It was the start of a great day. Meeting up with good friend Jimmy Wrethman, Director of the elegant Casino Metelitsa in Novy Arbat, Moscow and Executive President of the Swedish company Solna Leisure, we took a walk around this year’s Eastern European Leisure Exhibition (EELEX 2005) and had the good fortune to encounter Boris Belotserkovsky, Executive President of UNICUM, the company that organizes the event and is the gaming industry leader in the Russian market. Amongst other things, we agreed that the South Korean company ACE A & G, a recent addition to the international gaming scene, would exhibit at EELEX 2006.

Through lack of space at ICE next January, ACE NET ASCOT will be on show at a stand in ATEI. After a conversation with Karen Cooke, the charming Exhibition Manager at ATE who we met at the stand of Roger Melling, it seems that the Korean company’s computerised horseracing game has the promise of a good position at ICE 2007.

Being on a roll, next stop was to see Daria Gorushkina, the Director of EELEX, who was already immersed in the reservation of stands for next year. Granting a few valuable minutes of her time, she was so enthusiastic about the CasinoCompendium advertising leaflet in Russian and English that we could become a sponsor of the Russian exhibition in 2006. It is worth mentioning that Alan Burak, the untiring chief executive of SAGSE Buenos Aires, is also in Moscow for the exhibition and that he has already confirmed the presence of the Russian company Fair Play in Argentina in October 2006.

It would be impossible to be at any gaming show without visiting those giants of the industry, IGT. Finding Kurt Quartier, Vice President of IGT Europa, at the stand, we sent our best wishes for a speedy recovery to Karen Thompson, the Marketing Manager. The Managing Director of IGT Europe, James Boje, is someone I haven’t met since we were both in South Africa, about 15 years ago. He commented that it seemed no time at all, but those grey hairs and extra kilos we have acquired would tell a different story! (E-12.21.05)

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