Inside Asian Gaming

25 14 lthough Bally only opened its repre- sentative office in Macau in February 2006,its products effectively entered the local market in May 2004 with the opening of the crowd- pulling Las Vegas Sands Corp (LVS) property Sands Macau, which ran Bally’s ACSC casino management system. LVS is one of Bally’s major customers in the US. Bally also oper- ates the MindPlay table management system – basically a baccarat security system – at Galaxy Entertainment Group’s Macau prop- erties. Bally is recognised as the world leader in the gaming systems business, with more than 345,000 machines and 652 casino, bin- go, Class II, central determination and lottery locations worldwide – including more than 171 locations currently running Bally eTICK- ET™ on more than 195,000 slot machines. The Bally Technologies systems product line offers slot machine cash monitoring, table management, cashless, accounting, security, maintenance, marketing, promotional and bonusing capabilities, enabling operators to accurately analyze performance and ac- countability while providing an enhanced level of customer service. Mission Critical Bally’s Asia Managing Director Cath Burns de- scribes the company’s casino management system as “almost a mission-critical banking- type system – a data warehousing product.” All the information resides in a central library, into which information flows back and forth in real time from each side of the casino op- eration. Ms Burns stresses that one of the main advantages of the Bally system is that it is scaleable. “If you had a customer that’s op- erating one casino and just wants to add another one, you just add another casino on top of it. Your infrastructure and your tech- nology decision is still sound.” As the Macau market becomes more competitive, there will also be more demand for customer loyalty programs, and the Bally system is already prepared for it. It allows ca- sinos to offer“all your bonusing,your rewards, your points, those types of things.” Bally “On Fire” Bally celebrates its 75th anniversary this year with an exciting range of new products and aggressive Asia focus, centred on Macau Reliability is also critical, with the huge cash flows at Macau casinos meaning “you’re running a bank for all intents and purposes, and you want to protect that asset.You want to account for everything.” Raising Machines in the Mix Bally’s Macau revenues are currently domi- nated by the systems business, but the company hopes to derive 40% of its rev- enues from gaming machines in the near future. Ms Burns sees massive growth poten- tial for slot machines in Macau. We’re seeing anything from 20,000 to 40,000 new gaming machines over the next three years. Certainly the properties be- ing built, and the projections for amount of rooms and floor space going forward support those numbers. And it’s one of those markets you don’t see anywhere outside of here – it’s a dual market. It’s a strong table market, and it’s going to be a strong slot market.”Vegas, by con- trast, is dominated by slots. Asked whether the high returns from tables in Macau may limit the growth of slots, Ms Burns stresses they are “two dif- ferent things.” “You’ll see distinct players on slot machines. This is a good question for an operator, because obviously they’re seeing the player more than even we are. You’ll see a player come to a slot machine that will probably only gamble on a slot machine. That isn’t a table player.Will they cross over? I don’t think we know the answer to that question yet. They may. I think you’ve just got to offer them plenty of product and see what they like. The early feedback is encouraging – that they do like slot machines.” The growth of slot revenue has been explosive, though it comes against a low base. Ms Burns says the growth is just about where themajor players ex- pected it to be.“I don’t think there was any doubt that players from mainland China or Southeast Asia were going to enjoy playing slot machines. They’ve got universal appeal. If it’s a good game, if it’s entertaining, if it’s got good mathematics, and they enjoy it and it feels good, the player is going to play it.” A