For casino market server-based gambling still in the cards

High-tech slot machines must obtain a big shot in the arm together with the beginning of Vegas' City-center later this season. However, a whole lot of rewiring remains to be done.nby Daniel Terdiman February 3, 2009 12:01 PM PST nFollow @GreeterDan nIn the summer of 2005, the casino business was abuzz with excitement over what was then viewed as the next good thing--server-based gaming, a major technological change in how slots work. nEssentially, this innovation was going to be able for the machines presenting a wide selection of activities, all plumped for at that moment by players, and served up from back-office databases. This was a sea change in the conventional style, where a device had a single game constructed into it. As a result, I wrote then, the technology was 'slated to become the greatest information at (the September 2005) World wide Gaming Expo (G2E) in Las Vegas, the casino (casinopanda.se) industry's large annual trade show.' nFlash forward, nevertheless, to the November 2008 edition of G2E, the place where a engineering panel entitled 'Server-based gaming: Starting to begin' offered a rousing discussion about the subject, and one that belied the extreme optimism of four years before. 'While it may be unclear when and how server-based gaming will be introduced widely throughout the industry and towards the consumer,' the panel's description mentioned, 'the question of if it will is no longer.' nnLong regarded as another best part inside the casino business, server-based gambling might eventually be ready for primetime. These machines, from WMS Gaming, are empowered with the technology, allowing specific machines on a casino floor to get new activities on the fly, in addition to give the casino a way to present people promotions.n( Credit: WMS Gaming) nSo yes, the industry was jumping the gun with its 2005 excitement. And of course, considering that track record, any new excitement must be viewed through a notably suspicious contact. nBut now, business executives say, the time is ultimately correct for sever-based gaming, and the first symptoms of the technology--albeit a new form of it that has been reworked dramatically from what it was originally--may actually be coming. The following great thing may finally be here. nThat means a host of new slot machine-based innovations could be on their way. Among them, said Rob Bone, the vice president of advertising for WMS Gaming, one of the casino industry's big-four makers, is a community-gaming system that'll allow multiple people to play games across a series of products. And yet another, referred to as 'adaptive gaming,' will make it easy for the machines to keep track of a player's development and allow them rejoin their game, even at a different area. nFor all the four companies, then, the innovations that may come within a more substantial server-based gaming motion are varied and wide-ranging. At its core today, however, the technology is about systems by which the machines can talk to databases on back-room servers, rendering it possible to download new information and information to a device at any time, as well as to alter the denomination of games on the fly to reply to casino job numbers. nThe world's first all-server-based gaming floornAnd in case a new technology needed to be openly rolled-out with a splash, the casino industry could hardly have opted for a better method to formally present server-based gaming to the world: CityCenter, a mammoth, $8 billion, joint MGM Mirage/Dubai World growth project now under construction around the Las Vegas Strip that features thousands of rooms in hotels, luxury condominiums and football fields' worth of casino space. And the world's first all-server-based gambling floor. nThis introduction, that will include 2,000 models, is slated for late 2009, and can, after all these years, finally pave the way for server-based gaming to end up being the new industry standard. nBut what caused the delay? nAccording to business professionals, not long after the 2005 G2E, there is a major philosophical shift, in which the major vendors--International Game Technology (IGT), WMS, Bally Technologies, and Aristocrat--came for the conclusion, alongside specialists, that in place of each trying to develop their own proprietary designs of the technology, they'd put their heads together and devise some new technology standards. n'In 2005, there have been no expectations, and no protocols through which we're able to generate assistance software,' said Javier Saenz, the vice-president of product management for network programs at IGT. 'We had a need to produce practices, interfaces that labored, and some formalized engineering.' nAround that time, then, a fresh standards body appeared, the Gaming Standards Association (GSA), and what occurred were methods that could be able the casino employees to routinely tube in communications to players--promotional messages, notices of free buffets and the like--in pop-up windows about the monitors, no matter which manufacturer's devices they were playing. Formerly, it would not have been possible. nFor organizations like IGT and WMS, this change in philosophy was nothing short of an important retrenching, but one they thought they no option but to adopt. n'Pretty significantly, IGT had to.abandon all past development that leveraged old, proprietary protocols,' Saenz said. 'It was an enormous task.' nInstead, he said, the four companies have used what they call open networks, a new term for server-based gaming constructed around systems made to provide casino employees the type of new server-based technology they want, while also meeting the security and communications targets of the GSA. nGetting the requirements in place was the first step, naturally, and according to Mark Lipparelli, a part of the Nevada Gaming Get a grip on Board--which regulates casinos in that state--they were applied in November of 2005, only months after that year's G2E. nThe larger problem, then, was just how long it'd just take for the outcomes of this standardization to manifest in industrywide roll-outs of server-based gaming. n'The common adoption and implementation of the protected circle technologies,' Lipparelli said, 'will be more of market function.' nOne unanticipated--at the time, at least--result of the philosophical shift is that the industry's major companies have come around, for the first time, towards the conclusion that their technology has to be interoperable, in at least some simple ways. nBanking on customer loyaltynThese days, a large portion of successful casino operations is most beneficial figuring out how not only to get a new player to bring her or his money onto your ground, but also how to get that individual to join your loyalty program and go back to among your qualities again and again. nFor businesses like MGM/Mirage, for instance, that sort of customer acquisition and retention is crucial, particularly in a city like Las Vegas, where the giant already owns ten main properties--including Bellagio, the MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, The Luxor and others--and will soon start City Center. Making it feasible for its clients to play games and feel welcome and valued at every one of its casinos is just about the most important point MGM/Mirage or some of its competitors can do. nAnd that is why, while an IGT equipment still will not run games from Bally--at least not anytime soon--the four manufacturers seem to have come around to the thought that their technology needed to give the casino operators far more get a grip on over the messaging players would see on those machines. nAdditionally, Saenz said, the gambling machines will need to find a way to access the casinos' databases of client names and information, irrespective of who made the machine, so as to offer information that's personal to each user. nnA schematic of the server-based system from WMS Gaming.n( Credit: WMS Gaming) nBut whilst big companies like MGM/Mirage buy into server-based gaming, the adoption of such models is going to be slow. nAs of today, Bone said, WMS has about 1,500 server-based products used around the globe. He imagines that casinos will start to roll-out server-based gaming on the 'bank by bank' basis, indicating one element of devices at a time, in the place of by changing entire floors at once. nThat means, Bone said, that the technology is going gain grip through the entire casino industry within the next two to three years. nIGT's Saenz agreed with that analysis. nAt the minute, he said, the company has five server-based gaming subject trials, two in Nevada and one each in California, Missouri, and Michigan. nLots of machines, a great deal of rewiringnOf class, the future City Center beginning will likely be the big coming out party IGT's--and the industry's--server-based gambling technology is looking forward to. But while that launch will mean that around 2,000 models come on line at the same time, Saenz said that there are functional reasons why the technology will be slow to spread, even now. nPart of this could be because of infrastructure. In order to roll out server-based activities, Saenz pointed out, casinos need to have Ethernet networks deployed on the floors. That is something that few casinos have achieved to date, he said, adding that people who do have a much quicker path to the new technology. n'Historically, there was an expectation that after server-based gaming arrived, (casinos) would amazingly rewire their complete floors,' Saenz said, 'and instantly there would be server-based gaming. But that is maybe not practical.' nThat is excatly why he needs to see roll-outs a hundred machines at any given time through the business, but not much faster than that. n'In a few years,' Saenz said, 'the majority of casinos will possess some server-based games, and (a few) will be 100 %' rolled-out.