Gaming technology supplier APEX is expanding its business in Southern Africa. Through its subsidiary 3 Point Gaming, the company has installed its Clover Link Elements© gaming platform at three properties operated by casino group Sun International. South Africa is meant to serve as a springboard for the wider continent.

Anyone offering gambling on a large scale in South Africa will find it hard to get past Sun International. The group runs some of the best-known casino resorts in the country. Since May 2026, three of them have been running software from Europe: Clover Link Elements, the current gaming platform of Austrian-Czech manufacturer APEX. It has been installed at GrandWest in Cape Town, Sibaya near Durban and Time Square in Pretoria.

The fact that the APEX name is hardly known outside the industry belies the company’s reach. The group, headquartered in Gutau in Upper Austria and in Litvínovice in the Czech Republic, supplies casinos and gaming halls in more than 70 countries. In South Africa it operates through its subsidiary 3 Point Gaming, which by its own account introduced the brand to the country several years ago and has since served both casinos and the route business outside the casino floors. Its range covers slot machines and multi-game systems as well as equipment for live table games.

Four Games, Three Pots, One Network

At its core, Clover Link Elements© is a multi-game software product that bundles several games on a single machine and connects them through linked progressive jackpots. For South Africa, APEX has brought the four titles developed specifically for the platform: Clover Inferno©, Clover Wave©, Clover Tomb© and Clover Twist©, each assigned to one of the four elements of nature. What they share is the so-called three-pot principle, with three bonus pots per game, complemented by features such as Multiboost, Raid, Blaze, Collect and Bomb, which raise symbol values, distribute multipliers or pays direct wins. Above all of this sit the progressive jackpots, which grow across every connected machine and can be won in the Jackpot-Pot.

The hardware at the three properties is the APEX Special Upright cabinet, a variant with a J-curved display that the manufacturer promotes for its contemporary design and ergonomics.

Why South Africa

That APEX is investing in South Africa of all places has to do with the structure of the market. The country has a comprehensive regulatory framework for gambling, established licensing procedures and demanding standards for suppliers. This makes market entry laborious, but it also gives all parties a degree of reliability. Compared with many other African markets, South Africa is considered mature. For a European supplier, it is an environment in which to build references that will count elsewhere on the continent later on. The company itself describes South Africa as a strategically significant market and as a platform for its broader ambitions in Africa.

Nico Johann Weissengruber, Managing Director of APEX pro gaming, places the move in the context of the group’s overall strategy: “South Africa is a strategically important key market for us. The successful installations at Sun International once again demonstrate that our products can successfully compete in demanding and highly regulated markets beyond Europe. We intend to build on this success and further expand our presence in South Africa and across the African continent in a focused, step-by-step manner.”

Sun International as a Door Opener

Sun International is one of the established operators in the region. The group’s resorts combine casino operations with hotels and entertainment offerings. With GrandWest, Sibaya and Time Square, APEX has won three properties that rank among the larger addresses in the country. The supplier describes the deal as an important step in its strategy to expand its presence in South Africa and to bring the current generation of the Clover Link© range to a broad audience. According to the company, APEX had already placed Clover Link© and Clover Link Elements© at selected locations in South Africa and other African markets beforehand, where they met with a positive response from players and operators.

Tailwind from Europe

The installations come at a time when the Clover Link© range is attracting international attention. Clover Link Elements© made its debut at the ICE trade show in Barcelona in January 2025. In November 2025, the platform was named Slot Game Product of the Year at the BEGE Awards in Sofia. At the start of 2026, according to the company, APEX pro gaming also achieved a top-three ranking in the EMEA markets, a claim it bases on a market analysis by research firm Eilers & Krejcik.

Deon Valkenborgh, Sales Manager at APEX, now sees the company among the preferred suppliers of the country’s major casino groups. It had worked hard to reach that position, he said of the installations, and he thanked the casino partners, above all Sun International, for their trust in the company’s European expertise and craftsmanship.

For APEX, South Africa is therefore more than a single order. The company is positioning the country as the starting point for an expansion across the continent, supported by partnerships with operators and by a product range that has already established itself in Europe.