Players around the new Roulette game at the Acropolis Gaming Lounge in May Pen, Clarendon, which was opened on Tuesday. - Contributed

Supreme Ventures Limited, looking to deepen its penetration of the gambling market, has expanded its Acropolis Gaming & Entertainment Centre to the Clarendon capital, May Pen, pumping more than $150 million into its start-up.

The 9,600 square-foot facility, the second to bear the Acropolis brand, opened on Tuesday with 150 machines and boasts a restaurant and bar.

50 new jobs

The investment created 50 jobs, Supreme Ventures vice-president for communications, Sonia Davidson, told the Financial Gleaner.

Lottery games are Supreme Ventures' top money spinner, turning over more than $14 billion last year, but earnings from its gaming rooms - Acropolis and Coral Cliff - are on the rise, topping half a billion dollars in 2006 in a year of meteoric growth for the business segment, which in 2005 only contributed $39 million to group turnover.

Financing for Acropolis May Pen was equity based - a mixture of capital raised under the company's IPO, as well as own cash, Davidson said.

Davidson said the company was not prepared to comment on projected revenues and break-even for the May Pen operation ahead of its year-end financials, but its forerunner in Barbican, Kingston doubling its net wins from US$68,000 to US$108,000 per machine last year, is yet to attain profitability, contributing losses of $110 million to the group last year.

Davidson said the new gaming room, located at Bargain Village Plaza, was not an indication that Acropolis was being built out as a chain, nor are there plans to take the operation overseas.

The company in a statement said, strategically, the move was meant to give Supreme an even bigger presence in the gaming market and to grab market share from a "fast-growing clientele" among Clarendon's 60,000 populace.

Supreme also expects to pull business from the flanking parishes of St. Catherine and Manchester, targeting in the latter case "affluent Mandeville" residents.

lavern.clarke@gleanerjm.com