What is involved in your role of at Station Casinos?

As Corporate Vice President and General Manager, I am responsible for the operations, marketing and finances for one of our casino hotel properties in Las Vegas.  We work very closely with our corporate office to make sure we have the right strategies in place so that we can be competitive and profitable as an entire company in our market.  I am currently managing the Fiesta Henderson Hotel and Casino.

What aspects of your role do you find most satisfying?

When Frank Fahrenkopf Jr. took the helm of the newly created American Gaming Association in 1995, the U.S. gaming industry had just begun to experience a tremendous wave of expansion that would spread across the country, and faced lingering misperceptions that the gaming industry remained a shady enterprise that contributed little good to society, and federal gaming commission scrutiny that threatened to potentially regulate and tax the industry. Fahrenkopf’s AGA ably navigated those rough waters and successfully guided the industry forward, along the way creating the National Center for Responsible Gaming as well as the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) and its Asian counterpart (G2E Asia).

In January, Fahrenkopf announced he will step down from his post effective June 30, but

“Our objective at Groupe JOA is to change the way people in France view casinos. We have 13% visitation from French consumers, and to grow we want to attract new customers,” commented Laurent Lassiaz, CEO of Groupe JOA.

Groupe JOA is definitely making changes to try and achieve growth. When I visited, I toured both its head office and its latest property, Casino de Montrond – you can read about that in the March issue of Casino Life. Montrond has some amazing features for a casino; it’s well worth visiting. And its décor is very bright and colourful…a design I found very pleasing and uplifting to experience.

Calculated Risks

Glyn Thomas talks to Armin Karu after Olympic Casinos wins the “Land-Based Casino Operator of the Year” Award at the ICE Totally Gaming Awards

You must be delighted with wining the Best Land-based Casino Operator of the Year Award?

Winning the Best Land-based Casino Operator of the Year award is a true recognition for the years of hard work done by the whole team of Olympic Entertainment Group. Last year showed that the right decisions and all our efforts made during the years of global economic crisis had given us a strong competitive advantage and comparing to the period before the recession, we have increased market shares in almost all of the countries where we operate. 2012 was also remarkable for entering the Italian market and breaking into the so-called Old European market where we now aim to gain even more foothold.