Pace-o-Matic
Doing things the right way Pace-O-Matic CEO Michael Pace reveals the proudest moments of his 50-year career and explains what lessons he has learned along the way.
first countertop game in 1980 when I created the board and operating system to build games on. Computers didn’t have the capabilities to do that at that point. Before I could develop a game, I had to design a platform to build games on. It really illustrates just how much times have changed since then. And second, Pace-O-Matic itself. Working with my wife Karmin, we have built a successful company with an experienced team of professionals and helped to foster a family atmosphere. Since that point, Pace-O-Matic has successfully led efforts to regulate the skill game industry in multiple states. We are still continuing those efforts today.
Why did you choose to found your own company? What was the industry missing that you wanted to provide?
Michael Pace
Can we get a little bit of your background in the industry. What are your proudest achievements over your 50-year career? My proudest achievements in the industry center around two inventions. First, the Pot-of-Gold Game. I invented the 8 GAMINGAMERICA
In 1996, I sold US Games and Pot-of-Gold. As part of the deal, I signed a 10-year non-compete agreement. I was effectively retired and I was enjoying life. At that time, I met my wife Karmin and moved to a Colorado ranch. In 2000, I realized I needed to get back to work. I could see my buyout was going to end. Pot-of-Gold was going under as more jurisdictions made the games illegal so I began thinking about the ways I could get back to work in the industry. Pot-of-Gold was a great earning game. At the height of its popularity, there were 55,000 machines in markets across the nation. Unfortunately, there was an incredible number of knockoffs in the market. As it turned out, the demise of Pot-of-Gold was good for me. I knew most all terminals at that time were in places not operating legally. I knew I could make software that could make them legal and use that existing hardware. So I worked to write code to make a legal game that could replace the illegal software currently running on those terminals. That’s how Pace-O-Matic began as I committed to making the best-earning legal software for these devices placed
