Luxury Leisure has expanded its reach across the Scottish market with the acquisition of the Mega Amusements estate. Nine venues spanning Scotland’s central heartland will now turn Admiral in a move that COO Paul Hyman describes as “the start of the next chapter”.
Luxury Leisure has completed the acquisition of Mega Amusements, adding nine venues across the Central Belt of Scotland to the Admiral estate, and taking the company’s national footprint past 300 for the first time.
The venues are concentrated in and around Glasgow, including sites in Rutherglen, East Kilbride, Hamilton, Wishaw, and Govan, and all commenced trading under the Admiral operating model on the morning of completion.
“Mega Amusements is a business with real history and a customer base that has trusted it for a long time,” said COO Paul Hyman. “The task now is to honour that trust.”
“Scotland has been an important part of Luxury Leisure’s business for many years, and growing the estate here, alongside introducing the Admiral operating standard to colleagues and customers in Rutherglen, Hamilton, Wishaw and across Glasgow, is something the business will approach with care.”
Mega Amusements was established in 2000, and has since become a strong presence on the Scottish high street, with Luxury Leisure committing to a phased programme of refurbishments to “bring each site up to the Admiral brand standard.”
With its Scottish estate now comprising 29 venues, Luxury Leisure will also appoint a dedicated regional operations manager for the country, as well as two area managers, reflecting the importance of the region within Luxury Leisure’s wider growth plans.
These new positions will also support further growth as the company looks to meet its target of 400 UK venues by the end of 2027, with 15 new openings and 11 acquisitions already planned for this year.
Speaking on the sale, Mega Amusements’ former owner Garry Graham said: “Stepping back from a business built over more than two decades is not a decision taken lightly. The priority was finding an operator that would look after the customers, the colleagues and the communities the business has served for so long.”
“Throughout the process, Luxury Leisure has been genuinely supportive and honourable in the way it has approached the acquisition, which gave real confidence that the business was passing into the right hands. Admiral’s reputation for investment in its venues, its standards of responsible gaming and its commitment to the high street made it the right home for the company.”
Luxury action plan
“Passing 300 venues is a credit to the colleagues who have built Admiral venue by venue, but it is the start of the next chapter rather than the end of one,” COO Paul Hyman said in the Luxury statement on the Mega acquisition.
And it came with a statement of intent. The company noted that investment plans will be rolled out for the acquired venues including a phased programme of refurbishments to bring each site up to the Admiral brand standard, refreshed machine line-ups, and the rollout of the company’s community initiatives.
These include public-access defibrillators installed through Luxury Leisure’s partnership with the British Heart Foundation, participation in the WalkSafe network as designated safe-haven sites, and the application of the safer-gambling protocols developed through the company’s work with Better Change and the BHF RevivR training programme.
Where practical, the venues will continue to source from Scottish suppliers, building on the established local supply relationships maintained by Mega Amusements.“
Mega deal
Paul Hyman said… “Mega Amusements is a business with real history and a customer base that has trusted it for a long time. The task now is to honour that trust. Scotland has been an important part of Luxury Leisure’s business for many years, and growing the estate here … is something the business will approach with care…
