Inside Asian Gaming

21 Multi-player ElectronicTableGames (METG)—includes four-, five- and ten-player versions that are all SAS 6.02 compatible. The latter two configurations are also already approved to GLI-11 standards. At G2E Asia 2009, the company showed off a multi-purpose METG capable of offering fully automatic or attendant supervised table gaming. Niche “The product we’ve designed is basically a gap product,” states Mr Kinsman. “It will sit between a slot and a live table, because it can be assisted by a staff member—not a dealer necessarily. You don’t need to have an expensive dealer. You can have a slot machine attendant. Technically it’s classified as a slot product. “We know from discussions with other regulators in other parts of Asia [outside Macau], that they have no problem with classifying our table, which has an attendant who serves drinks, etc., but doesn’t directly control the game, as a slot product. “Regulators want to see a control procedure document that clearly sets out what the person [attendant] does. Even without that, there will be a place on the floor for good income from these types of products. If a casino ignores these products, they do so at their own peril. It’s not a question of going the other way and forgetting the high rollers. Approval “We’re in negotiations with a number of regulators for approval as a dual product—where the table operates in two modes—in an automatic mode during the quiet periods of the day, and in the heavy periods of the day when you want to push the play, it operates with an attendant. The attendant’s job is only to control the speed of the game,” says Mr Kinsman. “A baccarat table, if operated automatically, is aroundUS$175,000 cheaper a year to run than a live table,” he adds. “In the first year an electronic table might typically be only 38% cheaper to run than a live table because of the initial capital outlay. In the second year, though, it’s about 90% cheaper. “In the case of our table you might typically spread the capital cost over five years as the life of the product is significant,” states Mr Kinsman. “If you do it over five years, in the first year it’s going to be US$150,000—net—cheaper to run than a live table. It’s a multi-game system and we’re continually developing new products. It’s a SAS 6 table capable of talking to all monitoring systems and it connects to all networks, etc.” All About the Game Hi-tech doesn’t mean low entertainment Despite being a passionate advocate of technology, David Kinsman of Weike is realistic enough to understand that for most players technology is merely a means to an end rather than an end in itself. “Players play the game, not the machine. We in this industry would do well to remember that,” he states bluntly. For Mr Kinsman, technology applied to table games doesn’t mean technical wizardry at the expense of entertainment value. It’s instead about offering a complementary product that can not only capture new, technology-savvy, customers but also excite existing