Tuesday, April 28, 1998 | 9:55 a.m.
Despite a lawsuit claiming the contrary, Casinovations CEO Steven Blad says the company's new electronic gaming products will be in Las Vegas casinos this week.
Casinovations sued Boise-based Western Electronics Corp. in Clark County District Court, alleging Western has failed to meet its obligations in producing gaming products for Casinovations and that delay was jeopardizing the company's pending contracts.
But Blad said Monday the company will have its Fantasy 21 game, a game involved in the suit, in the MGM Grand this week. He expects the games to be in Harrah's in the near future.
According to the suit, Casinovations has paid Western $175,000 to manufacture its multi-deck electronic shuffler, but has not received all the shufflers it is owed. Moreover, the suit alleges Western has the components to manufacture its Fantasy 21 game, but Western has not made the product and refuses to return the parts.
Blad said his company has since started making its own products.
"We are now doing our own manufacturing in-house and it's going nicely," Blad said.
The Fantasy 21 game is an electronic blackjack game allowing for side bets and that tracks high hands, which allow players to receive bonuses.
"It kind of bridges the gap to the Nintendo generation," Blad said.
While the suit attributes production delays to Western, that company's president and CEO, John Wasden, said repeated design revisions on the part of Casinovations engineers led to stoppages in production of the shuffler.
"Until the engineers give you approval, you're stopped," Wasden said.
Casinovations had originally ordered 100 of the electronic shuffling machines to be made by Western at about $2,600 each. It alleges it cost it $550,000 to develop Fantasy 21 and $5 million to develop the shuffler.
Blad said the suit was to "clean up" a business deal that didn't work out.
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