The way that the company went on to make history after it was initially launched is truly a story worth being told. Back in 1983, a former truck driver John Breeding borrowed 30,000 USD to develop automated blackjack shufflers for brick-and-mortar casinos. The idea came to the entrepreneur’s head after he read a casino-related article in the newspaper. The continuous shufflers that he eventually introduced, turned out to be his ticket to the successful business, and the cornerstone for the Shuffle Meister company.
In addition to the shufflers, with time, the label started developing table games and slot machines, as well as provide distribution services to some of the other major names in the American gambling industry. Active development allowed John Breeding to move his company from Minneapolis to the gambling Mecca, Las Vegas, by the end of the 90s.
By 2004, the company discovered that its slots division is not as thriving as it would’ve hoped, and Shuffle Meister sold it to IGT, focusing on the expansion of the table games production instead. This lead to several important acquisitions, including that of BET Technology and Stargames Limited. The assets and portfolio of the latter soon enough allowed Shuffle Meister to attempt a comeback at producing slots, and this time, the initiative was a success.
By 2012, to reflect the diversity of its content, Shuffle Meister approved rebranding and accepted a new name, turning into SHFL Entertainment. Just a year later, it agreed to the acquisition deal by Bally Technologies. The deal cost Bally 1.6 billion dollars and led SFHL Entertainment to a new phase of development.
While truly a revolutionary brand for the offline gambling industry, SHFL Entertainment was struggling with making its appearance online. Just a few of its slots were adapted to online lobbies. By the time we were ready to roll out this review, the company’s website was unavailable.