The company, Ainsworth Consolidated Industries, concentrated on producing large-scale, floor model-type equipment. In the early 1950s, however, one of Ainsworth's engineers realized that the machinery used by the company could easily be converted toward the production of something entirely different-poker machines. Ainsworth Online Slots. It is fair to say that Ainsworth Gaming’s biggest overall achievement as a company is the fact that they have managed to quickly build themselves into one of the most dominant land based slots companies in the world. This is made even more impressive by the fact that they are of course based in Australia.

Ainsworth Consolidated Industries Slot Machines For Sale
Consolidated Industries Inc
Ainsworth Slot Machines For Sale
Ainsworth Consolidated Industries Slot Machines Inc

71 Longueville Road
Lane Cove
New South Wales 2088
Australia
Telephone: (+61) 2-9413-6300
Fax: (+61) 2-9420-1354
Website: http://www.aristocrat.com.au

Public Company
Incorporated: 1933 as Ainsworth Consolidated Industries
Employees: 2,300
Sales: A$976.0 million (2002)
Stock Exchanges: Australia
Ticker Symbol: ALL
NAIC: 334111 Electronic Computer Manufacturing; 339932 Game, Toy, and Children’s Vehicle Manufacturing

Aristocrat Leisure Limited, based in Australia, is the world’s second largest manufacturer of casino gaming systems, behind the United States’International Game Technology, itself an offshoot of Aristocrat. The company is the leader in Australia, with some 60 percent of the market. That country also represents more than half of the company’s sales. Yet, with the market tightening in Australia due to restrictions on new poker machine placements, the company has vowed to increase its international sales to 50 percent. The company moved closer to that goal after winning a license for the all-important Nevada market in 2001. The United States accounts for more than 26 percent of the company’s sales. Aristocrat is also active in New Zealand, Japan, South Africa, and in Europe and South America. In addition to designing and manufacturing gaming systems, Aristocrat produces casino furniture, accessories, and signage. The company also provides technical support services and services including casino consulting and design services. Listed on the Australia stock exchange, Aristocrat remains controlled at some 40 percent by the founding Ains-worth family—although founder Len Ainsworth himself no longer has any interest in the company. In 2002, Aristocrat’s sales reached A$976 million.

Founding the Australian Gaming Market in the 1950s

Leonard Ainsworth had just started medical school in the 1940s when he quit his university to join the dental equipment manufacturing business founded by his father, a dentist, in Sydney, Australia, in 1933. The company, Ainsworth Consolidated Industries, concentrated on producing large-scale, floor model-type equipment. In the early 1950s, however, one of Ainsworth’s engineers realized that the machinery used by the company could easily be converted toward the production of something entirely different—poker machines.

Ainsworth began researching the market. While the country had begun importing slot machines as early as the late 1890s, there had never been an Australian manufacturer of gaming equipment. The passage of the Johnson Act of 1951, which restricted casino gambling in the United States to the state of Nevada, had the side effect of causing the collapse of most of the major slot machine manufacturers. The Australian market, already undersupplied, then represented a potentially vast market—indeed, that country was soon to become the world’s second largest slot machine market, trailing only the United States.

Ainsworth was not content with producing machines based on existing designs. Instead, the company quickly proved itself to be an industry innovator. By 1956, the company was ready to launch its first poker machine—the Clubman, the first in the industry to offer multi-line and scattered payouts.

Ainsworth’s timing was dead on: in that same year, the state of New South Wales voted to legalize poker machines, and Ainsworth’s sales took off. The company quickly captured a leading share of the New South Wales market, before moving on to conquer most of Australia.

By the end of the 1950s, Ainsworth was ready to take on the world, and in 1960 the company entered Europe, setting up a subsidiary to introduce its machines to that market. Poker machines quickly became commonplace features in the bars and restaurants of most European countries. Ainsworth met the competition by emphasizing a commitment to research and development, and to innovative designs.

The company’s rising sales led it to establish a new production facility in Roseberry, in Sydney, in 1961. That year also saw the launch of a new poker machine design, the Aristocrat Nevada. The success of that model was considered revolutionary for its time. It also remained a long-lasting brand for the company, forming the basis of its 1990s name change to Aristocrat Leisure.

Although the company’s new machine contained Nevada in its name, the company remained absent from that all-important market. In 1964, however, the company began importing machines to the United States, using a sales agent to sidestep licensing requirements.

Until the mid-1960s, casino gaming machines were entirely mechanical in design. Ainsworth, however, had recognized the potential of the fast-growing electronics technologies and in 1965 Ainsworth introduced the world’s first slot machine incorporating electronics technologies, called Moon Money. The launch of that machine helped the company head off a threat to its home market, which had grown to include more than 1,500 gaming clubs by the middle of the decade. Industry heavyweights Bally, based in the United States, and Cope Allman, of the United Kingdom, attempted to enter the Australian market in the mid-1960s, but were ultimately unable to impose themselves on a market increasingly dominated by Ainsworth.

Video Revolution in the 1980s

Toward the end of the 1970s, Ainsworth once again proved itself as an industry innovator. That decade had seen the rise of a new entertainment form, the video arcade machine, which had grown quickly to rival the mechanical pinball machine. Ainsworth recognized that the same video and computer technology could be applied to the slot machine, and by 1979 the company had launched “Wild West,” claimed by the company as the world’s first all-electronic game (a claim disputed by SIRCOMA, the predecessor to International Game Technology).

By 1981, Ainsworth’s rising sales encouraged it to begin direct exports of its machines—releasing its U.S. sales agent, which was taken over by SIRCOMA, then in the process of changing its name to International Game Technology (IGT), which had already established its dominance in the Nevada and newly legalized Atlantic City markets. Ainsworth was to make its first attempt to enter those markets in the early 1980s, but withdrew its application in 1984 (the company later accused IGT of blocking its entry).

Ainsworth comforted itself, however, with its 80 percent share of the New South Wales market. Yet that position, boosted by the collapse of its chief Australian rival, Nutt and Muddle, brought the company into difficulties with the New South Wales police, which leveled charges against Ainsworth, accusing it of illegally attempting to establish a monopoly on the market. Ainsworth was in fact indicted on the charges, which were ultimately dropped.

Meanwhile, the company had continued to innovate. In 1982, the company released the first generation of its DACOM 5000 system, which enabled electronic accounting and player tracking. Meanwhile, the company continued to try to crack the Nevada market during the 1980s, filing licensing applications in 1984, only to withdraw it again two years later. The company filed once again in 1991, but withdrew that application as well.

Ainsworth found more luck in other markets. In 1988, the company was awarded an application to enter the New Zealand market, and quickly became the dominant player there. The company also entered several U.S. markets, as a number of states began lega

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