"2020 was a very – very – particular year, I think that is a very nice way to put it. As we are speaking, in Europe and partly the US, we are faced with another phase of lockdowns," Einhaus commented.

"This global situation during the past months has affected NOVOMATIC in many ways. As a worldwide operator, it has caused considerable losses in revenues from our own land-based gaming premises. During the first phase of closings, we worked diligently to create new safe ways of welcoming our guests, implementing safeguarding measures like physical barriers and floor traffic management."

He continued talking about the new normal and the new closings all over Europe due to COVID-19 pandemic: "In many cases, it meant that machines had to be disabled to allow for social distancing among guests, which of course meant less player positions available and less games played. The reopening of gaming operations after the lockdown was strictly aligned with the various national governments’ reopening roadmaps and regional recommendations. We have resumed business with all those strict safeguarding measures in place, and in our European key markets of Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and initially Spain, amongst others, as well as in the Balkans region, the restart for gaming operations actually went quite well. However, in the UK where we are a leading operator, it was first delayed, and then severely restricted. But eventually during October, when COVID-19 infection numbers started to rise quickly all over Europe, new closings had to be imposed and revenues plummeted again."

"As a producer of gaming technologies, it has affected our business through loss of sales, which are a direct result of operators’ losses. Generally, budgets for equipment upgrades and new acquisitions are greatly reduced. Still there were and still are also many examples from countries all over the world, where operators were actively using the lockdown phase to go through their machine estate and fine-tune game offerings, machine placements and other tiny details to make their product portfolio even more appealing to their customers," Einhaus added.

When asked about goals and expectations for next year, he answered the following: "This is where we come to the good things. One good thing is that we’ve had time to focus – on a lot of things, but also on new product. So, provided that the vaccines, that have been announced for the months to come, will in fact be available and will eliminate the immediate severity of our current situation, we are focussing on making 2021 the opposite of its predecessor year."

Finally, he concluded: "NOVOMATIC will be on hand to support operators with a whole range of new products that we’ve been working on these past months: cabinet news, progressives, multi-game editions with and without progressive features – and much more. What both operators and players will need for a successful restart is a fresh impetus in terms of a games offer, and that is what we’re preparing. We are really focusing on the basics; player appeal, reliability and fun."