Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | March 2012 8 Supplier Awards I nside Asian Gaming ’s Supplier Awards 2012 marks the fourth annual instalment of our gongs to the manufacturers who make possible the breakneck growth of Asia’s gaming industry. 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). The lesson of the past eight years is that if you give Chinese players in Macau the right product they are just as amenable to playing electronic games as their East Asian neighbours. In the 12 months to December 2011, slot gaming in Macau generated gross gaming revenues (GGR) of MOP11.43 billion (US$1.43 billion). That was a year-on-year growth of 32.6% on the MOP8.6 billion grossed by Macau slots in 2010. While most casino operators in North America and Europe would give their right arm for that kind of annual expansion, the contribution of Macau slots to the territory’s total GGR actually fell in 2011 to 4.3% of the total from 4.7% a year earlier. That appears to be mainly a function of the continued heady growth of live table baccarat in its VIP and mass market forms. Those activities grew respectively 44.6% and 39.4% year-on-year in GGR terms. The good news is that the rate of annual growth of Macau slot GGR (32.6%) actually rose marginally in 2011 compared to 2010, when it put on 32.5% year-on-year. The slot GGR growth last year also suggests the average net win per machine rose during 2011 compared to 2010 because the number of slots in the market by the fourth quarter of 2011 was 14.3% up on the equivalent quarter in 2010 (16,056 in 4Q 2011 compared to 14,050 in 4Q 2010). The opening of Galaxy Macau on Cotai half way through the second quarter of 2011 was mainly responsible for the surge in slot numbers during the year. There’s a lot more to Asian electronic gaming than the admittedly impressive inventory in Macau’s casinos and slot parlours. In Singapore and the Philippines there are even higher levels of player acceptance for electronic games and generally higher levels of participation than in Macau. But arguably the performance of slots in Macau is a bellwether indicating how widely electronic games are likely to be accepted by Chinese players in years to come. The signs are encouraging. ELECTRONIC GAMES