Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | November 2011 22 NRT N RT Technology Corp (NRT) displayed its new QuickJack 88™ kiosk at G2E 2011 in Las Vegas. The company is one of the world’s leading suppliers of self- servicecash-handlingequipment in the retail and financial industries and is a growing force in the gaming sector. The company supplied its NRT QuickTouch™ kiosks to the Singapore casino market to process the casino levy imposed on Singapore citizens and permanent residents. Inside Asian Gaming caught up with Art Ayow, VP of Sales – International Gaming, Lotteries & Banking; and Kevin Lam, Regional Account Manager (APAC) to find out more about NRT’s new QuickJack 88 product and its bill-breaking and ticket redemption capabilities. IAG : What’s different about the QuickJack 88? Art Ayow : There are a few things that differentiate it from our traditional kiosks. The first one is the cost. It’s going to be very, very price-competitive. Some people have certainly said to us that they love your products but they have had some resistance on price. Thisistoaddressthatmarket.Itistargeted principally for the 400-slot-machines-and- fewer property. But what is nice about this machine is that it provides the operators with all the capabilities that they would have with more of our top-end machines without having to spend the money up front. So here’s how we do that. Number one, the basic machine is considerably lower in price. The back-office and system management functions are maintained in a hosted fashion. In other words, there’s going to be a thin client* residing within this box. So, the casino operator doesn’t have to include the cost of a cash handling system licence.They don’t have to include the cost of infrastructure and staffing. They don’t have to manage complex database management systems (DBMS). More importantly, they don’t have to acquire a Microsoft SQL Server licence which could run to US$7,000 to US$15,000 depending on the version and the environment. This unit also has one fewer cassette [for banknotes]. Typically our machines have five cassettes plus the reject [cassette]. This one has four plus the reject. But for small environments, it will be more than adequate. It still has the two bill validators. And another interesting feature is that it has the ticket printing capability already supported. In our legacy systems, we have to retrofit those machines, and then you lose the capability of the fourth coin hopper. Onthesubjectof thinclienttechnology, it can be a challenge for casino operators in Macau to get database management staff and data analysts because of labour import restrictions. The QuickJack 88 precisely removes the property’s need for in-house specialists to do the complex DBMS functions and the data manipulation. But you still get all the benefits of the system management and the back-office reporting that you normally would get on our legacy systems. Can you give us an idea—in the context of the Asian market—what kind of clients you might be targeting? For example, will it be slot clubs in places like the Philippines? I think you hit it right on the head. This product is specifically targeted to the international market. In places like Complete Package NRT’s new QuickJack 88 kiosk—aimed at casino operators wanting high-tech cash handling without a high-tech price NRT’s Art Ayow (right) with Kevin Lam and the QuickJack 88 kiosk at G2E 2011 * [Technology that relies on a remote server or other computer to fulfil its main computational roles.]