Casino Consultant Profiles

Please click on a consultant below for more details:

DJ Smith

DJ has built an extraordinarily rich portfolio of experience, knowledge and skills during his 28-years in the casino industry which is underpinned by an MBA with distinctions. His base of experience was formed at Sun International's flagship resort of Sun City where he rose through the ranks to Slots Manager of the Entertainment Centre by age 31. His department of 300 people was Sun International's largest
casino unit at the time.

Whilst at Sun City DJ got his first taste of development work, serving
as the Slots expert in the Lost City Casino development at Sun City,
led by Sol Kerzner. He later pursued casino development opportunities in Namibia and opened two new casinos from scratch as General Manager, leading their rapid establishment in the market.

As licensing opportunities became available in South Africa, DJ formed and led a multi-disciplinary team in the detailed financial, operational and marketing planning of four mega casino resorts in South Africa.

With development opportunities looking set for the UK, he took up the position of Head of Electronic Gaming with the 40-unit Stanley Casinos Group during the development of Star City and beyond. His passion for innovation later saw him managing the development of ground-breaking live electronics gaming systems with the TCS John Huxley Group product development team.

DJ leads the New World Gaming team as Managing Director and his speciality consulting area is new casino development. His proven high achievement in development is due to his ability to plan in great detail and orchestrate the elements of casino design, product selection and service quality & delivery into a cost-effective integrated package. The skill in which he achieves this leads to satisfied employees, satisfied customers, customer loyalty, profit and growth.

Jake Waller

Jake’s abundant energy and outstanding organising skills have supported his excellent success in planning and project managing casino developments in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia and the UK. For most of his 20-year casino career Jake has been involved in start-ups as General Manager, Operations Director or Head of Department. After an early career and active service in the Royal Air Force, Jake joined Sun International at the flagship Sun City Resort
and was involved in the development and implementation of the Surveillance Department’s expansion and improvement programme. Through his valued contribution to the development of best-practice systems and procedures and the professional development of staff through his leadership, coaching and training, Jake was recognised by promotion to senior management. He served a number of years managing Surveillance and Security departments and gained a reputation as a very effective trouble-shooter and for "getting things done". His skill saw him being given broader responsibilities and opportunities which took him into general management and led to a series of casino development projects around the world.
With the encouragement of ex-employers and friends in the industry Jake founded New World Gaming in 2008 to provide his special brand of diplomatic yet high-energy, hard-hitting effective results, where needed, when needed.

Jake’s focus is on Management Contracts, new casino development and project management and Surveillance and Security consulting work.

Martin Watson

Martin has a remarkable track record of achievement in strategic change. This is hallmarked by innovative thinking, his consultative
style, skill in winning commitment from stakeholders and his ability to energise the implementation team. From his start as a casino dealer
in London in the '70's, Martin progressed to the position of Casino
General Manager at Sun International where he played a pivotal role in the expansion of the group, particularly during the '90's when he
opened and managed the mega casinos of The Carousel and Carnival City resorts.
He later returned to Europe and developed and managed a group of casinos in the Czech Republic before joining the 40-strong Genting UK group as Regional Director. His creative ability was soon recognised and he was placed in the position of Product Development Director where his expertise was instrumental in developing the gaming product and recognising the potential in slot machine opportunities which he turned into a four-fold increase in electronic gaming revenue. The particular specialist services which Martin provides are strategic planning, feasibility studies; table games management consulting; casino development and casino marketing.

David Meacher

When it comes to achieving rapid growth and international expansion, few people can match David’s proven ability to develop and manage gaming-based entertainment operations. In a period of just 8 years he was responsible for the expansion of a European operation from just 500 slots to 10,0000 slots spread over 142 outlets in 11 cities; 70 live table games and 50 sports-book outlets. As if that wasn’t enough, he was also in charge of Latin American Operations overseeing start-ups and acquisitions of casinos; slot operations; bingo halls; sports books; lottery operations and F&B outlets in Peru, Bolivia, Mexico and Brazil.

David’s core specialty is slot operations in which he gained a solid background with Sun International from 1991 to 1994.
He applied this knowledge in Europe and quickly progressed to Slot Manager at Playboy International in Greece. Thereafter he was Director of Slot Operations for Storm International covering over 5,000 slots in Russia and North Africa.

David’s achievements are testament to his ability to understand the player, identify the products, product mix and service attributes and quality required to optimise returns and then implement them successfully.

Whether you’re looking to grow by acquisition or organically, enter new markets or expand into new products or both, David’s knowledge, experience and skills will prove invaluable.

Chris Robinson

Chris is New World Gaming’s principle technical specialist. He began his gaming career with Sun International in 1986 and held the position
of Technical Manager at a number of slot operations, including the 1,700-machine Monte Casino in Johannesburg. Chris has also served several casino slots and systems technology companies at the level of Director, including IGT Europe where he was Director of Operations for
a period of 5 years. His in-depth knowledge of casino operations,
casino managements systems and experience in planning and managing installations, his electronics knowhow and his technical compliance knowledge all enables Chris to add great value to the services that he provides to NWG’s clients.

Chris’s particular areas of speciality are electronic product evaluation; casino management system evaluation and the project management of equipment and systems installations.

David Mills

David is a Senior Associate at New World Gaming and past Chair of the International Association of Casino Security, of which is he a founding member. He is also a member of the International Compliance Association and holds a post-graduate diploma in Anti-Money Laundering.
David has over 20 years of management experience in the casino industry during which time he has developed a broad spectrum of knowledge, skills and expertise in gambling regulation, compliance, security, surveillance, anti-money laundering, risk management, game protection and training.
He has held positions such as Head of Security at Stanley Casinos, covering the group's 40-plus casinos and Compliance & Security Director at Clermont Leisure. A highly effective executive, speaker and educator, David adds substantially to New World Gaming's scope and capability, bringing clients further value in terms of high quality, integrated services.

Alex Slors

Alex is a strong team player with over 25 years of experience in the hospitality industry. Hands on knowledge of hotel operations as well as corporate environments within prestigious international companies (Dorchester Collection, Le Méridien, Forte) give a balanced approach to the business challenges we are facing today.

Achievements include asset management systems that control all aspects of the hotel operation, development models for new built as well as refurbishment projects, the creation of internal control systems that encompass all facets of a hotel, project management for world-wide IT application rollouts, group consolidation work for statutory as well as managerial purposes and the creation of a shared service centre for non hotel specific finance functions.