it has also worked for us commercially and our reputation is very, very, good. In Africa, our brand is not as big as the big public companies, but our reputation is up there with them. The big public companies speak very well of us. They know us all personally as we were in senior executive level jobs with them, and they support us.”