Aristocrat prints billions from 'bizarre' casino games
You can't win a cent playing them, but gambling giants have hit the jackpot with smartphone slot machine games.
Gaming giant Aristocrat Leisure is best known for its poker machines. But these days, it makes almost as much money from casino apps downloaded directly to mobile phones.
Looking and sounding like slot machines, these "social casino" games explicitly offer no prizes and yet rake in almost USD1 billion a year for the ASX-listed company.
The 70-year-old gambling giant has been quietly transforming itself over the last decade, using a series of acquisitions over the past decade to build a mobile gaming empire.
In fact, mobile games now bring in almost as much cash for Aristocrat as its standalone poker machine operations. For every $1 of revenue, machine sales and recurring gambling revenue represent around 57 cents. The remaining 43 cents is brought in by smartphone games.
