For casino industry server-based gaming still in the cards

High-tech slot machines must obtain a big-shot in the arm together with the beginning of Las Vegas' CityCenter later this year. However, a whole lot of rewiring remains to be done.nby Daniel Terdiman February 3, 2009 12:01 PM PST nFollow @GreeterDan nIn the summertime of 2005, the casino business was abuzz with excitement over what was then seen as another good thing--server-based gaming, an important technological change in how slots work. nEssentially, this invention was going to be able for the machines to provide a wide selection of games, all plumped for on the spot by players, and offered up from back-office sources. This is a sea-change from the old-fashioned style, in which a product had an individual game built into it. Because of this, I wrote then, the technology was 'slated to become the largest news at (the September 2005) World wide Gaming Expo (G2E) in Las Vegas, the casino industry's large annual trade show.' nFlash forward, however, for the November 2008 version of G2E, where a engineering panel entitled 'Server-based gaming: Beginning to begin' stated a stirring discussion around the matter, and one that belied the intense optimism of four years before. 'While it may be uncertain when and how server-based gaming will be introduced widely throughout the market and towards the consumer,' the panel's description mentioned, 'the question of if it'll is no longer.' nnLong seen as another best part inside the casino industry, server-based gambling may eventually get ready for primetime. These machines, from WMS Gaming, are empowered with the technology, that allows individual machines on a casino floor to download new games on the fly, in addition to give the casino a way to present players promotions.n( Credit: WMS Gaming) nSo yes, the sector was jumping the gun with its 2005 excitement. And naturally, considering that track record, any new excitement has to be seen via a notably skeptical contact. nBut today, business executives say, the time is ultimately correct for sever-based gaming, and the first signs of the technology--albeit a brand new kind of it that's been re-worked considerably from what it was originally--may actually be coming. The following best part may finally be here. nThat suggests a bunch of new slot machine-based innovations could possibly be on the way. Included in this, explained Rob Bone, the vice-president of advertising for WMS Gaming, one of the casino industry's big-four suppliers, is a community-gaming system that will allow multiple visitors to play games across some models. And still another, known as 'adaptive gaming,' will make it easy for the machines to keep track of a player's improvement and allow them rejoin their game, even at a different site. nFor each one of the four suppliers, then, the improvements that may come within a larger server-based gaming motion are wide-ranging and diverse. At its core today, however, the technology is all about systems by which the machines can speak to databases on back-room servers, rendering it possible to obtain new data and information to a device at any moment, as well as to alter the denomination of games on the fly to respond to casino job numbers. nThe world's first all-server-based gaming floornAnd if a new technology needed to be freely rolled-out with a splash, the casino industry could hardly have opted for a much better method to formally introduce server-based gaming for the world: CityCenter, a huge, $8 billion, joint MGM Mirage/Dubai World growth project now under construction around the Las Vegas Strip that involves thousands of hotel rooms, luxury condominiums and football fields' worth of casino space. And the world's first all-server-based gambling floor. nThis introduction, that may include 2,000 products, is planned for late 2009, and could, in the end these years, eventually pave the way for server-based gaming to get to be the new industry standard. nBut the delay was caused by what? nAccording to business executives, soon after the 2005 G2E, there clearly was a major philosophical change, where the major vendors--International Game Technology (IGT), WMS, Bally Technologies, and Aristocrat--came for the conclusion, along with regulators, that in place of each attempting to create their own private designs of the technology, they would put their heads together and devise some new technology standards. n'In 2005, there were no standards, and no protocols by which we're able to develop support software,' said Javier Saenz, the vice-president of product management for network programs at IGT. 'We needed to develop standards, interfaces that labored, and some official engineering.' nAround that time, then, a fresh standards human body emerged, the Gaming Standards Association (GSA), and what resulted were methods that could make it possible the casino employees to instantly tube in communications to players--promotional messages, notices of free buffets and the like--in pop-up windows around the monitors, irrespective of which manufacturer's machines they were playing. Previously, it would not have been possible. nFor businesses like IGT and WMS, this change in philosophy was nothing short of an important retrenching, but one they thought they no option but to look at. n'Pretty much, IGT had to.abandon all previous progress that leveraged old, private protocols,' Saenz said. 'It was a massive task.' nInstead, he explained, the four companies have adopted what they call open networks, a new term for server-based gambling built around methods designed to provide casino workers the type of new server-based technology they want, while also meeting the safety and communications objectives of the GSA. nGetting the standards set up was the initial step, of course, and based on Mark Lipparelli, a member of the Nevada Gaming Get a grip on Board--which adjusts casinos in that state--they were applied in November of 2005, just months after that year's G2E. nThe bigger problem, then, was how long it would just take for the outcomes of the standardization to manifest in industrywide roll-outs of server-based gaming. n'The widespread adoption and implementation of the protected network technologies,' Lipparelli said, 'could be more of a market function.' nOne unanticipated--at the time, at least--result of the philosophical move is that the industry's major manufacturers attended around, for the very first time, to the recognition that their technology has to be interoperable, in at least some basic ways. nBanking on consumer loyaltynThese days, a huge portion of successful casino operations is most beneficial figuring out how not only to get a player to bring his or her money onto your ground, but also how to get that individual to join your loyalty program and come back to one of your houses again and again. If you have any queries with regards to the place and how to use svensk online casino, you can get in touch with us at our webpage. nFor businesses like MGM/Mirage, for example, that type of customer acquisition and preservation is key, especially in a city like Las Vegas, where the giant currently owns ten main properties--including Bellagio, the MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, The Luxor and others--and will soon start City Center. Which makes it possible for its clients to play games and feel welcome and valued at all its casinos is simply in regards to the most important thing MGM/Mirage or any of its competitors can perform. nAnd that is why, while an IGT device however won't run activities from Bally--at least not any moment soon--the four manufacturers seem to came around to the idea that their technology needed to give the casino operators a great deal more control over the messaging people would see on those machines. nAdditionally, Saenz said, the gambling machines will require to have the ability to access the casinos' databases of customer names and information, regardless of who made the equipment, so as to offer information that is individual to each user. nnA schematic of the server-based gaming system from WMS Gaming.n( Credit: WMS Gaming) nBut at the same time as giant companies like MGM/Mirage buy in to server-based gaming, the use of such devices will probably be slow. nAs of to-day, Bone said, WMS has about 1,500 server-based products deployed around the world. He thinks that casinos will quickly roll out server-based gaming over a 'bank by bank' schedule, indicating one part of machines at a time, rather than by replacing whole surfaces at once. nThat means, Bone said, the technology is going gain footing through the entire casino industry within the next 2 to 3 years. nIGT's Saenz agreed with that analysis. nAt the moment, he explained, the business has five server-based gaming field trials, two in Nevada and one each in California, Missouri, and Michigan. nLots of computers, lots of rewiringnOf class, the approaching City-center opening will probably be the big developing party IGT's--and the industry's--server-based gambling technology is looking forward to. But while that release will mean that up-to 2,000 machines seriously line simultaneously, Saenz said that there are functional reasons why the technology will be slow to spread, nonetheless. nPart of the is due to structure. To be able to move out server-based activities, Saenz pointed out, casinos have to have Ethernet networks deployed on their floors. That's something that several casinos have achieved to date, he said, adding that those who do have a much quicker way to the new technology. n'Historically, there was an expectation that after server-based gaming appeared, (casinos) would magically rewire their total floors,' Saenz said, 'and suddenly there would be server-based gaming. But that is perhaps not realistic.' nThat is the reason why he expects to find out roll-outs 100 machines at the same time through the entire industry, however not much faster than that. n'In a few years,' Saenz said, 'the vast majority of casinos will possess some server-based games, and (a few) will be 100 percent' rolled-out.