Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | May 2012 60 Angel Playing Cards B accarat is by far the biggest earner in Macau, the world’s most lucrative casino gaming destination. It is also the saving grace of the Las Vegas Strip, where following the onset of the global financial crisis, baccarat has bucked the overall declining trend to become the highest grossing table game, driven by the insatiable appetite of Asian players flocking to baccarat tables the world over. Clearly, there is too much at stake to risk the game being compromised by security threats, dealer mistakes or manufacturing errors. Angel Playing Cards Co., Ltd. has emerged the biggest single supplier of playing cards to the global casino industry in large part because it is considered best suited to ensuring the integrity of the baccarat game. It does this by providing not only playing cards manufactured to its highly-exacting standards, but also a revolutionary electronic baccarat shoe, the ANGEL EYE. Over 7,500 ANGEL EYE units have been deployed at casinos worldwide, and they have been very favourably received and embraced in the market. The ANGEL EYE shoe was the judges’ overwhelming choice for “Best Table Utility Product” in Inside Asian Gaming ’s Supplier Awards – 2012 . It has revolutionized the game of baccarat in three important ways: i) it has done awaywith the cheating technique of “card switching”, ii) it has greatly reduced dealer payout mistakes, hence decreasing losses for casinos, and iii) whereas previously game results were recorded on paper, the ANGEL EYE has made it possible to control data management and display the game results on an electronic scoreboard. IAG spoke to Yasushi Shigeta, Angel’s President andCEO, about theevolutionof the ANGEL EYE and his company’s commitment to accuracy. Yasushi Shigeta The ANGEL EYE shoe No Compromise Yasushi Shigeta, President and Chief Executive Officer of Angel Playing Cards, describes how the ANGEL EYE shoe safeguards Asia’s all-important game