Local, state and federal officials joined executives of Ainsworth Game Technology on Friday for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the grand opening of the company’s 291,000-square-foot North American headquarters in Las Vegas.
Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval, Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak, National Indian Gaming Association Chairman Ernest L. Stevens and representatives of state lawmakers and U.S. senators joined Ainsworth officials including President-North America Mike Dreitzer, founder and Executive Chairman Len Ainsworth and CEO Danny Gladstone to cut the ribbon on the new headquarters just off the 215 Beltway.
Dreitzer recalled that only two years ago, many of the same officials stood with shovels on a vacant stretch of desert for the groundbreaking. “Today, two years later, after great progress with our business and a remarkable construction effort, it is with great pride and optimism for our future that we welcome all of you to the grand opening of our state-of-the-art headquarters for the Americas. And we can think of no better place to call our home than the gaming capital of the world, Las Vegas, Nevada.”
“When companies like Ainsworth choose Las Vegas for their global headquarters, it sends a really big message that Las Vegas is the place to do business and Nevada is the thought leader in the gaming industry,” said Sandoval. “Las Vegas and Nevada are going to continue to lead the world in innovations in gaming.”
Sisolak said the area west of Interstate 15 is becoming “the high-tech hub of the valley,” and lauded Aristocrat for adding “skilled jobs with good wages and good benefits” to the county. “Those 200 permanent jobs are not just numbers; they are families,” he said “There are faces behind each one of those jobs.”
Ainsworth announced that it has entered an agreement with UNLV’s International Gaming Institute to supply $20,000 annual scholarships for at least three years and it also will donate $10,000 a year for 10 years to the National Indian Gaming Association to help renovate the organization’s Washington, D.C., headquarters.
The 291,000-square-foot facility weighs in at more than six times the size of its former Las Vegas headquarters, and includes office, warehouse and manufacturing space—the latter taking up about half the building—and its 200 employees include a sizable complement of computer programmers, software developers, engineers, graphic artists and animators.
“We really wanted to send a message to our customers as well as to the Las Vegas community that we are here to stay,” said Mike Trask, the company’s director of marketing. “Las Vegas is the world headquarters of gaming and a place our customers frequently visit. Financially, it’s a tremendous place to do business, and logistically, the location is easy to access from McCarran International Airport.”
Australia-based Ainsworth is the fifth-largest gaming manufacturer in the United States and derives almost 40 percent of its revenues from its North American business, which was up 34 percent on a revenue basis year on year in fiscal 2016.
Looking to build on that the company recently secured a partnership with video games developer Bandai Namco to use its well-known characters and brands in Ainsworth slots, bringing together
casino-style machine gaming with the worlds of arcade, console, mobile and video game technology.
“This convergence of casino and video game developers will help us create innovative branded content and gaming entertainment for a new generation,” said Jason Lim, Ainsworth’s general manager of online and social casinos.
