“Focus” is a word you’ll hear often in conversation with Pinnacle Entertainment CEO Anthony Sanfilippo. It’s his mantra for the company and it’s his operating philosophy. How many companies of Pinnacle’s stature would simply walk away from the application process for a New York State casino because it disrupted the focus of their integration of Ameristar Casinos into Pinnacle?

“We knew we would be, as it turned out, one of 22 companies putting in for four licenses,” Sanfilippo says. “We felt the distraction of going after a license was [less] important to focus on than the integration of Ameristar and Pinnacle Entertainment … there was not a better and higher use of our time than to focus on system integration, people integration and really get the value out of two companies of the same size coming together.”

At Bally Technologies, it’s a Team Effort that Translates into a Diverse Product Portfolio

            The Bally Technologies duo of Marco Herrera and Jean Venneman are quite a team. Herrera, Vice President of Europe, Middle East, and North Africa, is versed in the strategy of developing market-specific games. Venneman, Vice President of Product Management and Licensing, is getting ready to showcase those specific games for Europe, Australia and Asia at G2E

            Herrera is based in Amsterdam and Venneman in Reno, NV. They were together in Las Vegas for a two-day Bally Technologies global sales conference, yet found time to sit with Jack Bulavsky, Special Assignment Correspondent for Casino Life.

What’s going to be your main focus at G2E?

Due to the resounding success of Norwegian Breakaway, which is the first of Norwegian’s two new 146,600 gross ton, 4,000-passenger  ​Breakaway class vessels with the first launched in April, 2013; followed by Norwegian Getaway in February both of these will be followed by two further Norwegian Escape and Norwegian Bliss vessels with the first scheduled for delivery October 2015 followed by the second in Spring 2017. Casino Life caught up with the Vice President of Casino, Jim Abbas during a brief break in his busy travel schedule

It has been a year since we last spoke, how has it treated you?

With your second phase development already under construction, and the third and fourth also in planning, has there ever been another example to match the size and scale of your phased Resort Casino development plans?

Galaxy Macau is an investment of 16.5 billion for Phase 1 and 19.6 billion for Phase 2.  After the completion of Galaxy Macau, we still have an additional landbank of 1 million sqm which is approved for gaming, resort and retail facilities, etc. All of our land is contiguous which allows us to develop the single largest integrated resort.

With an estimated land bank of 21.5 million square feet in Macau that provides plenty of scope for Galaxy’s development plans, will that involve the construction of an entertainment arena?