The ‘University and Hanseatic City’ of Rostock in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is located off the Warnow River mouth into the Baltic Sea. In ad- dition to the city’s prominence for the fishing and shipyard industry, it is also home to a number of leading aerospace technology companies. Tourism is another significant and thriving industry sector, with important hubs for the cruise ship tourism at the ports of Rostock and Warnemünde.

The new Casino Rostock is located near the city center, where the city harbour begins on the banks of the Warnow River. Previously, the premises housed a gaming arcade with billiards tables, a café and slots. With the new opening on July 31, 2020, guests are now welcomed to a state-of-the-art 470sqm gaming floor, featuring 28 video slots of the latest generation, eight ETG terminals with a fully automated Roulette wheel and virtual Black Jack games as well as live gambling tables for Roulette, Black Jack and Poker, all of which are equipped with large Perspex partitions to comply with the latest social distancing measures. The current gaming offering has been reduced temporarily due to COVID-19. Ten employees guarantee first class customer service on the slot floor as well as at the combined bar & reception and another 20 employees work in the live gaming area.

With all of the unusual circumstances presented in the middle of the pandemic, the casino refurbish- ing process presented many challenges. Despite the difficulties, the team at Spielbanken MV with the support of the interior design specialists from the NOVOMATIC HQ nevertheless created a small but fine casino within just nine weeks’ time. Excellent solutions have been found to reinvent the premises for NOVOMATIC premium enter- tainment. Both the shipping of the equipment and the dispatch of the carpentry team to the Baltic Sea coast was efficiently organized in spite of the lockdown in order to ensure the fastest possible opening.

“It was a challenge, indeed”, says Thomas Fritz, Managing Director of Spielbanken MV, “but even in such unprecedented times, NOVOMATIC has mobilized all necessary resources to equip our new casino in time.”

Due to the current social distancing and Coronavi- rus safeguarding measures, gaming equipment and player positions on the floor are currently spaced out at large distances. For the time being, the ini- tial offering comprises a total of 36 machines and 16 player positions at the live gaming tables. But there is room for growth: Once the Coronavirus restrictions are lifted and in future obsolete, the location can be expanded to up to 57 video slots, two Roulette tables, two Black Jack tables and two Poker tables.

The start, however, was a success. In spite of the situation, the initial first visitor numbers at the Casino Rostock exceeded all expectations. Roger Cziwerny, Head of Marketing at Spielbanken MV, says: “We had to manage the feat of attract- ing excellent floor traffic without overcrowding the casino. This meant we had to fine-tune our advertising activities and for the time being, post- pone major advertising campaigns as these would boost the number of visitors and cause problems in terms of providing sufficient space for all our guests. Targeted social media activities and promo- tions across our other gaming premises are cur- rently more useful than classic mainstream advertising.”