Inside Asian Gaming

July 2010 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 7 Cover Story are more inclined to put their faith in an automated shaker with its dice hermetically sealed in a transparent container, rather than in loose dice shaken by a flesh and blood dealer on an open casino table. From the players’ near-paranoid perspective, who knows what subterfuge could be going on behind the scenes? On the downside for the electronic games lobby, Paradise Entertainment’s attempt back in 2008 at creating a niche Macau property with a floor entirely populated by hybrid tables (i.e. electronic table games with live dealers) at the SJM-licensed legacy casino Kam Pek on the Macau peninsula, was not a roaring success. Electronic table evangelists point out, however, that this may have been more a function of the quality of Paradise’s equipment and its marketing strategy than of the soundness of the concept itself. In Singapore, by contrast, there seems much more acceptance by the players of electronic table games. TCS JOHNHUXLEY reports almost constant 100% occupancy of its Novo Unity™ II TouchBet® Roulette terminals since they were installed at RWS. Alfastreet says the same about its SI Line Modular standalone roulette terminals delivered to RWS. But then Singapore is not as baccarat obsessed as Macau. In fact, suppliers report to Inside Asian Gaming that the operators have actually been taking some baccarat tables off the mass floors at the Singapore integrated resorts and replacing them with either blackjack tables, slots or electronic table games—in particular roulettes. Clear case The value proposition in operational terms from manufacturers to casinos regarding electronic table games is very clear and hardly disputed, even in Macau. They virtually eliminate payout disputes, accounting mistakes and old fashioned fraud, and they maintain steady 24-hour operation with no sick leave and no bad moods. Yet none of that really matters if no one wants to play them. “Any time you try and migrate an established market to a different product, you’re going to have issues,” says a senior gaming executive spoken to by IAG . “You can’t take someone who is used to betting HK$500 a hand and squeezing the cards and having the people slam the table on a winning point, and then expect them to adopt electronic tables overnight,” adds the source. In Macau, numerous attempts by equipment suppliers to replicate in electronic game form the card peeking, card squeezing and general adrenalin-pumping action of live baccarat have been met not so much with rejection by players as with sheer indifference. Why bother tasting the casino gaming equivalent of a hamburger on an electronic table when you can dine on prime steak at the live table? That has led some suppliers and some operators to market electronic baccarat in Macau on the value proposition of smaller minimum bets because of the lower overheads involved. Unfortunately, rather than creating a loyal following among value- conscious players, the strategy seems to have placed electronic baccarat in a kind of ghetto as a poor man’s table game suitable mainly for the retired and for domestic workers. Marketing mish mash Yet, arguably, that style of marketing is approaching the electronic baccarat issue from the wrong end of the spectrum. Suppliers and operators should instead be focusing on the fairness of electronic baccarat for the player. As David Kinsman, Chief Executive Officer of Singapore-based Weike Gaming Technology told IAG at G2E Asia last year: “Electronic gaming has a direct benefit for players because it gives them the real, true, odds of the game. “An electronic baccarat table runs at 1.8% [house advantage]. A live baccarat table in Macau runs at up to 3%. Where’s the player better off? The players will realise that very quickly. They’re not stupid.” Macau players definitely aren’t stupid, but they do seem to be quite conservative in their tastes. They know what they like and they like what they know, and so far what they like is live baccarat with a flesh and blood dealer. On the face of it, an electronic gaming system that yields on occasions an extra 1.2% house edge to the player compared to the average live dealer version, doesn’t sound like a natural winner with casino managements. Mr Kinsman stressed, however, it’s a win-win situation for player and house. “At the mass gaming end [of the market], live table utilisation might only be four to six hours a day, but operators still have to staff those live tables,” he pointed out. “They would be better off having some electronic tables around.” New day dawns Well, finally the prospects for electronic table games in Macau could be about to change for the better. There are a number of reasons for that. The first is that the Macau government’s 5,500 cap on the number of live tables in the market between now and the end of 2012 could soon mean that beggars cannot be choosers—i.e., if the gaming market keeps growing in excess of 65% year on year without a corresponding increase in table inventory, then in some gaming rooms if players want to get a game it will be electronic tables or nothing at all. The leader of the ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ revolution appears to be Sheldon Adelson, Chairman and Chief Executive of Las Vegas Sands Corp (LVS). During the company’s earnings conference call for the first quarter of 2010, Mr Adelson said that Sands China will put 100 electronic table games on the floor of its US$4.2 billion Cotai 5 and 6 extension. That doesn’t seem to have been the David Kinsman—electronic baccarat fairer Sheldon Adelson—a convert to electronic tables?