The story begins in Perth in 1958, where Malcolm Steinberg founded the Indoor Amusement Games Company (later to be known as LAI Group) with a handful of pinball machines. He saw an opportunity to change people’s perception of arcades and later opened the first Timezone Family Entertainment Centre (FEC) in 1978, giving birth to this iconic entertainment brand.

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The company’s vision and proven business model allowed it to expand from Australia to New Zealand and then into untapped Asian markets, starting with Singapore, then Indonesia, the Philippines, India and, more recently, Vietnam.

 

In late 2017 the LAI Group in partnership with Quadrant Private Equity created The Entertainment and Education Group (TEEG) which acquired the Timezone business and Australian Bowling and Entertainment business from Ardent Leisure including the brands of Zone Bowling and Kingpin. Today TEEG is present in 7 countries with over 300 bowling and family entertainment centres.

 

Alongside the development of the Timezone FEC business, in the 1990's the LAI Group began development of its own arcade games under the LAI Games brand and also software solutions for the management of FEC's under the Embed brand. This later went on to become the Helix Leisure Group which remains majority-owned and controlled by the LAI Group. Today Helix Leisure is a leading global provider of content and solutions to the broader out-of-home entertainment market.

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