Gauselmann casinos acquisition gets nod

Antitrust authorities in Germany have approved the purchase of the NRW casinos by the Gauselmann Group.

On September 1, WestSpiel’s locations were formally taken over by the East Westphalian group.

The purchase between the NRW Bank and Gauselmann for the casinos owned by NRW was signed on July 20. The locations are in Aachen, Bad Oeynhausen, Dortmund-Hohensyburg and Duisburg and there is the option to open two more locations in North Rhine-Westphalia.

The Gauselmann Group already has casinos in Saxony-Anhalt at Leuna-Günthersdorf, Magdeburg and is a partner in the Spielbank Berlin with four locations and another three in Rhineland-Palatinate.

“We used the time between the signing of the purchase contract and the final approval by the antitrust authorities to prepare the integration of the casinos into the group of companies. In addition to the technical and organizational aspects, the focus was in particular on the personal introduction of the management to the colleagues in the casino locations and the headquarters in Duisburg,” said David Schnabel (pictured), managing director of Merkur Spielbanken. “We will intensify this dialogue in the coming weeks and have planned welcome events for all new colleagues in our training centre at Schloss Benkhausen.”