Ryan Comstock Q&A: The journey to Ainsworth CEO and the job at hand

After transitioning from Interim CEO in May, has there been any alteration to your day-to-day strategy with Ainsworth? 

With the permanent role, it’s easier to make long-term and short-term decisions. We’ve had a lot of disruption within our organization, so the last thing I wanted to do was implement my changes and then have someone else come along and change it again. It’s really helped stabilize the organization and give comfort to our customers in the market, that we have a stable plan and we’re moving forward.

What does the appointment say about your professional career in gaming, as well as the confidence Ainsworth is showing in you to lead its next phase of growth?

 It displays my deep understanding of our business. I’ve served in a lot of different capacities and know how we operate within all of our unique regions. I’ve come to know all of our different product lines and our go-to-market strategies. It brings all of those together to better support our customers.

What is your vision for Ainsworth’s future? Are you focusing on be sustainable profitability, market share gains or stakeholder value?

Sustainable profitability is certainly key for us while leveraging our global reach and workforce. We’re not a large company headcount-wise, compared to our bigger competitors, so leveraging our different regions on a global basis is important. We had become a bit too regionalized over the past few years, and you’ll see it in some of our product strategy going forward: we’re really looking to leverage each studio around the world and bring the best products to market.

Given the disruption you mentioned, how does Ainsworth’s shareholder dynamic influence your leadership strategy?

At the end of the day – I think I said it last time we met – all shareholders want the same thing. That’s dividends, value and return on their investment. The focus is really on how we can optimize the business to create the greatest profitability. And that’s what my day-to-day focus is – steering the business in the right direction and structuring it for long-term growth. 

In Ainsworth’s H1 2026 report, the organization reported softer results across North America. What led to that performance and how can you ensure a successful turnaround for the future?

That’s a fair question. If you look back at last year for North America, the H1 results were stronger than H2 and the trajectory was not great. A lot of that’s driven by customer confidence. We didn’t do a great job releasing titles on time or on schedule last year. There were gaps.

We launched into the premium product category last year with Neon’s Bonus Blast in a four-release product, but I think that was premature for us. We’re walking that back and focusing more on core titles for sale and consistency of releases, in both game performance and timely releases.

Are there ways your position as AGEM Chairman influences the CEO role with Ainsworth?

It’s a close-knit industry, everybody knows everybody. Prior to being CEO, I had strong relationships with many of our competitors and their executive teams. Being Chairman just further strengthens those relationships and identifies opportunities where we can work together in a meaningful way. Whether that’s industry advocacy, supporting customers or going to market together.

Having joined Ainsworth in 2012, which milestones do you reflect back on that helped lead to this point in your career?

It’s been an interesting journey. I can’t say I started 14 years ago and said, ‘hey, I want to be CEO one day.’ It’s just been showing up every day and doing the best I can for the company and our customers. Some big milestones along the way that I think of are historical horseracing and how the development and launch of that product was an exciting multi-year project. Building our office in Las Vegas was a night job of mine, if you will. Overseeing the construction, the development and just reflecting back on how we came to purchase the land. Our CEO at the time and I were going to lunch and we saw this plot of land… he asked to see if I could make it happen so we bought the land and built the building. 

On one of our walls downstairs we have a picture of the groundbreaking, which has really become a who’s who-type photo. Mike Dreitzer was our President of North America and is now Gaming Nevada Control Board Chair, Governor Brian Sandoval was there at the time and then Steve Sisolak became Governor afterwards. That was quite a special project, and then certainly seeing the development of our products over the years. The innovations and evolution of cabinets that we’ve launched, the technologies we’ve developed and acquisitions made. 

What advice would you pass along to fellow members of the gaming industry who may aspire to lead their own organization?

Work hard, do your best and be a team player. A lot of my leadership style is partnering with everybody in our organization and working alongside them. Treat everybody with respect and they’ll give you that respect back. We’re all in this together. Regardless of what part in the business you play, it’s an important one.

How will Ainsworth look to close out 2026, and what is the roadmap for the supplier broadening its presence across the US?

For closing out 2026, we’ll see. We haven’t provided any market guidance on that yet, but certainly from a product perspective we’ve made positive headway on the things that I came into this role viewing as challenges. We hadn’t been on Eilers in 15 months, and in May, we were at the number 12 spot with Just Chillin’.

In June, we were on with Dragon Legacy at the number one and number two spots, so that’s a big part of rebuilding customer confidence in our projections and showing we’re getting games out as we say we will. We have the discipline in place and we’re getting performing titles out as well. To get both of those spots was a big moment that we celebrated, and it’s an indicator of the changes we’ve made and the discipline that’s in place to make sure we’re meeting our commitments.

Internationally, how is Ainsworth looking to improve or maintain operations in Latin America, APAC and potential future expansion?

Within the APAC region, we’re continuing to have strong momentum. We launched our 65-inch portrait screen cabinet at the beginning of this year, which is doing very well. Last year was a bit of a turnaround for us in Australia, we had our best results in probably nine years across the region and we’re continuing that momentum. That’s largely driven by disciplined roadmap game releases within that region.

The LatAm and Europe regions continue to be stable for us. Within LatAM, you never know politically what country’s going to have challenges from one year to the next, but expansion into Europe has been a big part of our strategy as well. We haven’t had a strong presence in Europe the last 5-10 years, so partnering with key distributors and making more headway within the European region is a goal for this year.