Shuffle Master sees Pennsylvania growth

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Shuffle Master Inc. (SHFL.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), one of the leading U.S. casino equipment makers, is hoping to install about 3,000 seats at its electronic gaming tables in the nascent Pennsylvania market, its chief executive said on Tuesday.

The company, which is pioneering all-electronic roulette and card games that are considered slot machines by regulators, is looking to replicate its share of available game seats in Delaware, Shuffle Master CEO Mark Yoseloff said at the Reuters Hotels and Casinos Summit 2007 in Los Angeles.

In Delaware, Shuffle Master has 300 seats out of a total 7,000 slot machines and electronic game seats. Yoseloff said he expected the Pennsylvania market -- which started awarding licenses for slot machines in the state last year -- would be 10 times that of Delaware.

"I think we'll be placing table games in Pennsylvania this year," said Yoseloff, at the summit.

Pennsylvania has started the process of licensing up to 61,000 slot machines statewide at new gaming centers, existing racetracks and small resorts, and may end up challenging Atlantic City as the East Coast's chief gambling destination.

Yoseloff says his company's all-electronic roulette and card games, which have yet to be approved in Pennsylvania, are popular with casinos and players as they turn over more games per hour and tend to lead to more wagering.

"This (electronic table games) is a business in its infancy," he said. "We're at the very start of what may become a very important part of the industry."

He said that approval of legislation allowing table games in West Virginia would open up a promising market, while getting its all-electronic tables approved in Nevada would boost business.

There is pent-up demand for gambling facilities across the United States, Yoseloff said, but turning that into a legitimate business depends upon changes in gambling laws.

"There's this enormous amount of illegal wagering -- people are going to gamble, it's in the human soul," he said. "When you don't make legal gambling available, people will make illegal gambling available."

(Additional reporting by Chris Reiter)