The financial crisis in Greece could cause a great impact to the global economy and as an attempt to stop defaulting further on its debts, the Hellenic Gaming Commission announced new lottery regulations. The goal is to try and curb the country’s financial crisis.

The new lottery regulations are proving to be costly to companies such as International Game Technology (IGT), Scientific Games, and Synot. The changes could result in the Greek Economy losing millions.

The Greek Operator OPAP has delayed the rollout of the new VLTs due to the new regulations from HGC. OPAP announced that it needed more time to make its new VLTs compliant with the new stipulated rules from HGC on how the machines should work.

The new rules were introduced and became effective on the 12th of June and includes the following;

– Lower jackpot levels

– Length of play time allowed for each terminal

– Daily loss limits

OPAP stated that the new regulations from Hellenic Gaming Commission have made the terminals ‘no longer viable’ and this resulted in the company ceasing deployment of its VLT machines throughout the country.

The spokesperson of Eilers Research, Todd Eilers said, “The delay doesn’t have anything to do with the current debt crises other than maybe OPAP playing hardball with the regulators hoping that they will cave because they need the new tax revenue. We still believe the VLT market will move forward and its represents a sizable growth opportunity for vendors.”

OPAP had planned to distribute 10,000 VLTs with its own brand and 19,000 VLTs to sub-constructed operators by the end of 2015. Furthermore, this could be a severe blow to slot manufacturers such as IGT and Scientific Games that were producing terminals for the Greek market and the delays could cause the two firms to lose millions.

Scientific Games has scheduled the development of 5,000 machines whilst IGT had been awarded a vendor contract to provide 5,500 lottery machines for the market. Synot and Inspired Gaming were also awarded first-phase vendor contracts.

IGT and Scientific Games were expected to make more than $20 million from the machines provided to Greece and the delays have actually caused a great concern to the Greek video lottery terminal market.

Sources indicate that OPAP and the regulators may reach some sort of an understanding since the government needs to find additional ways of generating extra revenue.