Steve Sutherland
5 QUESTIONS
Steve Sutherland has been an executive of slot supplier Konami Gaming, Inc. for more than 24 years, including seven years as president and chief executive officer. Sutherland has worked with one of the longest-tenured management teams in the supply sector to keep Konami among the top five slot manufacturers and consistently near the top of industry surveys in game performance. In October, Sutherland received the AGEM Jens Halle Memorial Award for Excellence in Commercial Gaming Professionalism. He sat down with GGB Editor-in-Chief Frank Legato at the ICE conference and trade show in Barcelona in January. To hear and view a full version of this GGB Podcast, visit GGBMagazine. com.
1
GGB: Congratulations on receiving AGEM’ s Jens Halle Award. What do you consider the high points of achievement during the career that led to your award? Sutherland: In one of the most memorable achievements, we started from ground zero. We had to get licensing started with Nevada and then commence pursuing other jurisdictions, so the Nevada Gaming license started everything... Today, we’ re licensed in every major jurisdiction around the world from a game standpoint, and we’ re successful.
2
A trend at Konami over the years has been stability in the executive team. To what do you attribute your own longevity at Konami? I had the unique opportunity, when I joined Konami, to build out the team, and we were very selective on the people that we were bringing in. These people have been at my side. The longest-tenured person’ s been at my side for 24 years. We are a team. We work very closely together. We’ re very open-door with our employees coming in. At any point in time, they can come see me, and they’ re welcomed in. We have a very open culture, and it’ s all about fulfilling our commitment to the customer base, and fulfilling our commitment to our shareholders.
3
Another thing that’ s set Konami apart among slot suppliers is its legendary amusement lines. How important has it been to tap into that expertise? Konami is a conglomerate of multiple divisions, and we’ ve had the ability over time to pull in talent from the amusement side and the consumer software side. I’ m not talking about pulling game content, but the( strength) of the gaming and system business was in that ability to pull development talent from the amusement division. They’ re responsible for developing a lot of the core content that you’ ve seen over the past few years that has been performing better than some... The key has been that ability to pull that raw engineering talent, as we have access to those groups as need be.
4
Your Synkros casino management system has drawn praise across the industry. Is that footprint still growing? We have grown over the years from the initial couple thousand connections to going on 140,000. We have adapted a system that was designed to handle a small route operation to the world’ s largest casino. We have stepped very heavily into the biometric field with SYNK Vision. We’ re trying to make it easier to communicate with the floor personnel immediately on certain actions that have to take place.
5
Steve Sutherland
CEO, Konami Gaming, Inc.
Konami has been near the top of the slot market in terms of market share and ship share for years. What do you think is most important going forward? It’ s very simple: Our employees are focused on our customers, and on delivering quality product... We have to have that undying commitment to providing good products. That is the focus. We’ re an R & D company first. We need great product. At times we don’ t hit that, but if you’ re humble and you fulfill your commitments, good products come out. That’ s the reason for success. And that’ s why I show up every day.
“ They Said It”
“ Every sports pool in Nevada must undergo an extensive investigation prior to licensing, must adhere to strict regulation once licensed, and must pay all applicable taxes and fees. Any unlawful attempts to circumvent Nevada’ s right to regulate gaming activity within its borders will be met with the full force of criminal and civil penalties.”
— Kirk Hendrick, chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, in a release announcing that the board issued a cease-and-desist letter to Kalshi, the controversial New York-based prediction market
CALENDAR
March 10-12: SiGMA Africa, GrandWest Casino and Entertainment World, Cape Town, South Africa. Produced by SiGMA Group. For more information, visit sigma. world / africa.
March 12-13: NEXT Summit New York 2025, Convene, New York City, New York. Produced by NEXT. io. For more information, visit next. io / summits / newyork.
March 31-April 3: Indian Gaming Tradeshow & Convention, San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, California. Produced by the Indian Gaming Association. For more information, visit indiangamingtradeshow. com.
April 15-16: East Coast Gaming Congress, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Atlantic City, New Jersey. Produced by Spectrum Gaming Group. For more information, visit eastcoastgamingcongress. com.
May 7-9: Global Gaming Expo( G2E) Asia, the Venetian Macao, Macau, China. Produced by RX. For more information, visit g2easia. com.
May 13-15: SBC Summit Americas, Broward County Convention Center, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Produced by SBC Events. For more information, visit sbcevents. com.
8 Global Gaming Business APRIL 2025