Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | September 2010 6 Shuffle Master I t’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 ShuffleMaster 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 Rapid Results Spurred by success in Singapore, Shuffle Master is going full tilt after electronic game sales in the rest of Asia Pacific Simon Ashley—masterminding Shuffle Master’s regional sales team