After a long illness, Joseph Camilleri, who built up a thriving coin machine business from Malta, died on Wednesday at the age of 68.

Camilleri developed his Camilmac business in the 1960s and it became a major entity in the operating and distribution industry in Europe. He had one of the very few arcades in Malta in his early career and as legislation put pressure on the business in Malta, he moved to Nigeria in the 1970s and began that country’s first machine operations in Lagos.

A close associate of Len Ainsworth, then head of Aristocrat in Australia, Camilleri also built up long-standing business relations with Bally in Ireland, the UK and the US. In one of its most successful periods in the 1970s and 1980s, Camilleri was a premium buyer of spare parts for Bally machines and gained a reputation as one of the most composite operators in the industry.

His son, Ivan, told InterGame this week: “When the business in Nigeria became affected politically, my father set up operations in Cyprus and had interests in Turkey, but he kept his interests in Nigeria and Malta running with the production of pool tables, soccer tables and jukeboxes. He brought my brother, Aaron, and myself in to help out the expanding business.”

Joe Camilleri remained at the head of the holding company in Malta right to the end and for most of his life was the central figure in that business, only relaxing the reins of the company in latter years. He shaped the industry in his own country, introducing air hockeys, CD jukeboxes and other equipment to Malta. “He is best remembered as a man who was easy to deal with and who always found a way to make business work, often in an innovative way,” said Ivan.

Joe Camilleri leaves a wife Mary, Ivan, Aaron and daughters Angelique and Abigail and seven grandchildren. His funeral is tomorrow, Saturday, June 9, at 8.30am at Lija Parish Church, Malta, in the village where he was born. Many people from the games and gaming machine industry are expected to be there.