Operator News
France – France mourns the passing of a casino visionary
By Phil - 18 June 2020
Georges Tranchant, President of Tranchant Group, died on Friday, June 5, at the age of 90.
Born June 23, 1929 in Château-Porcien, in the Ardennes, Georges Tranchant founded Groupe Tranchant in 1988 and opened his first two casinos in Amnéville and Dunkirk . Shortly after this, Mr. Tranchant became the first importer of slot machines in France, an activity which he continued to develop thanks to his company Cutting edge Gaming Technology , also opening up in the marketing of gaming machines for casinos.
Tranchant now owns 16 casinos in France, one in Switzerland, and one in Dominican Republic. The group also opened the first Parisian gaming club
Sylvie Leroy, owner of the leading French casino media company Le Journal des Casinos, said: “Passionate, brilliant and tireless, George Tranchant was always on the alert on so many subjects that interested him, from culture to economics, from gastronomy to aviation to name a tiny part of what made him inexhaustible. Georges Tranchant was one of those rare people, whole and in perpetual reflection, who knew all his life to stay on course towards his objectives with determination and conviction. Le Journal des Casinos salutes a visionary, a unique personality, with whom it was always fascinating to exchange, or rather to listen, and sends his family his deepest condolences.”
Jean-François Cot, President of the Casinos de France union, said: “Casinos de France is very sorry to announce the death of Georges Tranchant, General Secretary of the union for many years, and for me a mentor, a friend, an almost paternal reference. Everyone knows Georges Tranchant, this tireless creator of businesses, everyone may no longer know how he started when he was barely 15 years old, a volunteer fighter, resistant, and very active in the Ardennes in connection with the Americans. He made himself alone in these circumstances, he then learned everything after the war, alone, from his odd jobs, his failures, and his encounters. In the United States, still a kid, he met Albert Einstein, became interested in electronics and, returning to France at 20, created his first company, the Société Générale d’Electronique Tranchant.
“This taste for technology would not leave him and his knowledge, acquired on the job, led him to a perfect mastery of everything that contributed to the creation and then the development of a business.The self-taught Georges Tranchant was passionate about accounting, taxation and law, becoming in each of these areas a formidable specialist, for his close advisers of course, his competitors too and even more for the administration.
“He would relentlessly develop his activities, sometimes experiencing failures, but always restarting with the energy and acuity of his exceptional mind. The creation of the Tranchant group, operating both in the design and import of slot machines and then in the operation of casinos, marked the beginning of the period when the casino sector was recognized as being responsible and respectable industry. He became a city councilor in Colombes, then Deputy of Hauts de Seine and President of the prestigious Finance Committee of the National Assembly. He became passionate about aviation and passed his pilot’s license, his sons still remember the first takeoffs from Le Bourget, he cultivated his passion for art and, having heard him talk about painting with a friend, I can testify to his exceptional erudition.”
