Inside Asian Gaming

March 2008 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 31 RFID RFID Solutions offering from Progressive Gaming includes table game and cage management systems, built upon the latest software technologies. Progressive Gaming also has a joint venture with IGT on table management. Mr McMeekin explains that Progressive Gaming also has cutting edge products such as Rapid Bet Live that allows its customers to run a proposition betting system on poker and non- casino sports. “We’re the only people who have within the same system, the possibility to bet on the outcome of a game plus proposition betting, either on traditional wired terminals or wireless devices. Betting on ‘Is he going to pass? ‘Is he going to kick the ball?’‘Is he going to score within two minutes, three minutes, four minutes?’ It’s all within one system, and this is something being considered for licensing by the regulator in Macau.” “We’re the second largest provider of sports wagering systems, but the fastest growing,”he adds. Chip Inventory System (CIS) The architecture of CIS consists of an RFID enabled gaming chip and chip stations placed around the casino in cash desks or on tables and connected to a central database server. CIS allows for the connectivity of many devices (chip stations) and applications throughout a casino from the cage, to the vault, to chip banks,tables and chip trays.This comprehensive approach enables any casino to monitor their chip inventory in real time through instant chip validation at any point, providing the movement history of each chip during the course of its life. TableLink ® Progressive Gaming’s TableLink product is a comprehensive and fully featured suite of software products that enables casinos to automate table accounting and player tracking activity at every table. Operator benefits claimed by Progressive Gaming: - Pit clerks spend more time on customer service, less time keying in data; - Customers applaud the ability to cater to them individually and assign them objective and fair ratings; - Costs decline and operators see returns many times over on their technology investments. TableLink modules can be implemented alone or as an integrated suite on all of a casino’s existing tables. TableLink Player Tracking™ (PT) This, the core TableLink module, enables the casino to track, in real time, each player’s time-on and average bets at the tables. With TableLink PT, profit-critical decisions, such as selecting bonus players, are no longer subject to human observation and guess work, says the Bryce Rubio, who continued by saying that TableLink PT also has the ability to integrate with an existing casino management system. TableLink Chip Tracking™ (CT) This interface sees the enablement of RFID functionality with TableLinkPTforanevenmoredetailedviewoftableplay.Usingchip sensors, TableLink (CT) tracks each chip as it’s wagered, revealing an up-to-the-moment handle for each player.With TableLink (CT), player ratings are assigned accurately, complimentary allowances are awarded objectively and the customer database becomes a source of information for future marketing efforts. Alerts/Paging The company says theTableLink suite can be easily configured to incorporate an alerting service.This allows casino personnel to send and receive notifications via e-mail,mobile phone,pager or PDA. Progressive Gaming Platforms individual player or a pattern of play, they can look at that table in real time, rather than having to wait for an hour for the next manual count to come round.” Another factor potentially slowing down table management is that in some jurisdictions, including Macau, the regulator has to sign off any fills or credits to a table. Dual trays Progressive Gaming has also developed RFID enabled dual level chip trays especially for Asia. “We are the only company to offer this. They will be coming to market in the next few months. With conventional trays you would need fills and credits much too often due to the volumes of business and chip activity. In the US or Europe you don’t find many dual level trays being used.” The Chip Inventory System is part of a modular system of casino management offered by Progressive Gaming. Operators have the option of purchasing other modules that cover functions such as Cash Desk management or Casinolink Analytics – an advanced business intelligence tool—as they grow their business.The Chip Inventory System has also been engineered to work with other management systems provided by other vendors. Interchangeable “We’ve made it possible to communicate with our CIS system through an S2S [system- to-system] interface,” says Mr Oosthoek. “The system has been engineered to comply with the Gaming Standards Association (GSA) standards for inter- operability”Mr Rubio adds. “When we developed the 13.56MHz PJM chip tray we realised we also needed an S2S interface that would allow non- Progressive Gaming table management systems to ‘talk’ to our system.” Dumb chips, smart system The tags within the gaming chips themselves are kept relatively simple, adds Mr Oosthoek. “They are what’s known as passive technology. They don’t have a battery or power source inside but are powered via the energy emitted from antenna instead. The tags are kept as simple as possible because you need a lot of them and you want them to last a long time,” he explains. “We try to keep the tag within the gaming chip as ‘simple’ as possible and have them provide the key basic information and put the intelligent life into the software and the system. It’s all about adding value to the gaming operation.”