Hillbrow hotel breaks new ground for GPI

Grand Gaming Gauteng’s new Royal Park Hotel site in Joubert Park has become the first venue in Gauteng to receive a Type-B gambling licence allowing it to operate 40 Limited Payout Machines (LPM) on a single site.

Grand Gaming Gauteng is a subsidiary of Cape Town-based BEE investment company Grand Parade Investments Ltd (GPI).

GPI executive chairman Hassen Adams (pictured above) said:  “We are delighted to be the first LPM operator in Gauteng to receive a Type B licence. This has allowed us to accelerate our roll-out of machines in the province to reach our stated goal of acquiring a similar market leadership position in Gauteng as we have enjoyed in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal for some time.”

Adams said GPI’s vision was to become a major and respected force in the gaming and leisure industry in Africa. Its other subsidiaries, Grandslots and Kingdomslots, jointly  operate more than 1 500 LPMs in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal respectively. Growth in Gauteng is key to its plans to increase its network to 7 500 LPMs in the medium term.

Grand Gaming is currently one of five licensed LPM route operators in Gauteng, and at the end of June was operating 203 machines out of just over 1 300 which are currently operational in the province.

In the year since acquiring Playmeter Leisure Services in a deal that gave the company a licence to operate 1 000 LPMs in Gauteng, Grand Gaming has increased its number of operational machines in the province by 80%, jumping to 115% with the activation of the 40 that were allocated to the Royal Park Hotel.

Most LPM licences in South Africa are Type A, allowing up to five machines per site. Only four Type B licences have been granted to date, including Grand Gaming’s Royal Park licence.  Other Type B licences are in Lydenburg in Mpumalanga and in Butterworth and Jeffrey’s Bay in the Eastern Cape.

In addition to its direct investment in the sites in which its LPMs are available for play, Grand Gaming is also creating additional jobs, and will contribute 0.1% of its Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) to the National Responsible Gambling Programme. Furthermore, it will also allocate up to 5% of its pre-tax profits to a corporate social investment programme.

About R2.5-million was invested in refurbishment, fixtures and fittings at the Royal Hotel site.  The amount excludes machines.

“GPI is committed to the responsible and efficient management of a quality network of limited payout machines in Gauteng,” said newly appointed GPI CEO Alan Keet. “This means operating a business which is able to advance the public interest, and those of our shareholders, by maximising the economic and social benefits for those communities in which we will be active”.

Grand Parade Investments (GPI) was first formed in 1997 as a Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment company and a partner in Sun International’s GrandWest Casino in Cape Town.  Since then GPI has grown to include a listing on the JSE in 2008, increased investments in urban casinos and breaking into the LPM industry in the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and now Gauteng.

The company offers “ordinary people”, through shareholding, a platform of access to the corporate environment in a sustainable and responsible manner and in so doing, foster crucial capacity and skills. GPI’s policy of empowerment aims to create corrective action to allow people to graduate from an abnormal environment, to an equitable one.