Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | March 2011 26 Supplier Awards T he major change to Inside Asian Gaming’s Supplier Awards in 2011 is the addition of Singapore to the market mix. Genting’s Resorts World Sentosa marked its first anniversary on Valentine’s Day. Las Vegas Sands Corp’s Marina Bay Sands will celebrate its first year in operation in April. Singapore doesn’t have the baccarat monoculture seen in Macau, where over 90% of gross gaming revenues in 2010 came from live table baccarat. In the Lion City, other table games including blackjack, roulette and craps have significant appeal. This fact—and the strong acceptance of slots and multi-terminal games by the players at the Singapore integrated resorts—has created new opportunities for multi- terminal suppliers serving the region. Our judges are all senior executives in the regional casino industry with detailed practical knowledge on what it takes to create successful products in the high-revenue, high-energy Asia-Pacific region. We’re also publishing the criteria on which the awards have been based. In most cases, winning products received more than one nomination and similar score weightings from multiple judges, thus creating a majority winner. In cases of deadlock, the weightings were rated against the original judging criteria and the best performer under those criteria was declared the winner. The judging criteria for electronic games are: * Revenue performance measured by average daily hold over period of installation (65% of the final assessment). * Operator floor feedback based on software stability, quality of hardware build, ease of servicing (15% of the final assessment). * Cost flexibility for operators based on the options made available (such as outright purchase/revenue participation/ management contract). This was weighted 15% of the final assessment. * Crowd pulling appeal of the cabinet and overhead sign (5% of the final assessment). In the 12 months to December 2010, slot gaming in Macau generated revenues of 8.6 billion patacas (US$1.07 billion). That was a year on year growth of ‘only’ 32.5%. We say ‘only’ because despite the fact that most casino markets outside Asia would be overjoyed with that kind of growth, the live baccarat market in Macau grew 61.7% in the same period. That explains why the contribution of slots to Macau’s overall gaming revenue fell in 2010 to 4.7% from 5.4% a year earlier. The number of slots in the market also fell marginally (2.2%) for the first time since market liberalisation in 2002, ending the year at 14,050 units compared to 14,363 units at year-end 2009. There are, however, anecdotal reports that VIP slot play is making a greater overall contribution to slot revenue than in previous years, mirroring the behaviour seen in the tables market. Another trend is the growing presence of Asia-based slot and multi-terminalmanufacturers inmultiplemarkets. Gaming suppliers based in Asia with Asian managements have been around for many years, but previously they tended to serve domestic markets rather than developing sales internationally. Sometimes—in the case of a manufacturer such as Aruze, it’s a question of a manufacturer with Asian ‘DNA’ but based in the US, capitalising on its North American marketing expertise to create industry-leading products. Sometimes it’s a question of manufacturers based wholly in Asia getting more global in outlook and successfully submitting their ELECTRONIC GAMES