Inside Asian Gaming

inside asian gaming November 2016 36 The operators are very much focussed on transitioning their properties and operations to be less focussed on junkets and more on mass market and that translates down into our business. The types of products and experiences they are looking for from us, you can definitely see that filtering down. I personally see from the trends that Macau will continue to be a force in the gaming industry for the foreseeable future and I think that’s because the people running those operations are industry veterans. They’ve been around for a long time and they know what they’re doing. I think we’ll see them transition however is necessary. AWS: Interblock has traditionally been associated with roulette but tell us a bit about your other products and what you’re trying to do to extend the company’s appeal? “I think people are starting to realize now that an ETG should not be placed in the middle of a bunch of slot machines and it shouldn’t be incorporated within a slot report.” JC: When I joined about 18 months ago, that was one of my biggest concerns – that the percentage of revenue being derived from mechanical roulette in the company was far higher than I would have liked. It was over 50%. So one of the immediate things I tried to implement was to expand our product portfolio, which is why you see us tripling our R&D staff. We now have a complete product portfolio of video which we did not have before. We have stadium designs, we have novelty products such as bar tops and wheels. We also have some real hardware designs to try and attract different types of players. Another little known secret is that our baccarat game is actually extremely popular. As an example, at Resorts World New York we have over 600 seats attached to our baccarat units. So that’s an area we’re also continuing to invest heavily in and it’s a tremendous opportunity. That combined with opening new markets and offices. We’ve seen a dramatic reduction in the concentration of our revenue from roulette – not that roulette doesn’t continue to grow. It’s just that other segments in our portfolio are growing faster. AWS: Obviously Resorts World New York doesn’t have any tables which is fantastic for an ETG company such as Interblock. You released the findings of some research you did a while back on ETGs. Can you talk a little bit about that? JC: Yeah, so to your point about Resorts World, obviously you’re right – where there aren’t traditional table games there is a higher propensity towards ETGs – but at the same time I could name several casinos where we have over 100 seats right next to live table games INSIGHTS