Inside Asian Gaming

Dec 2007 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 27 Vendor Profile products cater to a variety of needs that conventionally-minded operators seem not to have even considered. From the ob- servation that men and women generally prefer different games came “a love seat arrangement with two screens,” allowing couples to maintain intimate contact while en- joying separate games. Ms de Kerckhove also believes that electronic gam- ing is a “less intimidating” way to introduce players to casino games. For example,“Asians are not traditionally roulette players, and they may prefer to play on their own and make mistakes before playing at a big table and celebrating their wins with other people.” Operator benefits By allowing casino operators to remotely manage the content on their terminals, Inspired’s Open SBG™ platform re- duces labour costs, increases revenue by providing a more respon- sive selection of games to customers, and extends the economic life of machines by up to five years.The system also enables casinos to remotely monitor incomes, fault and play data in real-time. No- tably, Ms de Kerckhove states “we fix 50% of our faults around the world remotely. We have a call centre in Wales in the UK, and they manage every one of our estates,” including machines in the UK, Czech Republic, Ireland, the US, Germany and soon France, Vietnam and Cambodia. Asia holds much promise for Inspired. Earlier this year, the com- pany secured a US$1 million deal for the deployment of its Open SBG™ software platform in Asia and is also investing a further US$5.5 million in Open SBG™ terminals and other casino gaming terminals into the region. The investment is to supply and install its latest multi-content gaming terminal and slot machines on a revenue share basis with Silver Heritage Limited (SHL)—one of the leading operators of terminals to licensed gaming premises in the Asia-Pacific region—and local casino operators. Inspired first expanded into Asia earlier this year with the sale of 50 server-based gaming licenses and related multi-content ter- minals to SHL in April 2007. Additional orders have now brought the number of Inspired terminals sold to Asia on the Open SBG™ platform to over 500. Each multi-content terminal offers players the choice of a variety of casino games, including Electronic Roulette, Virtual Sports, Electronic Card Games and Slots. Following the latest order, Anne de Kerckhove commented:“This announcement is further testament to the appeal and demand for our Open SBG™ platform. Inspired is leading the way in the transfor- mation of the Asian casino market through the supply of our tech- nology and this is a significant step in our strategy for international expansion.” SHL Managing Director Tim Shepherd added: “We were very im- pressed with the performance of the multi-content terminals and Open SBG™ platform and this new agreement will allow us to run fully digital floors in a number of casinos, enabling us to monitor and fix ma- chines remotely, update content at our discretion and change stakes and prizes to produce the best revenues.” E-Bar