Inside Asian Gaming

inside asian gaming November 2016 38 and the numbers suggest that it is not cannibalizing either slot operations or the table games. If anything it is reducing the costs of the operator because obviously managing an ETG compared to a live table is much more beneficial from an overhead perspective. So we’re seeing a number of casinos replace US$5 or US$10 pits with ETGs and then really making the live tables more in the US$25 or higher segment. I think that trend in North America predominantly is exciting for us because under 0.5% of the gaming floor in North America has ETGs whereas in Asia it’s 15 to 20%, so the growth potential is astonishing. 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. It should be broken out into a separate reporting structure because the player demographics are different and to compare the hold of an ETG against the house average is not necessarily the right approach. We should be measuring an ETG versus how much incremental EBITDA it’s bringing to the floor. We’re seeing many groups starting to carve out a separate reporting structure which to my knowledge hasn’t happened in more than a decade. It’s always been slots and tables. AWS: ETG players tend to be thought of more as time on device players as oppose to action seekers. Is there anything you have looked to do to address that difference? JC: That’s a great question. One of the things you have to be very careful of when you’re talking ETGs is that the player is expecting a real live table experience so if you try to be too creative, as you might on a slot machine, you’re not going to remain true to the game, be it baccarat, roulette, craps, blackjack, sic bo and so on. There are ways you can create added entertainment or value but those are more opt-in side bets, progressives, perhaps the features you put into the game on the periphery. But the core game itself, we’ve been reluctant to touch that at this stage for a couple of reasons. One, hold percentages are already a lot lower than other products on the floor and two, if we have that it needs to be at the player’s discretion. You need to be careful not to force it. AWS: The other very noticeable thing about Interblock is the branding, with the very strong red and black color theme? JC: 100% of that credit goes to our founder Mr Pečečnik. He has always been very protective and very detail oriented about his brand and the luxury nature of this company so as we’ve evolved our product portfolio into other areas he personally signs off on almost everything. And we like it that way because it is one of the best assets the company has and it’s important to protect it. We’re proud of it. It’s a benefit we recognize. If you look at the gaming floor, we have 11 or 12 new products out there but they still have the same look and feel of Interblock products you’ve seen previously. The other thing I have done to try and support that is – our new generation Diamond platform is modular in design so what it allows us to do is as we transition from one product to another, we’re able to use the same fixed assets from one area to another. That’s very beneficial because you then have less need for multiple designs across your product portfolio when you’re using the same play station, the same cabinets, a lot of the same signage. That then prevents any kind of confusion of diversion from the brand. I think the combination of creating some parameters around what the hardware and software teams can do, and making sure that the founder is involved in all the final decisions … it works. AWS: Yes, people come to trust a brand – particularly in Asia. JC: Yeah, what’s interesting about Asia is that the Asian player, once they get familiar with an interface, they really stay loyal to it. Two generations ago we had a product called the G3. We’re on the G5 Diamond now but that product interface, players still remember it. There are still hundreds of those on the floor in Macau that we’re replacing right now. We were asked and took the effort to take that interface and redesign it almost verbatim onto the G5. We now have the ability on our newest platform, over a decade later, to offer our new high-end interface to players, however if an operator or a player prefers the previous version, it’s dynamic – the operator can actually change it. INSIGHTS