A burgeoning Las Vegas-based company has its sights set on becoming the big leagues of slot machine manufacturers.
Gaming Arts — which was acquired by German-based Merkur Gaming, a massive international manufacturer, in September 2025 — took a step toward realizing that goal Thursday with the opening of The Forge, its new manufacturing facility on West Harmon Avenue.
The facility is 23,000 square feet, nearly tripling its 8,000-square-foot headquarters on Orville Wright Court.
“We outgrew our existing facility. We needed to move into a much larger space to meet our customers’ demands for our machines,” said Gaming Arts Chief Product Officer Greg Colella. “There are definitely bigger manufacturers out there, but we’re continuing to grow. It’s really an exciting time for us.
“We’re really excited about where our business is going and what we can develop. I like the prospects.”
Gaming Arts CEO Rob Ziems said he looks at the slot manufacturing industry in tiers – large, mid and lower.
“We are currently at the bottom of the lower tier, and our goal in the next three to five years is to get into the middle tier,” he said. “With Merkur behind us and supporting us, we believe it is entirely possible.”
Said Gaming Arts senior vice president of operations Jason Weller: “We equate it to leaving the minor leagues to get to the majors. We try to get to the majors and stay there.”
When Ziems replaced Nevada Gaming Control Board Chairman Mike Dreitzer as Gaming Arts CEO in August 2025, the company had 62 employees. That number has grown to 83 with the opening of the new facility.
“We’ve had to grow significantly in recent months to meet demand,” Ziems said. “For the rest of the year, we will add another 10 to 15 people and we will continue to grow until 2027.
“We will have steady growth in the coming years.”
Gaming Arts was founded in 2009, when it was mostly a provider of gaming equipment technology for keno and bingo. It expanded into slot machines in 2018.
“The majority of our generated revenue comes from slot machines, although our keno and bingo operations are very successful and quite profitable,” Ziems said.
“More games than we could ever imagine”
When Weller joined the company in 2019, he said it was producing 20 to 25 games a month.
“Right now we’re running about 115 games a month, with the intention of just continuing,” he said. “Our original plan for this year was 1,250 units and we’ve moved that mark up to about 1,500 now. The plan is to significantly challenge the doubling in 2027 and then, at the end of ’27, we’re looking at a larger space.
“Without Merkur, we wouldn’t be able to do this. But with them, they give us a channel to produce more games than we could ever imagine.”
Wild Temple Panda is Gaming Art’s most popular game. It was nominated as one of the best performing new core video games at the recent Eilers & Krejcik slot awards.
Slot machines are ranked by the gaming research company based on the revenue from the games on the casino floor. Wild Temple has been ranked in the top 20 since May 2025.
Gaming Arts, which showed off its new game, Glory of Giza, on Thursday, produces about 20 titles a year. The company, which holds more than 150 gaming licenses, distributes its games to all regulated markets. Their games can be found at a wide variety of casinos in Las Vegas, including Circa, Wynn, The Venetian, Fontainebleau, Resorts World, The Orleans, and The Resort at Summerlin.
When Weller and Ziems wanted to come up with a cool name for the new facility, they each mentioned “the forge.”
“Like forging steel,” Weller said. “That’s where it all comes together.”
Contact reporter Todd Dewey at tdewey@ theplayerlounge.com. Follow @tdewey33 on X.
