The first Global Gaming Expo took place in 2001 in its Las Vegas venue and featured 375 corporate exhibitors and attracted nearly 10,000 attendees. VIP keynote speakers for the inaugural event included Academy Award-winning actress Whoopi Goldberg and former CEO of MGM Studios Alex Yemenidjian.
Prior to 2001, LVCC had been the site of GEM Communications' World Gaming Congress & Expo (WGCE), which had maintained a partnership with AGA and was considered the industry's preeminent conference.
After a failure in contract negotiation with GEM, AGA turned to G2E to launch a rival expo which quickly superseded GEM’s expo, leading to AGA buying the WGCE out.
In 2006, G2E spread to Asia in response to Macau overtaking Las Vegas as the gambling industry’s leader in gross gaming revenues. G2E acquired the Asian Gaming Expo from the Australasian Gaming Machine Manufacturers Association, and announced that the annual event would be rebranded as ‘G2E Asia’.
For AGA’s tenth annual expo, the company announced that it would be relocating from the LVCC to the privately-owned Sands Expo, where G2E has since remained.
The expo went on to expand its Asia operations in 2019, with the opening of the G2E Asia at a new location in Manila, Philippines. Organizers selected the Marriott Manila, part of the Resorts World Manila integrated resort, as the venue for the new event and worked in coordination with the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation.
The trade show invites prominent companies from across the industry to exhibit their newest operations, products and services. Exhibitors attending the 2022 expo include names such as Apex pro gaming, Betfred USA Sports, CDC Gaming Reports, Everi Payments and countless others.
Key personnel:
Group Vice President: Will Wise
Vice President: Meredith Pallante
Event Director: Korbi Carrison
Locations:
Las Vegas, Macau, Manila