Press Release September 15, 2007

Novomatic continues campaign against product piracy in Romania

The Novomatic Group of Companies presented a further spectacular campaign against pirate copies of its products; this time at the first edition of the Romanian trade show, ‘Entertainment Arena’.

The 2nd day of the ‘Entertainment Arena’ in Bucharest saw a spectacular event: Novomatic held a special demonstration to officially declare the continuation of its war against product piracy. DI Ryszard Presch, Vice-President of the Board of Directors, Novomatic Holding, officially announced the launch of a campaign against any person or persons who infringe the company’s intellectual property. In a spectacular demonstration, witnessed by customers and press representatives, Novomatic steamrollered pirate copies of its hardware components directly in the exhibition centre. The visual ‘shock effect’ of Novomatic’s action left no one attending the event in any doubt whatsoever of the company’s intention to act firmly and decisively against the ‘product pirates’.

Novomatic, with headquarters in Gumpoldskirchen near Vienna, is internationally renowned for highly innovative gaming technology and state-of-the-art game design. The wholly owned subsidiary Austrian Gaming Industries GmbH (AGI), responsible for R&D, production and distribution, invests high expenditure every year in research and development in order to continuously develop new products and designs. As a market leading and trend-setting producer AGI sells its highly popular products only to licensed casinos and arcades all over the world. Yet in Romania, where Novomatic is represented by its subsidiary SC Intertop srl., an increase in the number of pirate copies of Novomatic products has recently been observed.

Therefore the company decided to take measures to continue the campaign against
pirate copies with the assistance of an internationally renowned law firm. “We want to rectify the position of our original Novomatic products in the Romanian market and highlight the obvious strengths in terms of quality and reliability - and we will pursue all avenues in doing so”, stated DI Ryszard Presch. “The issue is not only the economic damage through lost business. Our primary aim is to prevent any damage to our customers caused by inferior and faulty copies. And we will do what is necessary to support our Romanian subsidiary in order to ensure a fair and well regulated competition in their home market.”

Adrian Georgescu, Managing Director SC Intertop srl., is pleased with the support from the Austrian holding: “It is good to know that we have such strong backing from a respected concern like the Novomatic group. We have observed the situation here in Romania very closely and came to the conclusion that this demonstration was vital in order to make a statement which will not go unnoticed. We have registered a great demand for original Novomatic products in the Romanian market and we want to make sure that our customers clearly know the original from the copy. The great feedback we received here at our demonstration in Bucharest is very encouraging, and reassures us that the top quality and reliability of our original Novomatic products is highly valued in Romania.”

Novomatic Group of Companies - www.novomatic.com - is an integrated global gaming company that, in addition to its extensive operational activities encompassing casinos, electronic gaming halls and sports betting outlets, specializes in the design, development, manufacturing, distribution and sales of computerized gaming machines and advanced technology products.

Contact:
Max Lindenberg
Marketing & Business Development
AUSTRIAN GAMING INDUSTRIES GMBH
P: +43 2252 606 415
M: +43 664 814 07 54
E-mail:  mlinden@novomatic.com