Spurred by success in Singapore, Shuffle Master is going full tilt after electronic game sales in the rest of Asia Pacific
It’s been a remarkable 12 months for Las Vegas-based Shuffle Master. The company is best known at home in the United States for its market-leading proprietary table games and utility table products such as Caribbean Stud® Poker, the i-Deal™ shuffler and the one2six® shuffler, but it is increasingly well regarded in Asia not only for these products but also as an electronic gaming equipment supplier.
That new reputation was reinforced earlier this year when Shuffle Master scored a spectacular double success in Singapore. It won two huge orders totalling 503 units for its Rapid Table Games ® suite of electronic table game (ETG) products across the two integrated casino resorts in Singapore.
The big Singapore sales win for Shuffle Master followed a groundbreaking decision in March to step up the promotion of its electronic gaming equipment catalogue in the Asia Pacific region. That catalogue is based on slot and electronic table games platforms inherited from the Australian company Stargames that Shuffle Master bought in 2006.
“Shuffle Master is one of the few companies in Asia Pacific that is across the tables market and the electronic games space,” says Ken Jolly, the highly experienced executive hired recently to spearhead regional sales.
Knowledge
Shuffle Master’s insight into the live table and electronic segments could be very important in Macau, where a predominantly live baccarat table crowd may soon be actively encouraged by operators to sample the live dealer electronic variety provided by Rapid, or the fully-automated version provided by Vegas Star®. A government cap on the number of live tables between now and the end of 2013 is likely to make casino operators look to ETGs to populate their new resorts being constructed on Cotai.
The Rapid suite covers all the most popular table games in Asia: Rapid Roulette; Rapid Baccarat and Rapid Sic Bo. Rapid Craps is also available. Rapid Roulette combines live dealer interaction with fast-paced roulette play. Players make their wagers using the computer-generated roulette table layout located on their individual touch screens. After the roulette wheel is spun and the winning number is confirmed by the dealer, all wagers and cash balances are instantly resolved. The game’s electronic format eliminates chip fraud, minimises player disputes and provides accurate player data including turnover and spin rates.
The enthusiastic reception for Rapid in Singapore created a buzz of excitement among operator purchasing teams visiting G2E Asia this year.
“We’ve put 133 Rapid units in Resorts World Sentosa, and 370 Rapid units in Marina Bay Sands,” says Simon Ashley, President and CEO of Shuffle Master Australasia.
“It’s on public record that Shuffle Master secured about 75% of the initial orders made by the Singapore IRs for electronic table games.”
Rave reviews
Sheldon Adelson, Chairman and Chief Executive of Las Vegas Sands Corp, the developer and owner of MBS, singled out Shuffle Master’s Rapid Roulette machines for special praise as “cash cows” when he spoke to analysts during his company’s first quarter earnings call in May.
It’s not hard to understand why the Rapid products are winners with casino CEOs and players alike. Quick fire play means more excitement for players and faster earnings for the operators.
“We get eight to 10 turns an hour out of the live roulette games.
With the ETG, the electronic table games on the roulette, we get 80 games an hour. They’re just unbelievable cash cows,” Mr Adelson told analysts.
While the on-floor performance has been vital to the popularity of the Rapid suite of games, Shuffle Master had to do plenty of hard work behind the scenes to put itself in that winning position. The company applied for a Singapore licence as a gaming equipment supplier and for certification for its Rapid suite of products well in advance of the sales deals with the casinos. That’s because Singapore’s Casino Regulatory Authority has some of the most stringent probity checks on gaming suppliers and some of the most exacting technical standards for individual gaming products anywhere in the world.
A supplier can have a market-leading product but without CRA approval you can’t crack Singapore, as some rival manufacturers have found to their cost.
Welcome to the family
Spurred by the success of the Rapid range in Singapore, the Stargames-based electronic platforms and content are now being aggressively developed for the Asia Pacific market. Stargames’ focus on slots and electronic table games came about because it was set up to serve the predominantly pub- and club-based markets in Australia. The fully automated multi-terminal Vegas Star offers multiple game options, including: Blackjack; Dragon Bonus Baccarat; Roulette; Sic Bo; Ultimate Baccarat; and Progressive Jackpot Baccarat™. Vegas Star was developed as an automated product because live dealers are not permitted in the pubs and clubs Down Under.
The move to bind Stargames firmly into the Shuffle Master family meant organisational and cultural changes for the two units. The Stargames name has been retained as the slot product brand, but the business unit has been renamed Shuffle Master Australasia. The marketing, research and development functions formerly spread across two distinct units have now become part of a true family effort.
In addition to achieving great success, Shuffle Master has faced some tough challenges this year. The much-respected CEO Tim Parrott stepped down from his post in April due to illness, and company Chairman Phillip Peckman moved to the role of interim CEO. Sadly Mr Parrott died the following month. In mid-August Shuffle Master also experienced organisational changes in its Macau office, with Andrew Macaulay, Executive Vice President – Asia, leaving the company.
New sales team
Now Shuffle Master is focused on creating a new sales team in Asia for its already market proven catalogue of table and electronic products.
“The question is how big will the take up of the electronic product range be in Macau?” says Simon Ashley, the man overseeing the creation of that new team.
“With the cap on the number of live tables in Macau until the end of 2012, there’s clearly an opportunity in that market for sales of ETGs,” states Mr Ashley.
“I think in order to develop the consumer appeal, there will have to be some marketing development in that space by the Macau operators–whether it’s tournaments, whether it’s side bets or progressives. Such marketing could involve ETGs linked locally or over a wide area network. Those methods are very familiar in the slot space, but haven’t really been explored in the ETG market in Macau,” he adds.
“The big unanswered question in the Macau market I think is how electronic baccarat will develop, given the fact players here so love the live dealer game and like squeezing the cards. In addition to the increased speed of play, the answer may lie in baccarat progressives and possibly initially in local area links within a property.”
Slot strategy
In the slots segment, Shuffle Master has four key aims in Asia Pacific: re-establishing recognition of the Stargames brand in the regional market; getting traction in the individual markets that make up the region; creating strong and varied content for those national markets, and then leveraging all those elements off each other.
“We’re now in the process of feeding all our Australian slot content through to our Asian markets. As well as Macau, we’re also in the process of getting approvals in Singapore, and putting our new content in Malaysia. We’ll be doing the same in the Philippines,” says Simon Ashley.
“The first games started to come through to Asian markets in May and June, just before G2E Asia. We now have our first slot catalogue out for Asia Pacific, and we will be looking to put about 20 games per year through each of the Asian markets.
“Do I expect all of the games to work? Probably not. Some may get churned out, but there will probably be two or three in each release that perform very well,” predicts Mr Ashley.
“In the past we had slot product that worked well, but not enough content. Now we have that content, and operators are keen to talk to us,” says Ken Jolly.
“Nothing pleases me more than when operators come to me or Ken and say: ‘What other games have you got? What can we have next?’ That means we’re on the right track,” adds Mr Ashley.
