The company produced its first machine in 1953, and was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 1996. The company was founded by Len Ainsworth, whose family maintains a substantial stake in the company, but is now chairman of a different gaming company, Ainsworth Game Technology. Aristocrat is licensed to distribute slot machines and other gaming products in over 200 jurisdictions. Aristocrat's CEO blamed the US subprime mortgage crisis for poor financial results in 2008, despite the fact that competing companies have experienced record growth in the same time period. As a result of the expected drop in revenue, the CEO enacted sweeping budget cuts, including large-scale retrenchments of staff from all areas of the business. The company again faced difficult market conditions in 2009 with its full year resulting in a net loss of $157.8 million. In 2011, the company reached an agreement with the AGLC to provide equipment and games for Alberta's video lottery terminal network. In July 2014 Aristocrat agreed to buy Video Gaming Technologies for about $1.3 billion to triple its North American business amid falling profit in Australia. On August 10, 2017, it acquired mobile game developerPlarium for $500 million to enter into mobile gaming. On November 30, 2017, it acquired mobile game developer Big Fish Games for US$990 million. Since March 2017, the CEO has been Trevor Croker, formerly executive vice president for global products, who succeeded Jamie Odell. In July 2019, Aristocrat sued Ainsworth, alleging that they had used proprietary code and media assets leaked by a former Aristocrat employee to produce a clone of its popular Lightning Link games.
Products and partnerships
Aside from spinning reel slot machines, the company has interests in gambling systems, computerised card game simulations, electronic table games and linked jackpot systems. The company has developed the Reel Power system, where players buy reels instead of lines, win combinations in the standard configuration. Aristocrat's most prominent products have been game setups which place large progressive jackpots over a number of machines, including its Lightning Link series. The series has seen substantial popularity, to the point that Aristocrat has licensed branded areas at several North American casinos dedicated exclusively to the machines. The company has a number of distribution partnerships, including Sammy Corporation in Japan. In the U.S., Artistocrat has licensed titles to Grand Vision Gaming of Montana for use on video lottery terminals.
