Lockdogs is celebrating a banner year as North America’s fastest-growing provider of high-security key-changeable locks for the gaming industry. According to Lockdogs owner Jeff Connor, the company will expand its product line in 2025. Lockdogs will also celebrate its 10th anniversary in business next year.
In 2024, Lockdogs had its best year since its inception, because more people know about the company. As a consequence, routes have increased and new markets have opened up with historical horse racing machines, Connor said.
“All of these things combined created a perfect storm of success for us for 2024,” Connor said. “We’ve shipped and installed more locks than in all previous years combined and there’s no end in sight,” Connor said. “We also welcomed Rachel Loudon to the team. Rachel’s decades of experience in gaming compliance and internal controls have been a real benefit.”
Connor said smart operators know cashless gaming is coming and as a result, electronic gaming machines will require three less locks at a minimum. Lockdogs locks are key changeable in excess of 13,650 times and can be rekeyed and repurposed for use in new machines, kiosks, the sportsbook, table games, and the cage.
“As a result, Lockdogs has seen an exponential increase in new business and an even larger increase in properties converting from old-school, pinned, dimple-lock technology,” Connor said. “When old-school technologies are retired, you’re throwing away those locks.”
Operators know it doesn’t make sense to have to throw away a number of single-use locks or waste payroll dollars doing core changes when a Lockdogs lock can be used for multiple applications all with a lifetime guarantee on keys, Connor said.
“It turned out to be a benefit to us and our particular technology,” Connor said. “They might be converting their slot floor or opening up a new casino. We know they’re going to migrate to cashless and what are they going to do with those two-to-three-lock machines dedicated to cash functions? In our case, we can reset them to neutral and recode them for a new application in the future. It makes sense if you buy something that’s forward-thinking.”
Lockdogs has grown its business organically, because the most important factor is customer service and to be responsive to what people need, Connor said. He didn’t want to get too big, too soon.
During 2024, Lockdogs expanded into Virginia and Kentucky, as well as converting Muckleshoot Casino in Washington state.
Lockdogs also developed RouteMaster, a line of locks specifically geared to the needs of route and amusement- game operators, products the company will unveil at the Amusement Show in Las Vegas in March and at the inaugural Barcelona ICE show.
“In 2025, we’re expanding the product line for the RouteMaster locks, specifically geared for slot and amusement routes,” Connor said. “They have specific challenge,s so we developed a series of locks that we’ll show in Las Vegas in March.”
Lockdogs has also diversified its product line to include tamper-proof key chains, pick-proof padlocks, key indicators, and bespoke tools for slot techs, Connor said.
