Leisure Exchange

From Sega Retro

The Leisure Exchange, Ltd., formerly known as The Leisure Exchange, Plc.[1] and The Mean Machines, Ltd.[1], was a British arcade game and gambling machine distributor which operated arcades and gambling venues in the United Kingdom.

History

Not much is known about Leisure Exchange's history before the Sega Park purchase, although it is likely that they started operating their first venue in Houndsditch, London sometime in the 1990s, while opening another venue in Harrow, London, around a similar time.

On 31 March 2000, Sega Amusements Europe sold all the remaining venues they owned to the company, as well as creating a five-year licence to use Sega branding for their venues.

With this, Leisure Exchange were able to open new locations under the Sega Park name, and additionally over 18's venues dedicated to gambling machines, known as Sega Casino. After the five-year licence ran out, most of the venues were either closed or rebranded, with the exceptions of Sega Park & Casino Colindale and Sega Park Southampton, which stayed operational with their Sega branding fully intact.

Leisure Exchange has since been defunct, and it is unknown when they officially ceased operations. The final locations they operated were Bournemouth and Southampton, the former being sold off after numerous name changes, and the latter closing as a result of the Bargate Centre's own collapse in 2013. Companies House lists them being as being dissolved on 20 April 2017[2].

The only former Leisure Exchange venue that remains open as an arcade is the Bournemouth venue, which currently trades independently as Bowl Central.

Venues

Acquired from Sega

Sega Park Shopping Centres

In Store

Sega Park Seaside

The Leisure Exchange City & Town

Venues opened by Leisure Exchange

Website

Leisure Exchange had a Sega Park website with a message board, where users could post about the arcades.

Leisure Exchange however rarely ever updated the site, making it extremely outdated by the times new Sega Parks would open and the message board would later be the target of vulgar material being posted. An employee of Leisure Exchange would later post on the message board in March 2004 saying:

"Leisure Exchange PLC is seeking legal action against those responsible for posting offensive material on this website. It is unfortunate that we’ve been forced to take this action but due to the extreme nature of some postings we have no other option. We have a duty to our customers and shareholders to uphold the company image and WE WILL NOT allow a small minority to tarnish it! By ‘offensive material’ we mean abusive language, threating behavior and unjustified attacks against members of staff or the company. In the time coming, we will be approaching the ISP of any poster who has carried out such an activity WITH THE VIEW TO PROSECUTE! You have been warned!"

Leisure Exchange updated the site in October of 2004 to remove the material from the message board. The website went offline in mid-2006.

References