Inside Asian Gaming

October 2009 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 31 may only pay eight bucks or something, but you’re pretty sure you’re going to win the hand, so you make the bet. And the house gets its 2 percent no matter what.” iTable also gathers information on exactly how much is being wagered and uses a card-reading shoe called the i-Shoe to track player decisions. And with that information operators can make accurate decisions about how much a player is worth to the casino and how much they should reinvest in the customer to keep him or her coming back. “Once you have the betting electronic, if you’re playing blackjack, I know you bet five bucks, 10 bucks, five bucks, five bucks, 20 bucks, a hundred bucks; I know how much action you generate,” says Roger Snow, Shuffle Master’s table games product manager. “On a live table game you have no idea. You couldn’t possibly keep track of it. But in this form we can. So I know exactly howmuchyoubet. Andalso I knowfromyour play strategy, if you’re doubling down on 16, I know you’re a bad player. If you’re standing on 9, you’re really bad. But if you’re playing according to the book, I’ll know that too. There are no sinister purposes here, I’ll just know your value. Now, most casinos simply assign a house advantage for all blackjack players. Say they play a 1 percent house advantage, maybe a percent and a half. But there’s someone playing half a percent, and there’s someone playing 4 percent.” Accurate information is a primary goal at Gaming Partners International, a leader in the development of RFID solutions. “The company always strongly believed that the technology would be a key point for the tables’ management systems,” says Emmanuel Gelinotte, GPI’s wheels and table equipment manager. “Indeed, the table games, while they’ve involved high- denomination chips and transactions, had no technology and system to track and secure the activity like they have for the slot machine floor.” The technology has led GPI to TablesSolution, released in 2006. It provides real-time online information for roulette and card tables based on the chips float evolution, the fills and credit and the drop. For the drop, GPI introduced late last year a softwaremodule for driving the new JCMbill validators in order to automatically obtain and control currency-related information. A second GPI table management system is designed for Texas Hold ’Em poker, automatically tracking the game and the pots and generating reports. And looking ahead the company is working with large casino companies to develop a progressive jackpot system for Texas Hold ’Em that was scheduled for release in the second quarter. Down the road is a possible mystery jackpot for roulette. The opportunities inherent in integrating all these technologies is drawing thought leaders like NICE Systems into the gaming space. Headquartered in Israel and with offices around the world, NICE provides industries such as financial services, telecommunications, health care, retail and security with solutions and services in advanced multimedia analytics embracing all data sources. NICE is working with Tangam Systems, based in Waterloo, Ontario, on Tangam’s optical card reading solution, which furnishes operators with a wealth of management data using analytical software to evaluate the calibre of player, value to the casino, to spot advantage players and cheaters and track dealer speed and efficiency. “When we talk about accurate information, when we talk about how the operations and the data that you’re going to be collecting are going to be very proactive, it’s going to be a system that can be managed by dealer, by table, by game,” says Douglas Florence, director of the gaming sector for NICE. “And running these statistics, now you know what’s happening to your game pace, your deck penetration. You can look at your accuracy of occupancy. We look at the seat supply. Do we have the right occupancy on certain high-limit games and low-limit games, and do we need to open some in the middle of my bet range? And then the win-loss data, giving you greater insight there. And the integration with RFID, simplifying the process for table games to really accurately measure the productivity in your casino. … The benefits? Bottom line without question. Greater table game profitability.” Barona dealt directly with Tangam in installing Tangam’s TableEye21 and TableEyeBacc to track blackjack and mini- baccarat. Patterson came away impressed. “One of the biggest advantages I’ve seen with Tangam, they actually did their laboratory work here,” he says. “They came to a live environment to really make their product work. What their product says it can do, it can do. It hasn’t been an overnight solution, but we worked through those things. They have been very responsive, and they’ve always completed what they said they were going to do. That is kind of rare. It’s not waiting till version 11.9 comes out. They’ve been responsive in fixing their product so that it works. If it says it’ll read the cards, it will. If it says it’ll track accuracy, it’ll track accuracy.” Patterson maintains, though, that the key tomaking all these innovations an every- day reality, and sooner rather than later, is cooperation among the providers. “Can it all be made cost-effective? With cooperation. Any time you mass-produce something you get an economy of scale. But the problem is, everybody wants to piecemealit,andtheyfeelliketheirindividual component is the most important. And so the cooperation is somewhat limited.” Still, it is undeniable that the technology is here. And the time has arrived, or it’s very near, when table tracking will be more science than art. By John Grochowski. Reprinted with permission from Casino Journal. John Grochowski’s syndicated casino column appears weekly in The Detroit News, the Gary Post-Tribune, Casino City Times and other periodicals and is available on the Web. He is the author of six books on casino games, including “The Video Poker Answer Book” and “The Slot Machine Answer Book”. Feature