Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | July 2011 42 B accarat is a beautifully simple game that is massively popular in its live table form with Chinese and other Asian players because of its low house advantage. But with such high volumes of play, accounting for so much of the revenue generated in Macau and beyond, casino operators would dearly like to increase the number of decisions per hour, while also adding excitement and value for players. Technology canplay a part in this process by speeding bet recognition and settlement on live dealer tables. Another important tool likely to play an increasing role in live table games in years to come is server-driven table bonusing. At G2E Asia, TCS JOHNHUXLEY showed off the new back end for its Supernova Table Bonus System. The basics of the systemwere first revealed in Las Vegas during the Global Gaming Expo last November. Since then, the company’s product development team have been working energetically on the Supernova server engine. Supernova Table Bonus System is described by the company as a powerful progressive and game bonus product that drives increased revenues by adding higher levels of player excitement and loyalty to table games. Bets are made and recorded when chips are placed onto the Supernova sensors fitted to the table. Players can play the base game alone, or they can choose to play the base game plus a mystery bonus and in many cases a progressive jackpot as well if supported by the base game. Inside Asian Gaming caught up with TCS JOHNHUXLEY Australasia Technical Director Harley Jackson, the man behind the development of Supernova, to find out the latest developments. IAG : What’s been happening with Supernova Table Bonus System since we saw you at G2E in Las Vegas? Harley Jackson : In Las Vegas we showed you a demonstration of how the system worked. But, as this was the first showing of the system and the product was still in development, the back end server had not been fully implemented. What we have got now is a fully functional jackpot controller. At the player end we’ve got an updated version of chip sensing technology. Our chip sensors have 16 million different colours— the same as a personal computer—so we can make the table lights turn blue, green, rainbow; make them spin, glitter, sparkle, blink, etc. We have developed numerous animations to indicate the various stages of the game. We’re running the demonstration table at G2E Asia on a nominal stud poker game. You can fit this system to any game with a progressive jackpot or even any game without a progressive jackpot, if you wish to run nothing but a mystery jackpot. The idea behind a table-based mystery jackpot is you can set it to go off once an hour or once a day—something quite frequent— so that players see the reward for placing the progressive bet game, after game, after game. In the case of stud poker a royal flush is a rarity. Most people have never even seen Bonus Culture TCS JOHNHUXLEY explains why its purpose-built Supernova Table Bonus System is the way forward in live table games TCSJOHNHUXLEY TCS JOHNHUXLEY’s Supernova Table Bonus System