For casino industry server-based gambling still in the cards

High-tech slots should get a big-shot in the arm together with the beginning of Las Vegas' CityCenter later this year. Still, a 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 industry was abuzz with excitement over what was then viewed as the next great thing--server-based gaming, an important technological change in how slots work. nEssentially, this invention was going to make it possible for the machines presenting a broad selection of activities, all served up from back-office databases, and chosen at that moment by players. This was a sea change in the standard model, where a product had just one game included in it. As a result, I wrote then, the technology was 'slated to be the largest information at (the September 2005) Global Gaming Expo (G2E) in Las Vegas, the casino industry's large annual trade show.' nFlash forward, however, to the November 2008 edition of G2E, the place where a technology panel entitled 'Server-based gaming: Starting to start' stated a stirring talk about the topic, and the one that belied the extreme optimism of four years before. 'While it might still be unclear when and how server-based gaming will be introduced widely over the industry and to the consumer,' the panel's explanation stated, 'the question of if it'll is not any longer.' nnLong viewed as another great thing within the casino industry, server-based gambling may finally get ready for primetime. These machines, from WMS Gaming, are enabled with the technology, that allows specific machines on a casino floor to download new activities on the fly, as well as give the casino a way to offer people promotions.n( Credit: WMS Gaming) nSo yes, the sector was jumping the gun with its 2005 excitement. And obviously, given that background, any new excitement has to be viewed via a notably skeptical contact. nBut today, industry executives say, the time is finally appropriate for sever-based gaming, and the first symptoms of the technology--albeit a fresh kind of it that has been modified substantially from what it was originally--may actually be coming. The next best part may at long last be here. nThat means a bunch of new slot machine-based innovations might be on their way. Among them, explained Rob Bone, the vice-president of marketing for WMS Gaming, one of the casino industry's big-four manufacturers, is a community-gaming system that will allow multiple people to play games across some devices. And another, called 'adaptive gaming,' is likely to make it possible for the machines to record a player's development and let them rejoin their game, even in a different location. nFor each one of the four producers, then, as part of a larger server-based gambling action the inventions that may come 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 get new data and information to a device at any time, as well as to alter the denomination of games on the fly to reply to casino occupation numbers. Should you loved this short article and you wish to receive more info relating to online casino Sverige i implore you to visit our own site. nThe world's first all-server-based gaming floornAnd if your new technology needed to be openly rolled-out with a splash, the casino industry could not have opted for a much better approach to formally present server-based gaming to the world: City-center, a broad, $8 billion, shared MGM Mirage/Dubai World growth project now under construction on the Las Vegas Strip that encompasses thousands of hotel rooms, luxury condominiums and soccer fields' worth of casino space. And the world's first all-server-based gaming floor. nThis launch, which will include 2,000 products, is slated for late 2009, and could, in the end these years, finally pave the way for server-based gaming to end up being the new industry-standard. nBut the delay was caused by what? nAccording to business executives, soon following the 2005 G2E, there is a major philosophical change, when the major vendors--International Game Technology (IGT), WMS, Bally Technologies, and Aristocrat--came for the conclusion, alongside specialists, that in place of each attempting to develop their own proprietary versions of the technology, they'd place 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 build assistance software,' said Javier Saenz, the vice president of product management for network programs at IGT. 'We needed to create protocols, interfaces that worked, and some official engineering.' nAround that time, then, a fresh standards human body emerged, the Gaming Standards Association (GSA), and what occurred were methods that would make it possible the casino employees to quickly pipe in communications to players--promotional communications, notices of free buffets and the like--in pop-up windows about the screens, irrespective of which manufacturer's devices they were playing. Formerly, it'd 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 progress that leveraged old, amazing protocols,' Saenz said. 'It was an enormous task.' nInstead, he said, the four manufacturers have used what they call open networks, a new expression for server-based gambling constructed around systems made to provide casino employees the type of new server-based technology they want, while also meeting the safety and communications goals of the GSA. nGetting the requirements set up was step one, obviously, and based on Mark Lipparelli, an associate of the Nevada Gaming Get a handle on Board--which regulates casinos in that state--they were applied in November of 2005, just weeks after that year's G2E. nThe greater issue, then, was how long it'd simply take for the outcomes of that standardization to manifest in industry-wide roll-outs of server-based gaming. n'The widespread adoption and implementation of the protected network technologies,' Lipparelli said, 'may well be more of an industry function.' Nothing unanticipated--at the time, at least--result of the philosophical move is that the industry's major producers attended around, for the first time, to the understanding that their technology must be interoperable, in at least some fundamental ways. nBanking on client loyaltynThese days, a large part of successful casino operations is best finding out how not just to get a player to bring his / her income onto your ground, but also how to get that person to join your loyalty program and go back to one of your properties again and again. nFor businesses like MGM/Mirage, as an example, that kind of customer acquisition and preservation is crucial, especially in a town like Las Vegas, where in fact the giant already owns ten major properties--including Bellagio, the MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, The Luxor and others--and will soon open City Center. Which makes it possible for its clients to play games and feel welcome and valued at every one of its casinos is simply in regards to the most significant thing MGM/Mirage or any of its competitors can-do. nAnd that is why, while an IGT equipment still will not run activities from Bally--at least not anytime soon--the four manufacturers appear to have come around to the notion that their technology had to give the casino operators far more get a handle on over the messaging people would see on those machines. nAdditionally, Saenz said, the gambling machines will require to find a way to access the casinos' databases of customer names and information, regardless of who made the equipment, so as to offer information that's personal to each user. nnA schematic of a server-based gaming system from WMS Gaming.n( Credit: WMS Gaming) nBut even while big organizations like MGM/Mirage get into server-based gaming, the adoption of such devices will be slow. nAs of today, Bone said, WMS has about 1,500 server-based models deployed around the globe. He thinks that casinos will begin to roll-out server-based gambling on a 'bank by bank' base, indicating one area of products at a period, rather than by replacing entire floors at once. nThat means, Bone said, that the technology goes gain footing through the entire casino industry within the next 2 to 3 years. nIGT's Saenz agreed with that analysis. nAt as soon as, he explained, the company has two in Nevada, five server-based gaming discipline trials and one each in California, Missouri, and Michigan. nLots of hosts, a great deal of rewiringnOf course, the approaching City Center beginning will probably be the big coming out party IGT's--and the industry's--server-based gambling technology has been looking forward to. But while that introduction will mean that around 2,000 models come on line simultaneously, Saenz said that there are sensible reasons why the technology will be slow to spread, nevertheless. nPart of this is because of structure. To be able to throw out server-based activities, Saenz pointed out, casinos need to have Ethernet networks deployed on the floors. That is something that several casinos have achieved to date, he said, adding that people who do have a much faster road to the new technology. n'Historically, there was an expectation that whenever server-based gaming appeared, (casinos) would magically sculpt their total floors,' Saenz said, 'and instantly there would be server-based gaming. But that is perhaps not useful.' nThat is the reason why he wants to determine roll-outs one hundred machines at a time throughout the business, however not much faster than that. n'In a few years,' Saenz said, 'many casinos will have some server-based games, and (a few) will be 100 %' rolled-out.