In Germany, the government for the northern state of North Rhine-Westphalia has reportedly decided to offload its loss-making Westdeutsche Spielbanken GmbH concern with local gaming machine giant Gauselmann Group apparently among those said to be interested in buying the casino-operating enterprise.

According to a Thursday report from G3Newsire, Westdeutsche Spielbanken GmbH is responsible for casinos in the cities of Dortmund, Bad Oeynhausen, Duisburg and Aachen and is soon hoping to debut a fifth such facility in Cologne. But, the state-owned operator purportedly reported a loss of around €2.9 million (US$3.4 million) for the whole of 2016 after chalking up a deficit of about €8.5 million (US$10.1 million) the previous year.

G3Newswire reported that Westdeutsche Spielbanken GmbH saw its aggregated gross gaming revenues for 2016 improve slightly to hit approximately €80.4 million (US$95.8 million) but that it is struggling to find a suitable location for its envisioned Cologne venue after encountering unexpected subsoil problems at its preferred site.

For its part, Espelkamp-headquartered Gauselmann Group reportedly already runs around 330 slot parlors across Germany via its Merkur Spielbanken Sachsen Anhalt GmbH subsidiary and won a tender in 2013 to bring a pair of such venues to the central state of Saxony-Anhalt. Its Head of Central Communications, Mario Hoffmeister, purportedly declared that the firm has a ‘fundamental interest in the takeover’ of Westdeutsche Spielbanken GmbH and is prepared to listen before deciding whether such a purchase would represent a ‘worthwhile investment’.