Newly Public PlayAGS Take its Table Games International
Slot machine-maker PlayAGS made its public debut on the New York Stock Exchange Friday, and CEO David Lopez sees opportunity for growth both in the U.S. and abroad.
“We’re actually entering the Philippines in the Latin bingo space right now,” he told Cheddar. “That’s about a 70,000-unit market...Then in Brazil...if a new law goes into effect you’ll see 500,000 or so video bingo machines come online.”
The company, which primarily serves the Native American Market, brought in revenues of $154 million in the first nine months of 2017 and swung to a profit of $13.6 million for that period.
And though the gaming industry has come under pressure from the rise of online and mobile gambling, Lopez says he’s not worried about his casino games getting poached.
“It’s a little bit of a training ground for brick and mortar...If you talk about millennials you think, ‘Hey, when are those millenials going to walk into those casinos and start gambling?’ Well some of it starts on their phone.”
PlayAGS, backed by private equity firm Apollo Investment, sold 10.3 million shares at $16 apiece in its IPO, valuing it at the low end of its expected range at about $550 million.
The stock, which trades under the ticker “AGS”, rose more than 15 percent in its first day of trading.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/playags-rings-nyse-opening-bell-to-celebrate-ipo).
Microsoft has announced that it's hired Sam Altman and another co-founder of ChatGPT maker OpenAI after they unexpectedly departed the company days earlier in a corporate shakeup that shocked the artificial intelligence world.
Many factors lie behind the disconnect, but economists increasingly point to one in particular: The lingering financial and psychological effects of the worst bout of inflation in four decades.
Advertisers are fleeing social media platform X over concerns about their ads showing up next to pro-Nazi content, hate speech on the site in general or billionaire owner Elon Musk’s own posts endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
Big Business This Week is a guided tour through the biggest market stories of the week, from winning stocks to brutal dips to the facts and forecasts generating buzz on Wall Street.
The board of ChatGPT-maker Open AI said Friday it has pushed out its co-founder and CEO Sam Altman after a review found he was “not consistently candid in his communications” with the board.
