Licensing approval officially brings IGT back to Las Vegas

IGT is officially coming back to Las Vegas.

One of the leading global manufacturers of slot machines and gaming equipment that left Las Vegas in 2015 after Italian lottery company executives from Gtech Holdings a year earlier bought the company, brand and name and moved its headquarters to London, is now being sold to Apollo Global Management Inc. for $6.3 billion.

Apollo, which has invested in Nevada casinos for two decades, is the parent company of The Venetian and Palazzo resorts on the Strip and partner Daniel Cohen was vetted during The Venetian and Palazzo licensing in 2022 and the IGT licensing Thursday.

While representatives of Apollo and local IGT managers have been working over the past 11 months to return the company to Las Vegas, the official regulatory stamp of approval came as the Nevada Gaming Commission voted 4-0 to approve licensing to Apollo.

The deal is expected to close Tuesday after the last regulatory body to weigh in, the New York State Gaming Commission, signs off on it.

IGT announced in February 2024 plans to split its gaming and digital companies from its lottery businesses in a merger with Everi, another Las Vegas gaming equipment manufacturing company.

Five months later, Apollo offered an alternative transaction by acquiring both IGT and Everi. Over the last 11 months, all companies have made applications or requests for approvals in 36 jurisdictions to prepare for integration. Apollo labeled the acquisition and integration project and the temporary name as “Voyager Parent LLC,” but when the deal closes, the company will bear the IGT name. The existing IGT will take on a new name, Brightstar Lottery, for its lottery business, which operates globally with a major center of operation in Italy.

Cohen and compliance officer Kate Lowenhar-Fisher explained details of the transaction in a one-hour hearing.

IGT has been a Nevada company since 1975, has nearly 2,000 Nevada employees and its current president of global gaming, Nick Khin, was approved as a key executive and will become interim CEO of the new IGT. Khin, who has been in the gaming industry for 23 years, said there are 2,000 IGT employees in Nevada.

When former Aristocrat Gaming CEO Hector Fernandez completes a non-compete agreement in the fourth quarter, he will become IGT’s CEO and Khin will become head of IGT’s global gaming division.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on X.