In February, Tom O’Brien was promoted to president of Aristocrat’s Americas & EMEA division (which also includes Europe). He succeeded Hector Fernandez, who moved to CEO of Aristocrat Gaming, overseeing all land-based business. Mitchell Bowen moves from that spot to now head Aristocrat’s growing online and digital gaming segments.
While O’Brien is new to this position, he’s an established gaming veteran who most know as “Tommy.” His first executive position was as national sales director of Paltronics (a leader in progressive and digital signage that was later acquired by Aristocrat Leisure). He moved to a similar position with Aristocrat for three years, before venturing into the world of ETGs (electronic table games) with both IGT and Interblock. He returned to general slot sales as an SVP with Scientific Games in 2015. He rejoined Aristocrat as General Manager in 2020 just as COVID began shutting down gaming.
He talked about those dark days, and what’s ahead for Aristocrat, in a recent extended interview with CDC’s Buddy Frank:
CDC: Tell us about your new role and what you see as the future of Aristocrat going forward.
O’Brien: I have big shoes to fill, as everybody knows. Hector’s done one heck of a job here the last three years running our business. So, I’m jumping in right where he left off; and I will be leading the team in going forward as quickly as we possibly can, and we have the best people making the best products, so we are well-positioned to move forward. When I started back on March 2nd of 2020, it was just two weeks later when the world shut down in pandemic. What really got me excited about this company the second time around (I enjoyed it the first time from 2004 to 2007), and what makes it special is the focus we have on our employees. Our employee focus is second to none in my opinion.
We always say, it’s our people, our customers and our business. If we take good care of our employees, they’re going to continue to work hard for our customers. And they did just that during COVID. We didn’t shut down service, we didn’t shut down Design & Development. We went out there and helped. We did a program called “Aristocrat Assist” and went out and helped any customer who was in need of some extra help. If our service teams were available, we would send them out to help. For someone like yourself in your days when you were running Pechanga, “Hey, I need some help in moving banks. I don’t have enough people.” We would send our people out there and do those types of things for them. I thought that was pretty amazing.
The other thing we did was brought back our employees as quickly as possible. The ones that were furloughed came right back to work, literally. We had refined our system ahead of time so that we could ‘unfurlough’ an employee in four hours. Within 45 days, we had almost everybody back to work. That reaffirmed my thought: this is a pretty special company.
Since COVID has eased, the gaming revenue numbers are staggering out there in the casinos. It’s pretty neat to watch. Our job is to continue to keep designing the best games with the best people we’ve got. And we’re doing that today.
CDC: Sometimes it’s easier to walk onto a shipwreck and rescue or turn it around, because there’s a lot of low hanging fruit. But, just the opposite, Aristocrat has been Number One for years and everything they’ve done seems to be golden. Are you nervous, or excited, about starting off “on top”?
O’Brien: Well, it’s exciting. Because I know the job I have to do. That’s to keep the team moving forward, keep the products moving forward, and keep our customers happy. I think we’re going to do that, but you’re right, it is a challenge.
From my days with other companies, we were chasing this company for the duration of the time that I was there. We chased pretty hard, and it was never easy. I actually think it’s going to be a lot of fun because it is the first time I’ve ever been on top. It was that way with another company years ago, but they were already on the fall as you well know, back in 2007 to 2010. I came here the first time just after the dip had started, so it’s a little bit different, but this is exciting.
CDC: You’ve got real solid credentials with ETGs, but here you are at a company without electronic table games. Do you see that changing in the future?
O’Brien: I’ll never say never. With the third pillar that we’ve started with Mitchell Bowen taking over CEO of that division, they’re always looking at everything. It’s not just traditional gaming. It’s not just systems or CX (what we call the customer experience), but it could be anything. This company has looked at ETGs before, we just haven’t seen anything that’s panned out yet. But, you’re right, I do have a little passion for ETGs and know the product pretty well. We’ll see what happens down the road. You never know.
CDC: In your view, what makes Aristocrat so special right now? It seems like every new title is a hit. From pioneering new mechanics, like “Hold and Spin,” to dominating Asian themes, it seems that everybody’s chasing you. Any particular reason why you think you had such success?
O’Brien: Our philosophy on separate game design studios has been pretty big, even though every company has separate studios, Buddy, when they’re building the products, here it’s been really special because we’ve been able to keep everyone intact. They’re enjoying what they do. We take as good care of our team as we possibly can and I think they appreciate that. And we allow them the freedom to go out there and experiment to make better games. As you mentioned, with all the stuff that’s going on with “hold and spin,” everybody’s chasing that mechanic, they continue to keep doing it. Maybe the best answer is that our magic potions are working. And I want to keep it that way.
CDC: We were impressed with your D&D work during COVID, in that you spent a lot of time talking and getting input from the “slot influencers.” All of them mentioned to us that during COVID, “Hey Aristocrat just invited us to their showroom. The casinos were closed, but we were out there playing their new games.” It seemed like Aristocrat was doing more research and testing during the shutdown than some others?
O’Brien: That’s part of what I mentioned earlier. We never shut design and development down. D&D stayed focused the entire time, which I think is still the reason you’re seeing us on top today. The team’s second to none. It’s a great group of people. They work tirelessly every day and, you’re right, we were doing a lot of that work in the showroom.
CDC: We first met when you were with Paltronics in 2002, a company that was pioneering progressives. The other leader, along with Mikohn, was Aristocrat. Do you agree that those meters were, and are, a big part of your current success?
O’Brien: Of course. Multilevel jackpots, as you well know, took off right around 2007, and they got really hot. But Paltronics never let off the gas. Even when this company absorbed Paltronics, we continued to keep building off of that. And again, this is another segment near and dear to my heart, because we started that pretty much from scratch and built it into a successful business for a long time. And this company has kept that development going. It’s amazing what goes on out there, Buddy. It just keeps coming. And I think you’re right also with COVID that one thing, if it did anything, is that it taught us a lot more about our products, about learning our products and our competitors’ products.
We were taking the time to go out there. I think one of the things people said was that as soon as COVID let up a bit, Hector and I started going out and seeing customers. We would drive to central California, down into Southern Cal. We’d fly up to Northern Cal. We’d go to Washington, Arizona and across the country. We wanted to see what the customers were thinking. And they were all willing to see us, which was great, because most of them had said, “Hey, you’re the first two executives I’ve ever seen out here during COVID.” The message was, “We care.” We want to know: “Are we doing a good job for you?” That was the key for us. And the answer fortunately for us was always “Yes.” And if they needed something they told Hector and I and we went out and got it for them.
CDC: Will we see anything new from Aristocrat at NIGA (the National Indian Gaming Association tradeshow)?
O’Brien: Of course. You’ll see some new products and new cabinets. We showed the Neptune cabinet earlier, as you well know, and Neptune Double is out there doing very well for our customers. But we do have some new themes and products coming that we’re excited to preview. I can’t wait to show them. I can’t reveal them obviously right now, but we’re excited for NIGA. We’re hoping for a fantastic turnout. We’re locked and loaded. Ready to go.
CDC: Any other new directions? I know your company recently has been exploring the digital space a lot more. Will that fall under you, or will that be a separate division with Hector or Mitchell?
O’Brien: It’ll fall under Mitchell Bowen. It’ll be our third division. I was fortunate enough to do a little bit of work in that segment. I don’t mind sharing a little bit with you. You’re going to see more “real money” gaming or “i-gaming.” It doesn’t matter what happened with Playtech [a rumored acquisition recently fell through] as we’re always working on something behind the scenes. As we said earlier, you never say never what could be up next. As for igaming, you will see that from us later this year.
CDC: The entire industry, particularly on the operator side, is struggling with hiring good people and keeping the people you have. How is that going at Aristocrat?
O’Brien: I think surprisingly very well for us. When I told you we took good care of our employees, we brought them all back quickly from COVID, we take good care of them. We focus very hard on our employees here, Buddy. If we don’t, we won’t keep them. We’re starting to do more events with our teams now that COVID’s letting up a little bit. Our team love our “all.flex” hybrid work policy right now.
CDC: So. you have a hybrid mix now, both onsite and online?
O’Brien: Yes. Our new work model is formally called “all.flex,” and it encourages flexible work, including some permanent hybrid or remote work. We’ve combined that with new tools and training resources for support, along with a simplified approval process. It’s all part of our employee benefits package that we think is one of the best, based on feedback from our team and customers. We’ve got a 100% matching 401k program up to 4%, insurance, paid maternity leave, and we were the first gaming company to offer a $15/hour minimum wage package across the board.
O’Brien: Back to product, I want to throw a little thing in here about our bar top cabinets. Our bar top right now is on fire. Officially, it’s called the “Winner’s World Multi-Game.” What we’re finding is that a lot of route operators and local casinos are starting to buy our games like never before. And a lot of them are getting away from just the video poker and playing our video reel stuff along with our bingo games on the new cabinet. So, look out for that as well, that’s another product you’ll see come up.
CDC: One other recent surprise has been your strength in mechanical reels. The relatively new Relm cabinet has been moving up the charts recently.
O’Brien: I agree. It has taken off pretty well for us, especially the five-reel product in low denomination. We’re still going fast forward with it. It’s still a necessary product out there in my opinion. As you well know, it varies throughout the regions on the Eastern seaboard to the Midwest, to the West. But I think it’s a viable product, and we’re going to keep building for it.
