The Nevada Gaming Commission Thursday approved Konami Gaming COO and President Tom Jingoli for licensing, 11 months after he was named to the roles that include serving as managing director of its overseas subsidiary Konami Australia. Jingoli was last licensed in Nevada in 2017 for Konami, which makes slot machines and casino-management systems.
For 23 years, Jingoli has served Konami in compliance, sales, marketing, and customer service. He’s responsible for daily operations, and all internal departments and divisions report directly to him from seven locations on five continents.
While there hasn’t been a lot of expansion over the last four years from new casinos, Jingoli said they’ve grown by having good products and have taken business away from competitors.
“Somebody just doesn’t wake up one day and say they’re going to switch (to our casino management system),” Jingoli said. “It takes time, trust, and a company’s ability to learn how to do things differently.”
Jingoli said they also have some good games that are “flying out the door. It’s definitely a completely different cycle.”
Last year was a transition year for Konami, moving from its Dimension series to Solstice, and Jingoli is bullish on 2026.
“Our numbers have been really strong,” Jingoli said. “There are certainly market conditions that we have to track — tariffs, inflation, and costs. But if you have a good product, it will find its way onto the casino floor, regardless of what the economy is doing.”
Jingoli’s day is divided into three quadrants. In the morning, he catches up on email that come in from the publicly traded Konami Holdings in Japan, in addition to anything that has come up in Australia. The majority of his day is spent at Konami Gaming in Las Vegas.
“I’m looking forward to building the company to the level our parent company is expecting,” Jingoli said. “We’re not there yet, but I have a great team around me.”
Jingoli broke into the industry as a regulator in New Jersey and when he was hired at Konami as a compliance director, the company had about 15 licenses in North America, Australia, New Zealand, Asia, and South Africa. Today, it’s more than 400. The office in Las Vegas went from 20 to 25 people when it started to about 550. Konami has about 110 employees in Australia.
“It was about building the company up for a couple of years, and it was rough,” Jingoli said. “We’re fortunate to have a significant parent company backstopping funding for us. They knew it was going to take a while and it did — about 3½ years before we were making the return on investment they were expecting. It was great to be on the ground floor of that.”
Jingoli said other than employees, compliance is top of mind at the company. They aren’t perfect and have gone through some things, but they do a good job of working with regulators.
“You have accidents and make mistakes and learn from them and move on,” Jingoli said. “We’ve done a really good job of that over the years. And it’s not just with our compliance department. It starts with me, our CEO, and chairman.”
Commission and Nevada Gaming Control Board members earlier this month praised Jingoli and had no hesitation in approving his license.
