Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | January 2011 42 by looking at wide area capacity.” Meanwhile, in the Philippines, slots at Pagcor run sites have fared poorly compared to those at venues run by private VIP club operators and casino licensees—including the recently opened Resorts World Manila. Mr Kinsman believes Pagcor can improve its relative performance by linking up the 5,000 plus machines it operates in various venues across the country. “The reality is Pagcor is missing out on revenue because their machines are not doing the figures per day that compete with say locations like Resorts World Manila. The reasons for that are they are not running TITO [it’s still coin-in in most places], they’re not running player tracking. What they’ve got to do is be able to offer substantial comparative, or better, promotions and marketing to players, which a wide area network would enable them to do. That ability to take one card and walk from one site to another anywhere across a territory is very attractive to a player. It is the ultimate opportunity to lock in loyalty.” Advertise with Inside Asian Gaming For advertising enquiries, please email: ads@asgam.com or call +853 2832 9980 probably the most aggressive promoters in all of Asia—extremely aggressive. They’re constantly chasing each other with high level promotions and really working hard on it. One of the benefits wide area networks bring is the larger groups will be able to run promotions on a larger basis so you can give away more, and the prizes become bigger and much more substantial. It takes the pressure off single sites. You can still have activities running at single sites, which is linked to the system, but it takes a lot of that pressure away and gives you a focus on large marketing incentives which you can run over wide area networks, which become much more attractive for players.” Mr Kinsman also anticipates the roll out of wide area networks in Macau and the Philippines. In Macau, “SJM is a perfect example of a good potential wide area operator because they’re in control of their own sites and SJM clubs, like the Canidrome the Jockey Club, etc. They’ve most probably got a couple of thousand machines. They’re in a position where they can run substantial wide area activity, which can make your business very attractive for players. “Another group that has potential to do this [in Macau] is Mocha. A multiple site operation where they’ve got the ability to start to push their business to the next level Slots at the recently opened Resorts World Manila have been outperforming machines at Pagcor-run sites by a wide margin David Kinsman Wide Area Networks