Amaya Gaming Industries

Amaya Gaming, also known as Amaya Gaming Group, is a
Montreal-based gambling business with products in the online and
land-based markets. Amaya is a conglomerate of sorts, the
world’s largest publicly-traded gambling company. It’s publicly
traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange, and has raced to the front
of the gambling industry thanks to a $4.9 billion purchase of
PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker in 2014. Amaya Gaming maintains
headquarters in Canada, Latin America, Europe, and Asia.

Amaya Gaming produces products and services for online and
land-based casino, poker, sportsbook, as well as lottery and
slot machine software. It also offers back-end services for all
of the above. Amaya provides software to some of the world’s
largest online gambling providers and casinos. But the company
also has deals to produce games for other industry-leading
designers like Cryptologic and Aristocrat. They’ve struck
licensing deals with major brands, like DC Comics, Activision,
Paramount, and Capcom.

Amaya Gaming Management

David Baazov

Mr. David Baazov is the helmsman of Amaya Gaming, acting as
Chairman of the Board, President, and CEO. He’s acted as both
President and Chief Executive of the company since 2006, and is
considered responsible for running the company’s day-to-day
affairs while also working out a plan to implement his plan to
maximize the company’s market share. Mr. Baazov was one of the
founders of the company in the mid-2000’s, and led Amaya onto a
public listing on the TSX in 2013, and through the steps that
led to the acquisition of PokerStars and StarsDraft. Basically,
without Baazov, Amaya never moves into the consumer technology
business, which means Amaya never becomes the world’s largest
publicly-traded online gambling business.

Mr. Baazov’s many awards include Ernst & Young’s 2013 Québec
EY Entrepreneur of the Year, TSX Venture Tech Executive of the
Year for 2012, and the TSX Tech Executive of the Year in both
2013 and 2014. He earned his stripes in the online gambling
business by working as a marketing executive and Vice President
of Sales for Vortek Systems Inc., a popular supplier and
distributor of computer hardware and peripheral accessories.

Daniel Sebag

Mr. Daniel Sebag joined Amaya in July 2007. He was brought in
by CEO David Baazov personally to handle the difficult financial
side of expanding a small company into a global leader. Mr.
Sebag has since acquired other important roles with the company,
serving as a director and as the Treasurer of the whole
operation.

Mr. Sebag is a Certified Accountant, specializing in cost
management, tax accounting, and financial reporting systems
management. He’s the head of Amaya Gaming Group’s financial
reporting and all treasurer functions. Mr. Sebag joined the team
directly from the world of academia, having served as a faculty
lecturer at McGill University between 1999 and 2007. In that
position, he ran countless executive seminars in accounting and
international finance as director of McGill’s International
Executive Institute. During his time as a professor, Mr. Sebag
also served as an independent financial, accounting, and IT
consultant to several multinational companies, such as Ericsson,
AT&T, and Air Liquide.

Marlon Goldstein

Mr. Marlon Goldstein is the most recent addition to the
company’s executive staff, having joined the Amaya team in
January of 2014. Before serving in his current position, he was
acting principal shareholder in the corporate and securities
practice at the law firm Greenberg Traurig LLP, where he also
practiced as a lawyer for more than a decade. Mr. Goldstein’s
private practice was focused on major corporate and private
securities matters, with an emphasis in mergers and acquisitions
and large financial transactions. No wonder Amaya brought him in
just months before purchasing PokerStars for nearly $5 billion.

Mr. Goldstein learned the online gambling business while
serving as co-chair of his law firm’s Gaming Practice, which was
a special subset of lawyers trained to represent casino owners,
operators, and developers. He worked closely with gaming
manufacturers and designers from all over the world, which is
where he met the heads of Amaya Gaming. His extensive experience
working with Native American tribal governments as well as state
and federal authorities have served him well in his capacity as
general counsel for Amaya, as the company expands its reach into
new and emerging markets.

Harlan Goodson

Mr. Harlan Goodson serves as a director and as the chair of
Amaya’s Audit Committee. Mr. Goodson comes to Amaya with a
background in government regulation and control, having served
most famously as Director of California’s Division of Gambling
Control from 1999 to 2003. During that time, Mr. Goodson oversaw
the implementation of California’s new Tribal-State Class III
gaming rules, which led to an explosion in legal card- and game
rooms.

Mr. Goodson would eventually found his own private practice,
The Law Office of Harlan W. Goodson, in Sacramento, California.
During that time, he also worked with the law firm of Holland
and Knight, LLP, leading that firms moves into the gaming law,
regulation, and governmental affairs markets. Mr. Goodson is
listed in the Who’s Who in American Law, and he was the
inaugural recipient of the International Masters of Gaming Law
Regulator of the Year award in 2001.

Mr. Goodson’s background in gaming started during his time as
a California State Senator. He cut his political teeth as a
full-time legislative consultant for Senator Bill Lockyer
between 1994 and 1999. It was while serving in that role that
Mr. Goodson drafted early legislation in gaming law. He also
serves as an adjunct law professor (focused on the legislative
process and statutory interpretation) at John F. Kennedy
University School of Law. He often speaks before panels on the
subjects of gaming law, particularly tribal gaming law and
deregulation.

Amaya Gaming Slot Machines

Amaya Gaming currently offers 137 different slot titles as
part of their casino game library. Most of these games have been
translated into both traditional desktop and mobile formats.
We’ve listed a dozen of the designers’ most popular slot games
below, along with a short review. We’ve gone out of our way to
choose a variety of titles that show of all the best features of
Amaya slots.

Casinomeister

Casinomeister is five reel and thirty pay line slot game. It
features wild symbols, scatters, a free spins round, random
multipliers, and a top prize of 10,000 coins. The theme is
unique – the game takes its inspiration from the website of the
same name, famous for maintaining lists of approved and
blacklisted casino websites.

The symbols and other images come in two flavors – the good
guys and the bad guys. The rogue casinos are represented here by
pigs, while the good guys take on the image of Casinomeister’s
Michael Shackelford. If you look closely, you’ll see that the
rogue casino pigs are dressed in mock-ups of Nazi Gestapo
uniforms.

The game’s main bonus feature is the Casinomeister Bonus,
triggered by landing three or more Vortran symbols anywhere on
the reels with a max wager. This round hands out piles of free
spins, all of which can be retriggered infinitely. Better yet,
all payouts during this round are tripled.

Pompeii

Pompeii is one of Amaya Gaming’s releases based on a popular
Aristocrat land-based slot. It’s really popular in land-based
casinos, because of the large number of big wins in the base pay
table, the multiple bonus rounds, and the cool interactive
effects. The theme, of course, is the destruction of the ancient
Roman city of Pompeii by Mount Vesuvius. After the city is wiped
off the map by hot lava, your goal is to hunt for the lost
treasures of the city that remain buried.

To that end, the game’s symbols all relate to the ancient
Roman Empire, with things like armor, helmets, a chariot, a
coin, a sword, and the familiar playing card slot symbols. It’s
hard to forget the volcanic theme of the game, since every big
hit or bonus feature is combined with a powerful screen-shaking
effect, like an aftershock.

This five reel and 243 Ways game is unique for Amaya Gaming,
in part because of the association with Aristocrat. Credits can
be set to multiple values, between $0.25 and $125. The top prize
is worth 12,500 coins, and is only available for a max bet plus
the appearance of five scatter Amulet symbols. Because it’s an
Aristocrat game, it has a slightly higher payout than American
slots players may be used to, though it’s unlikely that most
slot players will notice a big difference in the short-term.

Wild Panda

Wild Panda is another popular land-based Aristocrat game that
Amaya has been contracted to produce for the online market.
China’s giant pandas are native to a small portion of the center
of the country, among the thick bamboo trees of a million
year-old forest.

Wild Panda is a five reel video slot with 100 pay lines. It’s
unusual for Amaya to release a game with so many available lines
– the trade-off is that you can wager as little as $0.01 per
line and still place a max bet. Of course, the game also accepts
wagers of up to $1 per line, for a total max bet range of $1 to
$100. The game is popular for its frequent rewarding of free
spins and multiple wild symbols which lead to more frequent
hits.

In this game, the Wild Panda himself is the main character.
This slot uses a variety of symbols, including the traditional
playing card values from Ace to 10. These symbols are unique,
though, in that they each carry a letter in the corner. If you
can spell out the word “PANDA” across the reels with the playing
card symbols, you enter a lucrative free spins round. Other
symbols include a Chinese coin, an umbrella, a temple, and a
lotus flower. The free spins round is the game’s most valuable
bonus, because it also hands out instant credit prizes and
multipliers. If you spin five Wild Panda symbols during a free
spins round, you win a 2,000 credit prize instantly, as well as
additional free spins.

Dad’s Day In

Dad’s Day In is a unique Amaya Gaming slot that’s dedicated
to the difficulty of babysitting as a father. Okay, so it’s a
little bit sexist, but it shows that Amaya is interested in
producing unique content. This is a five reel and thirty pay
line slot. Like all of Amaya’s popular video slots, Dad’s Day In
includes wilds and scatter symbols, as well as a Baby bonus game
and several decent fixed jackpots.

The game is set in the 1950s, and puts you in the role of a
panic-stricken father stuck home alone with a crying baby. The
game takes place as you try to feed, change, and clothe the baby
– and don’t forget to wash the dishes and walk the dog. The game
is one of Amaya’s best-looking slots, with a cool design that
makes it look like you’re playing inside an old-fashioned TV
set. The symbols are all housewife-themed images, like flower
pots, curtains, and lamps, as well as some baby props, like a
bottle and a pacifier.

The Baby bonus game is a classic pick’em game where the
panicked father has to look for his missing baby – don’t worry,
the kid just crawled under one of a dozen piles of laundry. Your
choice leads to a random instant credit prize.

Forrest Gump

Forrest Gump is a video slot produced in conjunction with
Paramount. Amaya has chosen a truly odd subject for a slot game
– usually, we think of action and superhero movies as ideal fits
for a slot machine translation. But if you think about it,
Forrest Gump makes a lot of sense as a slot. It’s a
highly-visual movie with lots of special effects and memorable
moments. Amaya worked with Cryptologic to produce a progressive
slot with a unique theme, and they certainly pulled it off.

This is a typical five reel and twenty-five pay line game
designed in imitation of Cryptologic’s most popular progressive
slots. The slot features voice acting of Tom Hanks, as well as
scenes and stills from the actual movie. The game’s symbols are
all pulled directly from the film – a football, a set of
ping-pong paddles, an army helmet, a peace sign, and of course a
box of chocolates. The movie’s poster icon is the game’s wild
symbol, substituting for all other symbols and multiplying your
win randomly by as much as 4x.

Justice League

DC Comics never seems to disappoint.
The Justice League video slots are some of the most exciting
ones to play. All the heroes we grew up reading about in the
comics have made their way to these unique, action-packed slot
games. What heroes can you expect to see? Well, there’s the
extremely popular Batman, Superman and Wonder Women all the way
to the less famous heroes like Aquaman, Cyborg and Green
Lantern.

When you see the more popular super
heroes, expect to see huge payouts as each one of them come with
a multiplier that will be applied to any winnings made from that
spin. The Daily Planet Newspaper serves as the game’s scatter
piece and wilds come in all shapes and sizes. All DC Comics fans
should try these slots out, as they certainly won’t find
themselves disappointed.

Call of the Colosseum

The theme of Call of the Coliseum is the ancient Roman games.
It’s a typical Amaya video slot, meaning it has five reels and
twenty-five pay lines. The Colosseum was used in ancient Rome to
stage wild animal hunts, fights between gladiators, and exciting
spectacles like public executions and trials. Historians
estimate that 500,000 people died and were buried in and around
the building.

The reel symbols include familiar clichés having to do with
Rome – wild animals, shields, spears, swords, helmets, coins,
and piles of grapes. The symbol to pay close attention to is the
Emperor himself. He’s the wild symbol, and not only does he
replace symbols to form winning combos, he can randomly multiply
your win by up to 5x.

Conan the Barbarian

Conan the Barbarian is a retro video game themed slot
produced by Amaya Gaming under an exclusive license with Capcom.
Conan the Barbarian is a five reel and twenty-five pay line
video slot designed in close imitation of the massively-popular
arcade and console fighting game. The characters in the game are
rendered to look almost exactly like the characters from the
popular arcade series.

This game includes a number of popular online slot features –
wilds, scatters, and free spins – but the real focus is on the
Choose Your Street Fighter feature, which really makes this into
five different games. Just like in the arcade game, you take
your pick from a group of fighters before you start – you can
pick from Ryu, Ken, Sagat, Guile, and Chun Li. Your character
choice becomes the game’s wild symbol for your entire session.

You should always place a max bet on Amaya Gaming’s licensed
titles. On Conan the Barbarian, you have to activate all
twenty-five pay lines if you want access to the most lucrative
bonuses. Since the game accepts wagers as low as $0.01 or as
high as $20 each, the total range of available max wagers is
between $0.25 and $500 each spin.

Batman

Amaya Gaming is not the first online or land-based game
designer to create a Batman slot. Know that this version of the
game is the DC Comics’ traditional Batman. That means plenty of
Gotham City action spread across five reels and fifty pay lines.
Batman is by far the most popular of DC Comics superheroes, and
Amaya worked out a special license with DC to produce a series
of Batman video slots, of which only one exists so far.

The setting for this game is perfect – a dark and stormy
night in Gotham City, as DC’s classic version of Batman stalks
criminals. All the symbols and characters are rendered in
classic DC style, and while the bonuses and other features are
all what you’d expect from an Amaya Gaming release, there’s
nothing particularly impressive about this game. We’d love to
see a DC title from Amaya with a progressive top prize. Without
it, this licensed game is all style and no substance.

Taxi

The entirety of Amaya’s Taxi video slot takes place through
the windshield of a working taxi cab, putting you in the
driver’s seat. This is a five reel game with twenty-five
fixed-value pay lines. Taxi is stuffed with features, like a
random multiplier system, a multiplying scatter bonus, and a
Free Ride Bonus game.

Okay, so it’s a strange theme for a video slot – but it makes
a sort of sense if you think about it. Driving a taxi is an
incredibly visual job. Plus, the trappings of the cab-driver
lifestyle make for perfect accessories for a slot game. The
sound and video effects are all related to the sounds of a cab,
and they’re realistic enough that you shouldn’t get sick of them
too soon.

The Zombies

The Zombies are just your average suburban family – except
that they’re undead. The story behind this game is that a family
of zombies have settled down after decades of eating human
flesh, bought a house in the suburbs, and started a normal life.
The game plays out like a 1950s TV sitcom, except that the main
characters engage in some very odd behavior from time to time.

The goal of the game is to find items which will help The
Zombies fit in to their society better. You earn prizes for
locating a mailbox, a newspaper, potted plants and other
household goods. The slot’s two bonus games, Zombie Dance Party
and the Zombie Bonus Game, make cute use of the theme, but are
essentially just two glorified pick’em games rewarding free
spins and instant credit prizes.

Street Fighter II

Street Fighter II is a retro video game themed slot produced
by Amaya Gaming under an exclusive license with Capcom. Street
Fighter II is a five reel and twenty-five pay line video slot
designed in close imitation of the massively-popular arcade and
console fighting game. The characters in the game are rendered
to look almost exactly like the characters from the popular
arcade series.

This game includes a number of popular online slot features –
wilds, scatters, and free spins – but the real focus is on the
Choose Your Street Fighter feature, which really makes this into
five different games. Just like in the arcade game, you take
your pick from a group of fighters before you start – you can
pick from Ryu, Ken, Sagat, Guile, and Chun Li. Your character
choice becomes the game’s wild symbol for your entire session.

You should always place a max bet on Amaya Gaming’s licensed
titles. On Street Fighter II, you have to activate all
twenty-five pay lines if you want access to the most lucrative
bonuses. Since the game accepts wagers as low as $0.01 or as
high as $20 each, the total range of available max wagers is
between $0.25 and $500 each spin.

Summary

Gamblers in the United States are just becoming familiar with
Amaya Gaming, thanks to their growth in the daily fantasy,
poker, and social gaming markets. Most of Amaya Gaming’s
products are still illegal for US players, thanks to the 2006
UIGEA bill. The company has even shut down most Americans’
access to their DFS site (StarsDraft) due to concerns over the
legality of these games in the US market.

What does the future hold for Amaya? It’s hard to say, in
part because the company has its hands in so many different
markets, and in part because it’s not yet clear what they plan
to do to expand the value and reach of their new poker brands.
If you enjoy Amaya Gaming’s slot titles, we recommend you keep a
watchful eye on the US daily fantasy and poker markets. The more
reach Amaya has in those markets, the more likely it will be to
offer new slot titles to their North American audience.