A few months ago, a grocery store in Pennsylvania carrying Pace-O-Matic-powered skill games started offering first-time health benefits to their employees.
A social club that has been a fixture in the neighborhood for more than 40 years says without skill games, it wouldn’t have survived the pandemic. A restaurant owner has boosted pay for his staff. An operator can now juggle going to college and being a single mother by operating our skill games.
These are just a few examples of how our focus on small business impacts not only these businesses, but also the people and communities they serve. It’s a core goal for Pace-O-Matic to provide small businesses an opportunity to be successful with a sustainable and legal revenue source.
We firmly believe that to reach success as a skill games company, we need to focus on five areas that give our industry further legitimacy, create winning businesses and provide long-term and sustainable revenue streams.
- Only operate where there's legal jurisdiction. In states where we operate, we know we’re legal by law. This requires us to analyze state law and then engage and educate city, county and state law enforcement, regulators and legislators before we place a single terminal. In each market, our goal is to pass legislation that stabilizes the market, allows for competition, encourages enforcement and provides tax revenue to the state.
- Create a compliance team. Skill game companies need to monitor themselves. Our compliance group is made up of former prosecutors and law enforcement officers and their primary purpose is to monitor our contractual structure and market. They notify authorities of illegal gaming operations and ensure our operators and locations follow the law and contractual requirements. Some of these include limiting locations to five terminals, and a restriction of our games in mini-casinos. Through our compliance team, we are better able to manage our markets, provide better service to our operators and locations, and create a positive impact in communities where we conduct business.
- Provide contractual protections for operators and locations. It's paramount for us to create a partnership with the businesses we work with. Like that grocery store owner, our business partners know the benefits of operating our skill games but also want to know we have their backs if they're unfairly targeted by law enforcement. We give that security by contractually agreeing to defend them. Our business partners also expect to have consistent rules governing all business arrangements, and those rules enforced. Our model, through our contracts, keeps us and our partners engaged and accountable in the communities where we operate.
- Focus on helping underserved and diverse businesses. This is a priority for us. We believe whole heartedly in the effort to gain access to untapped markets, potential and opportunity. Our program is simple: find and support operators to give opportunities to maximize potential in markets we haven’t historically served. This allows us to access and assist a broader category of small businesses. Throughout our markets, we have seen success in diversifying our operator and location base.
- Be a community partner. Pace-O-Matic founder and chairman Michael Pace, and his wife Karmin have instilled the importance of giving back. It’s one of the pillars of our business. We want to be an integral part of the communities we do business in, and believe in charitable giving to organizations that support the areas we serve such as local fire departments, police canine units, animal shelters, homeless facilities and food banks. The need for assistance caused by the pandemic led to our donations to organizations struggling with increased need. Across the nation, there are great opportunities ahead. We will continue to be a lifeline for small businesses, the very fabric of America, and essential to growth of all business in this country.
