Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | June 2012 44 TCSJOHNHUXLEY T CS JOHNHUXLEY came to G2E Asia on a mission. As Rebecca Kingswell, newly promoted from Executive Director of Operations to General Manager Asia, put it, “Our focus is on developing plans that will allow us to deliver the best products, service and support in the region.” The global manufacturer and supplier of live gaming products is restructuring its technical services and support network in Asia, expanding its warehouse facilities and bulking up its offices in Macau and Singapore with a number of fresh faces in sales and marketing. “Asia is extremely important to us. Rebecca’s Asian market knowledge and leadership will drive us forward. We are focused on providing the right products for our customers and building the right team to support the region. ” says CEO Cath Burns. To underscore the point, the company has enhanced its powerful Gaming Floor Live real-time table management system with new security and performance tools for baccarat and Sic Bo and took the opportunity of the show to unveil a new proprietary table game, BaccPo, combining the best of Asia’s most popular gambling game with the speed of blackjack and the excitement of poker-style peer-to-peer competition. Gaming Floor Live is best-known in the roulette pit for its unrivaled ability to help operators maximize revenue and profits and reduce operating costs. It does this by allowing management to remotely monitor the action at every table as it is happening. It continually captures key data such as table turnover, chip values, the number of players at the table, wheel speed and more, benchmarking results and comparing real-time performance against previously selected benchmarks, all the while providing live feedback to the floor and converting analysis into actionabledirectives for dealers, pit staff and floor management. In essence, Gaming Floor Live is connecting all the dots, every minute— “number of players, value of turnover, value of the chips and the games per hour”— explains Simon Witty, TCS JOHNHUXLEY’s recently appointed Group Product Director. The goal is optimization of revenue potential by running every table at its optimal efficiency in terms of betting limits, game speed and player occupancy. “It’s about seeking to recreate the conditions that in the past have caused the table to operate at optimum yield,” Mr Witty says. “That’s the bottom line.” Gaming Floor Live relays data, reports and real-time alerts via a dashboard application so staff are always in possession of the latest snapshot of their operation. “This could be in the pit. This could be on a manager’s desk,” Mr Witty explains. “He could have a stripped-down version in the facilities office tomanagewheelmovements. Because a part of the functionality of this system is wheel bias analysis and wheel service maintenance history so that as wheels get moved around thosemovements are logged.” They can drill down at any time for more detailed analysis and use an accompanying desktop application and SMS alerts to stay notified of any exceptional game activity. For added value in Asian markets the system now integrates with TCS JOHNHUXLEY’s Sic Bo tables, collecting and relaying data to the dashboard and via text messages on number of games per hour and generating alarms if operations or security have in any way been compromised—“dice shaker malfunctions, a bad shake, or if the dealer lifts the shaker cover too early,” as Mr Witty explains. He adds, “We’re also reporting repeats or unusual streaks of big results or small results, unusual streaks of triple results, and instances where the results of the dice haven’t changed, so consecutive similar results also can generate an alarm, which optionally can be sent out by SMS too. And the thresholds of what defines an ‘unusual streak’ are configurable by the operator.” All Gaming Floor Live data is encrypted, the system is fitted with comprehensive user and management control functions, and it uses industry standard software and data base architecture so it easily interfaces with any existing IT infrastructure. Launched at Crown Casino Melbourne earlier this year, BaccPo has been gaining popularity among players in the region looking for a fun and fast-paced alternative to traditional baccarat. Available as a house-banked or peer- versus-peer proposition, the game is played on a layout similar to standard blackjack or mini-baccarat. As in blackjack, each player is dealt two cards against the dealer’s up card. The object is to come closer to 9 than the dealer (not 21, as in blackjack) and the game’s unique hand-ranking system—10s and face cards count as 0, only the second digit counts in totals of 10 or greater— ensures that players never bust but stay until the end. It also features an optional “Bonus Wager” based on the player’s first two cards and the dealer’s first card and an optional side bet on ties. House advantages range from 3.02% on primary bets with an eight-deck shoe (slightly less with six decks), to 9.85% on the “Bonus Wager” (with eight decks) to 18.18% with eight decks on the tie bet. Ms Kingswell’s new Asian team includes Andrew Hanley, an alumnus of TransAct and Bally Technologies, who starts this month as Sales Director for the region, and Sales Executive Max Ieong, who joined the company in May from a Fortune 200 restaurant and event management company, where he directed sales out of Macau. “The importance of building a strong focused team and maximizing operational efficiencies in this rapidly expanding market is critical to our success,” Ms Kingswell noted. Got Live TCSJOHNHUXLEY is in full growth mode in Asia with a new team and new technology in table games management Maximizing revenue at the table is what Gaming Floor Live is all about