On average, between 50 and 60 bowling centres are opened every year in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. On average, each one has 13 to 14 alleys. The cost of the equipment per alley (bowling balls, pins, etc.) can amount to 30,000 euros. Added to this are the investments for catering facilities, furniture and other equipment as well as the costs for installing the bowling alleys.

IMA is growing: next year, the International Trade Fair for Amusement and Vending Machines will open in Düsseldorf with more than 200 exhibitors and again occupy Halls 8a and 8b. This will already be the third time that IMA will be staged at the Düsseldorf Exhibition Centre since its transfer from Nuremberg. The host, the German Amusement and Vending Industry Association (VDAI) is proved right by IMA’s success.

London-based Project Coin has won an initial order to supply its successful automatic roulette machines to Argentina. Available in both money in, money out and cashless formats, Casino Roulette can be configured to suit most legislative frameworks, currency and chip values.

Finnish government agreed on a bill to amend current gambling legislation to protect the under aged. The bill would increase the age limit for using gambling machines to 18. The proposal would include a one-year transition period implementation of the new age-limit for some automatic gambling machines. Currently the age limit is 15 for using gambling machines and participating in games of chance provided by Veikkaus, the state betting and lottery organization.

Senate committee hearing scheduled for tomorrow, who has long opposed the expansion of gambling in Maryland, called on lawmakers today to approve legislation that would ban video gambling machines by next year. Arguing that the machines are similar to slots and should have been confiscated years ago, Peter Franchot, the leader of the opposition to the slots referendum...

The soothing commercials for Proposition 94-97 suggest their passage would offer a pain-free, USD 9 billion elixir for California's budget woes. These measures are neither pain-free nor an elixir. Passage of these propositions would allow four of the state's wealthiest tribes - Agua Caliente, Morongo, Pechanga, Sycuan - to dramatically expand their Southern California gambling operations by adding up to 17,000 Nevada-style slot machines.

Canberra - Oscar-winning Australian actor Russell Crowe has succeeded in a long-running fight to have gambling machines banned from the Sydney football club he co-owns in a bid to make it more family-friendly. Crowe and fellow owner, millionaire businessman Peter Holmes a Court, on Wednesday night succeeded in convincing skeptical board members of the South Sydney Rabbitohs to dump the club's 160 slot machines...

A bill in Congress seeks to eliminate military slot machines overseas that take in USD 130 million a year, mostly from soldiers. The bill’s sponsor, Representative Lincoln Davis, named the bill after Army Warrant Officer Aaron Walsh, a decorated Apache helicopter pilot who became addicted to gambling on military slot machines. Walsh eventually was discharged from the Army. He committed suicide after several failed attempts to break his addiction.

Oklahoma City (AP) — Oklahoma is now third in the nation in the number of slot machines in the state, according to a study of the gaming industry nationwide, and Oklahomans spent an average of more than USD 600 per capita to gamble. The 597-page study illustrates Oklahoma’s development as a gambling state since November 2004, when voters approved expanded casino gaming and a lottery. It found Oklahoma has a slot machine for every 79 residents and the state’s 97 casinos held 45,289 machines at the end of 2006, representing 5.5 percent of all such machines in the U.S.

650 international exhibits added to Gauselmann Collection

The Nevada Gaming Commission on Thursday unanimously rejected a concept of allowing casino customers to use their debit cards to buy ticket in-ticket out vouchers that can be gambled on slot machines. The proposal, which had been requested through a partnership between Global Cash Access and slot machine giant International Game Technology, was denied by commissioners for several reasons. The most prominent concern by the five-member panel was they didn't see the need for that particular system to be established.

Gamblers here may soon be able to try to bluff a computer while playing a hand of poker. The state Casino Control Commission gave permission Wednesday for the city's 11 casinos to test electronic gambling machines that would replace some poker and roulette dealers. The main reason? Pennsylvania and Delaware slots parlors, which are already laying a beating on Atlantic City casinos, have them.