International Game Technology (IGT) will shut down its electronic table games (ETG) division in 2027, the company confirmed, months after its Apollo-owned parent cut about 10% of its global workforce.
IGT spokesman Phill O’Shaughnessy said the decision was made “as part of our focus on core business priorities and long-term growth objectives”. He said the company “will continue to provide its ETG customers with the level of support they expect” during the transition.
The closure removes one of IGT’s smaller product lines as new owner Apollo Global Management narrows the business around slots and casino systems. IGT was acquired, taken private and merged with Everi Holdings in a $6.3 billion deal under Apollo in 2024. In March the company cut roughly 10% of its staff, a reduction it said would “simplify our structure, reduce duplication and enable us to move with greater clarity and speed”, according to an internal memo from chief executive Hector Fernandez.
Apollo trims the portfolio
The ETG shutdown follows a wider reshaping of the business since the merger closed. IGT’s former lottery division was spun off and now trades publicly as Brightstar Lottery. With ETGs set to close, the gaming supplier is concentrating on the products where it competes most directly with rivals Aristocrat and Light & Wonder.
Apollo partner Daniel Cohen was blunt about that competitive gap when he appeared before Nevada regulators in June 2025, telling them the business had fallen behind both companies. He said “long-term value creation” was the firm’s sole reason for the deal.
“Our goal long term is to become the operator’s supplier. So if you’re the Venetian or Caesars or anyone else, you can come to IGT for basically every one of your product needs, which will allow us to continue to invest in products and innovate with our customers to really create the next generation of what casino technology products will look like.”
The March job cuts and the ETG closure both fit that strategy: fewer product lines, more capital directed at the core.
A growing line, cut anyway
IGT’s ETG business was small next to its slot operation, but it had been growing in recent years across both systems and games. The range included electronic blackjack, baccarat and roulette. The company had also extended its Wheel of Fortune brand into an ETG format, betting the franchise would pull players toward the category.
Luigi Cacciapuoti, IGT’s vice president of specialty product and ETG, described the reworked offering to GGB Magazine in 2024.
“We wanted to give a clear differentiation versus the past because this is a completely new [ETG] offering. We rewrote everything. Every line of code, everything is new and we really want to offer something that at the same time would be exciting for the players and valuable for our customers. So we made sure that we are answering the needs of both.”
Two years on, that investment is being wound down.
Why ETGs struggle on the floor
The category has had a hard time expanding, mainly because of the floor space the games require. Most slots earn more revenue than ETGs while taking up far less room, a trade-off floor managers rarely make in the games’ favour. ETGs are more popular in European and Asian markets than in the United States.
The economics have shaped the competitive field too. Market leader Interblock, also owned by private equity, was long rumoured as an acquisition target for Aristocrat. A deal never happened, reportedly because the two sides were about $200 million apart on price.
IGT has not said how the wind-down will affect ETG staff or when in 2027 support will end. For a business Apollo says it wants to build into the operator’s single supplier, the exit marks which products make that cut and which do not.
Source: IGT
