Inside Asian Gaming

inside asian gaming MAY 2015 62 G2E ASIA 2015 G aming Partners International arrives at this year’s G2E Asia with new additions to its flagship Bourgogne et Grasset (B&G) brand of casino currency and an expanded portfolio of table game products. GPI, the world’s leading designer and producer of chips, plaques and jetons, has developed a new line of plastic injection molded chips under its B&G brand—the preferred brand of Asia’s major casinos, praised for its durability, security and beauty. The new V-Series chips are made with a completely new injection material formula which the company claims makes them much more durable. The material also incorporates ChipShield, an anti-fungal that inhibits the growth of mold and mildew, keeping the chips cleaner for longer and offering a more sanitary chip surface—an important feature in light of the intensive handling of chips by dealers and players. The V-Series chips are designed to offer a whole new range of versatile edge spot patterns that can be created with a choice of two different sizes of decal. For customers who order the V-Series with four or more color shots, the chips come standard with an infra-red security feature exclusive to GPI. The design options for B&G European-style plaques has also expanded with the addition of new mother-of-pearl décor effects Pursuit of Perfection GPI showcases the latest fruits of its ceaseless efforts to make casino currency safer, stronger, more functional and better looking and colors. The new colors and effects add to an already extensive selection that form an unrivalled suite of design choices, including a unique gold-lace option. In addition to casino currency, GPI’s portfolio includes playing cards and dice, casino furniture, table game layouts and accessories—basically, everything you need to conduct a live table game—as well as a powerful and evolving range of RFID solutions. GPI expanded its playing card and table layout production capabilities through its acquisition of Gemaco Inc. last year. At G2E Asia, it will display Gemaco brand cards and layouts. The cards are available in three types of paper stock and there’s also a plastic option in order to meet the varying requirements of operators. And now that GPI has taken over Gemaco’s manufacturing facilities in Asia, it can provide customers in the region a variety of full graphic layouts for their gaming tables. GPI’s innovative spirit is evident in its continuing work in RFID, a technology the company helped pioneer in the gaming space. At this year’s show, GPI will showcase its exclusive SMART RFID technology, the newest generation of such technology for casino currency. When used with its Chip Inventory System software, SMART delivers a complete currency tracking and authentication solution. The company’s original innovators were the eponymous B&G, lithographer Etienne Bourgogne and engineer Claudius Grasset, who, working from Beaune, the wine capital of Burgundy in eastern France, became the first people to master the art of plastic film printing in the 1920s then sought to pioneer the use of plastics for use in everyday items such as brooches, hair slides and plastic playing cards. One day in 1925,Mr Grasset read in French newspaper Le Figaro that a gambler had broken the bank in Monte Carlo to the tune of 600,000 francs using counterfeit chips made of solid ivory and mother of pearl. The partners saw an opportunity to use their specialized knowledge and technical skills to address the counterfeiting problem and got to work on producing a new generation of plaques that would be almost impossible to duplicate. They sent some samples to the general manager of Casino de Monte-Carlo, whose reply came in the form of a chip order, and B&G was born. Nasdaq-listed GPI was created in 2002 with the merger of three of the world’s leading casino currency suppliers: B&G, then still located in Beaune, along with two US-based companies, Paul-Son Gaming Supplies and The Bud Jones Company. While GPI maintains facilities in rustic Beaune, it is headquartered in Las Vegas with an additional office in Macau, where feedback is gathered assiduously to drive the unrelenting product development necessary to stay ahead of not only the competition, but also, importantly, would-be casino- currency counterfeiters. Visit GPI at Stand #365 The new V-Series chips are made with a completely new injection material formula which the company claims makes them much more durable. GPI expanded its playing card and table layout production capabilities through its acquisition of Gemaco Inc. last year. Gemaco cards are available in three types of paper stock and there’s also a plastic option.