Roy Student and Frank Fantini to receive AGEM's Memorial Awards

Roy Student and Frank Fantini have been named recipients of the Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers (AGEM) 2022 Memorial Awards. Student received the Jens Halle Memorial Award Honoring Excellence in Commercial Gaming Professionalism, and Fantini was awarded the Peter Mead Memorial Award Honoring Excellence in Gaming Media & Communications. 

AGEM created the annual awards program to acknowledge Halle’s and Mead’s lasting impacts on gaming, the association noted. AGEM formally announces the honorees each year at the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) in Las Vegas, and this year’s awards ceremony will take place on Wednesday, Oct. 12 at 4 p.m. at AGEM’s booth, #3700.

Student is a 50-year gaming and hospitality industry veteran who, for the last 15 years, has been the president and founder of Applied Management Strategies, a global management and marketing consulting company. 

Previously he served as President of Cyberview Technology; as founder and as Chairman and President of Gaming Systems International (GSI); SVP of Sulcus Hospitality Group; and as VP of the Business Systems division and as VP of Gaming Operations for General Instrument Corporation; as Hospitality Business Unit Director for Siemans Nixdorf; President of Dirson Enterprises; and President of Intermark Gaming.

He also was on the executive team of the opening of the original MGM in December 1973, and is on the Advisory Boards of UNLV, Mob Museum and Mars World, and has "extensive gaming contacts and relationships within various global regions." 

AGEM President David Lucchese, who also serves as Executive Vice President, Sales, Marketing & Digital at Everi, said: “Throughout his career, Roy has bent the arc of the industry’s history toward innovation, from the landmark MGM property in 1973 up to the present day."

David Lucchese

"His insights and opinions, along with the prodding and encouragement he has given and continues to give behind-the-scenes to leaders at all levels, have permanently shaped the industry and left a lasting legacy,” he added. 

Fantini is a life-long investor and career newspaper journalist, publisher and executive, and he created Fantini Research in the year 2000, publishing the first Fantini’s Gaming Report on the very first workday of the new millennium. 

Initially, Fantini’s Gaming Report served institutional investors, and it soon became a daily service to corporate-level gaming investors, both casino operators and those in games and technology. Although based in Fantini’s hometown of Dover, Delaware, the company evolved into one with employees throughout the U.S. In January 2022, he decided to step back from his all-consuming schedule and sold Fantini Research to long-time business associate Todd Eilers at Eilers & Krejcik Gaming. 

Fantini Research, under the leadership of long-time executive Ashley Diem, continues to provide its full range of services. Fantini, meanwhile, continues writing his weekly column, offering consulting services and serving as a consultant to Eilers & Krejcik.

AGEM Executive Director Daron Dorsey commented: “Frank has been part of a gaming supplier executive’s workday for decades, whether through his research, commentary, analysis or interviews surrounding the gaming industry."

"His commitment and dedication to delivering insight and context to the ever-changing global gaming marketplace are greatly appreciated by our entire industry. Frank is a well-deserving recipient of this year’s Peter Mead award,” he stated.

Previous winners of the Jens Halle Award are Len Ainsworth (Aristocrat), Rick Meitzler (Novomatic Americas), Gavin Isaacs (Scientific Games), Tom Nieman, Robert “Bob” McMonigle (Aristocrat), and Sebastian Salat (Zitro). Previous winners of the Peter Mead Award are Howard Stutz, Roger Gros, Frank Legato, Dave Palermo, David Orrick, and Alan Feldman. 

Halle, a longtime Bally and Novomatic executive in Europe, was most recently CEO of Gauselmann Group’s Merkur Gaming. Mead was founder and publisher of Casino Enterprise Management magazine.