Inside Asian Gaming

June 2014 inside asian gaming 39 Tech Talk development has taken a few years, from the perspective of hardware development of such a customized product, the process has gone very smoothly. The iV8 is currently in back-office trials, “and we expect to get on the floor very, very soon,” says Mr Mishra. Although it was originally conceived to serve the extremely high-volume Macau market, he says the company has received interest in it from “markets across the Asia Pacific region, and even as far south as Australia.” The initial target markets for the iV8 “are what I classify as our tier 1 markets: Macau, Singapore and Australia,” explains Mr Mishra. “We expect to go into 1A markets like the Philippines shortly thereafter.” The other highlight product at JCM’s G2E Asia stand was the iVIZION bill validator for slot machines, a fixture in casinos worldwide and the flagship for JCM’s fleet of “intelligent validation” technologies. According to Mr Mishra: “It was released about three and a half years ago, but it’s still the preferred choice of operators because when it was developed and envisaged and when it was deployed, it was literally a spaceship when everything else was a bicycle. “Certainly the competition has come up significantly, but the lead iVIZION had has still not been closed. For example, I haven’t seen any of the major competitors with CIS [Contact Image Sensor] technology, which is really the backbone of validation.” According to JCM, the CIS technology that forms the heart of the iVIZION delivers better than a 99% acceptance rate on valid banknotes and near-total counterfeit protection. The iVIZION is also equipped with two high-speed processors, a sealed note path and a According to JCM, the Contact Image Sensor technology that forms the heart of the iVIZION delivers better than a 99% acceptance rate on valid banknotes and near-total counterfeit protection. One of the iVIZION’s notable accessories is the Sentry 2, the industry’s first display bezel that enables operators to send messages to their customers. patented, removable stacker mechanism that ensure the notes always flow smoothly, quickly and efficiently, while the RFID ICB cashbox has the data-capturing and transmission well in hand. JCM also makes ongoing enhancements to the iVIZION to stay ahead of the competition “We’ve released multiple cash boxes with it, because in some markets the standard cash box of 600 or 1,000 just wasn’t adequate, so we’ve released a high-capacity cash box,” reveals Mr Mishra. “We’ve also released a version that has no cash box in it should the client want a free-fall option. And we’ve added accessories like the Sentry 2 [the industry’s first display bezel that enables operators to send messages to their customers via the iVIZION].” With the iV8 and iVIZION, JCM now has strong offerings for both the table and slots sides of the casino business. “Asia is a table game- centric market. There’s no doubt about it,” says Mr Mishra. “But the slot market is also a vibrant one here. And with the expansion on the Cotai Strip and the casinos in the Philippines opening up, for a company that provides equipment for the entire casino floor, I’d say this is the best time to be here. “Asia in my opinion is very different than markets in the rest of the world,” observes Mr Mishra. “It’s a high-utilization market per square foot of gaming space. When you go to America and other markets like that, they don’t have high-utilization, they have a higher count of machines with a lower utilization factor. “When you go to Asia, especially look around the casinos in Macau, it’s hard to find a place to even stand at a table. And sometimes the machines are all full. So it’s a high-utilization market, and you can’t use products that you’ve created for high-volume markets in high-utilization markets. That’s why in Asia we need a different set of products, and a different team at JCM is in charge of this. “We created JCM Asia a few years ago specifically to address the needs of the region. In the past, we may have underserved the needs of Asia. Today we have offices in Thailand, Taiwan, in mainland China, in Sydney, Australia. And we do everything from gaming, which is still our No. 1 industry, to banking and other industries, and we have service networks all the way from India, Malaysia, Indonesia, to service our customers no matter where the products end up. “So we’ve built an organization that’s very well-positioned to serve the Asia market, and now we’re just deploying the products that our sales and services organization can put in the field.” The PayCheck 4 thermal printer, billed by JCM as the fastest, smartest, longest-lasting printer in its class.