Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | July 2008 40 O nly 3% of those polled in the latest government survey of Macau visitors stated they were in the city to gamble. The majority of people (75%) preferred to describe their visit as a holiday. As a result of this reticence casino marketing teams face quite a challenge in developing meaningful relationships with their players. This is especially true in the mass market, where, unlike in the VIP segment, there are no junket operators to act as discreet and trusted go-betweens. Elixir Gaming Technologies, the provider of turnkey gaming systems to venues across the Asia Pacific region, believes it has come up with a winning solution. It’s a point of sale system that can gather market intelligence on high rollers and general visitors alike, while at the same time protecting their anonymity. The company unveiled its wonder gadget known as Rocket Docket at this year’s G2E Asia exhibition at The Venetian Macao. Elixir believes this technology will give it and its partners the competitive edge so often dreamed of by participants in the Macau slots market. Market intelligence Rocket Docket is similar to a point of sale machine, but with an important difference. Not only can it deliver familiar items such as ferry or theatre tickets printed with promotional offers such as slot machine credits, but that printed ticket can also act as a ticket-in-ticket-out voucher for slot machines at affiliated venues. When the TITO function is used, the Rocket Docket’s back of house program and its algorithms will also track users and provide a profile of their behaviour, without the need for the user to fill in forms or supply confidential information such as an e-mail address or mobile telephone number. “The machine will print say a ferry ticket with not only the time and the destination, but also a gaming promotion,” says Joan Nelson, a founding director of the NTF Group, the Australian marketing and analytics company that developed Rocket Docket. “With the demonstrationmachine we had set up at G2E Asia, the offer is HK$100 credit which can go straight into a slot machine— in this case at Mocha, but it could be any affiliated venue.” Second screen As well as a sales interface, the Rocket Docket terminal has a screen for promoting special offers run by participating gaming venues. For those players who have already signed up for casino loyalty schemes, the system can be configured to read their membership cards via a swipe port. The machines can also be set up for any language required. “If you’ve already opted in to a particular casino scheme then you can swipe your membership card and it will dynamically print you a ticket for your favourite casino,” explains Ms Nelson. Talks Ms Nelson says Elixir is currently in discussion with the Hong Kong authorities on the possibility of installing Rocket Docket machines in ferry terminals serving Macau. The Rocket Docket concept also extends to general shop sales, in the form of a bar code reader that can print receipt dockets with promotional offers for gaming products. “If we want to get information on the sort of person who is playing a particular slot machine for example, we can track them via promotional dockets. When the docket is then used as a TITO Vendor Profile Rocket Power Elixir’s groundbreaking marketing system goes on show Joan Nelson, a founding director of NTF Group, the company that developed Rocket Docket