Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | June 2010 42 T he first battle for casino equipment makers in Macau was to populate the vast gaming floors of the new resorts with as much of their own slot and multiplayer product as possible. The Macau electronic games market is now maturing, contributing 5.5% of the gross last year. The increased economic value of electronic gaming in the Macau market is in turn making the operators look more closely at building the operational efficiency of that segment and its integration into the management of the entire floor. That may involve operators making fresh capital investment to ensure they optimise their customer relationship management processes—such as the way they gather and use information gleaned from loyalty cards. It also involves maximising the efficiency of hardware management to ensure each machine taking up valuable space on the casino floor spends as little time ‘down’ (and therefore not earning) as possible. As a result, the secondary battle for the casino equipment makers in Macau and other Asian markets is in the supply, sale and rolling retention on the floor of casino management systems. Systems require a lot of research and development effort by the suppliers, but when they’re a success they have the benefit of providing typically a better margin for the suppliers than slot machine sales, and if retained over several years by an operator, provide the prospect of recurring revenue from management contracts and system upgrades. Casino management systems are not confined to themanagement of electronic games. They are also used increasingly to create what is sometimes described as the ‘slotification’ of the floor, whereby tables are also centrally managed and subjected to data analysis for factors such as player ratings and betting patterns. SJM’s Casino Lisboa, one of Macau’s Bally iView Display Manager vs. the Rest Bally is a winner in the Macau systems market Ramesh Srinivasan, Bally Technologies