Gauselmann in tune with consumer expectations with £15m investment in the high street

The Gauselmann Group has underlined its commitment to and faith in the UK gaming industry by completing the second stage of a three part AGC investment project which in infrastructure terms alone will total £15m by completion in Q4 2020. The investment programme, which encompasses Cashino AGCs stretching from Mansfield to Maidstone, Hereford to Hammersmith and Bridgwater to Birmingham, commenced in 2018 with eight sites, a further 23 will be completed by the close of 2019 with 36 venues including six Greenfield sites scheduled for 2020.

The investment has focussed on the delivery of a market-leading customer experience helping to reinforce the status of the Cashino brand as the UK’s number one low stake gambling destination. Mark Schertle, Chief Operating Officer at Praesepe, confirmed: “One of the main attractions of Cashino is the social side of gaming it provides to our customers and the key aim of the programme is to enhance this social aspect, improve the overall customer experience, which in turn helps create the modern casino feel that we are striving for. With that in mind, we’ve added serviced bar areas serving soft drinks, installed bean to cup coffee machines and introduced a host of hot and cold snacks across all of our refurbished venues. We’ve also added brand new screens and the latest gaming machines alongside significantly improved décor. Drawing on my background in retailing I believe the consumer offer we are now providing is very, very strong and sits comfortably with the emphasis every sector of modern society now places on quality. As my colleague David Purvis at Blueprint said recently, the days of offering consumers a game on an old machine and serving cheap coffee in a plastic cup that’s so hot that you can’t hold are long gone.”

He added: “We are in year two of a three year programme and I am delighted to confirm that everything we set out to achieve has been completed on time and on budget thanks in no small part to the professionalism and skill of the Praesepe teams led by Head of Product Andy Tipple and Steve Ambrose, Head of Operations. Of course, outstanding venues demand outstanding product so we have also undertaken a major overhaul of our machine estate, removing more than 40 percent of older cabinets and all legacy product. The machine roll out, which was completed in June 2019, has resulted in the creation of a super-modern, TITO ready, digital gaming experience in venues that our customers love.”