Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | June 2008 30 Weike changing its heritage,” he comments. The initial push will be into Macau, heralded by the company’s presence at G2E Asia.” Although Mr Kinsman only officially came on board in April, he had been giving the company direction for several months prior, and Weike products on show at G2E Asia will have already been modified to give them greater international appeal. For example, the slot games had “previously been designed in a more regional market style. They were less volatile, a little different in the way the feature and the main game ratios were set up. So we’ve changed those things now more towards the international market style. “Every company in this business guards its game development, and it’s something we’re putting a lot of money and a lot of time into developing. Our brochures do talk about percentages and show people how our games split up in structure, because we believe clients need that information.” Ten games are currently available on Weike’s TritonandCytron cabinets,including themed titles such as Uniquely Singapore and Discovering Macau, as well as old favourites Sea Orchestra and King of Prosperity. Also on display will be the company’s impressive multi-player electronic table game (METG) range. Inside Asian Gaming tried out the ten- seat Pal X electronic poker table at Weike’s Singapore showroom, and found the game play was noticeably faster and smoother than on other competing products. Mr Kinsman explains this is a result of “bringing Revo Quad on the screen at their stations— also used by the competing products. “One thing that we’ve got here is expertise in poker to a greater degree than anybody else,’ says Mr Kinsman. “There’s an enormous market in Europe for this product.” The five-seat Revo is the market leading electronic gaming table in Asia, says Mr Kinsman. “We believe our table is more attractive than the other electronic tables. It looks like a gaming table and plays more like the real game. Everybody else is making a product that’s either theatre style, or an arcade machine.” On baccarat, for instance, the Revo incorporates card peeping technology allowing players to peel back cards in typical baccarat fashion, and follows the protocol of allowing the player at the table with the largest bet to reveal the cards. The Revo has been available for about three years, and Mr Kinsman adds “technology-wise it’s a great product. Very reliable. Very secure. We have hundreds of them in the field, and it’s been tested and tested and tested.” The Revo also features a sixth station which can either stand empty or at which a simulated dealer can be placed (one of the stations on the Pal X can also be used as a dealer station). Since the person standing at the sixth station will not physically deal or touch cards,“it doesn’t have to be someone inmy former chief poker technologist, who’s a professional poker player, to work with us to get the game absolutely fine tuned.” Whereas other products only allow players to load credits using cards, “we can deliver the table to customers with a bill acceptor at each station,” says Mr Kinsman, “and that product with bill acceptors sells for a little less than the US products.” The other advantage of the Pal X is that Weike is happy to sell it to operators outright, whereas the US suppliers prefer to enter into joint operation arrangements. Notably, Weike claims to hold the patent on the card peeping technology—which allows players to peep at cards by simply touching the edge of the cards displayed