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Editorial: Editor in Chief: Glyn Thomas Mob: +380 952 705 596 glyn@ace123.com Associate Editor North America David Mckee dmckee@ace123.com Europe - Damien Connelly dconnelly@ace123.com Special Assignment Correspondent: Jack Bulavsky jackbulavsky@yahoo.com S Europe - Andrew Behan abehan@ace123.com UK - Alan Campbell yankeecampbell@yahoo.com Latin America & Asia Correspondent: Janice Chaka Janice@ace123.com Online Gaming Editor: Sam Miranda sam@ace123.com
Production: Designer: Stewart Hyde design@ace123.com www.totaldesignworks.com Subscriptions: Helen Holmes subs@ace123.com Web & IT: Sudip Banjeree sb@ace123.com Journal Manager: Chris Sanson csanson@ace123.com Publisher: Peter White Tel: +44 (0) 1892 740869 Mob: +44 (0) 7973 273714 pwhite@ace123.com
Editor’s page
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elcome to Casino Life and the end of a terrific year for the publication. The evolution of the magazine has continued with solid features on world-wide casino operators delivered by well-seasoned, experienced, international journalists in the places that matter. Our design team keeps the content fresh and even now is putting the finishing touches to our “Novi Proekt” that will be launched at ICE. ICE already? Gulp! Yes it is, and now that the Clarion team has seen the razzamatazz at G2E this year they have a hard act to follow. But, as you can read in this issue on page 26, with new halls available; an extra days build for exhibitors – almost 500 at the time of writing - confidence is high. The emphasis too is - as ICE always has been – on commercialism. Organisers are encouraging visitors and exhibitors to plan their visits well in advance and to pace themselves. As an exhibitor veteran I am well aware of the need to allow exhibitors the courtesy of spending more time with their clients than the press. Nobody really appreciates a journo with a pad cluttering up their stand all day. The big news this month is the six Atlantic City casinos - Borgata, Bally’s, Caesars, Tropicana, Trump Plaza, and Trump Taj Mahal – all began their trial period for Internet gambling. People seem to be split as to whether this will be a money-earner or detract from land-based offerings but as Frank Catania reports this issue the demographics of internet gamblers is somewhat different. We’ll report back on how the trial fares in the future. Also in this issue Roger Marris, Chief Executive Officer of Ritz Club Casino London, kicks off by telling Jack Bulavsky how the club is a private company run like a large family business. Tracy Cohen, AGEMs European Director explains her role in helping represent European members internationally and hopes that Asian companies will join the growing number of manufacturers. Dr. Griffiths has emerged as Britain’s chief gambling authority, with his personal blog recently surpassing one million unique visitors so it was long time that Sam Miranda dropped in on him. We look at how Irelands Gaming legislation is developing and Janice Chaka looks deeper into the “Next big thing in HR”: Gamification. Meanwhile, Andrea Flynn of AA Casino examines the potential of casinos suffering from “cyber attack” and how it can be prevented. We round off with some pages from the diary of ICE’s Rebecca Harris who literally has her sights set on higher ground – we follow her recent charity assault on Mount Kilimanjaro and were proud to be a sponsor. I have to fly to Paris for the Slot Summit shortly after I write this so If you are there “Bonne Chance” and I hope to meet you - otherwise get those comfy shoes ready for London in February!
Glyn Thomas
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Contents 3 Guest Editor Foreword Aaron Gomes Managing Director Jupiters Resort Hotel & Casino Brisbane 4 The Ritz Club Ventures East Roger Marris, Chief Executive Officer of The Ritz Club London, took time to speak on the telephone with Vegas based Jack Bulavsky, Casino Life’s Special Assignment Correspondent 12 New Jersey - New Era Frank Catania reports back on the 6 US casinos going online 18 International Development AGEM Seeks Growth Outside North America interview by Jack Bulavsky 22 We aren’t unique. But we’re relaxed and tolerant Casino Life’s Online Gaming editor interviews Dr Mark Griffiths on UK Gambling 26 Its ICE time Kate Chambers chats with Glyn Thomas ahead of ICE Totally Gaming 2014 32
Is this the Real Life.. Is this just Fantasy? JJ Woods of Atlantic Casino Consultants was expecting a lot more from the latest changes to the bill on Gaming in Ireland
35 Gamification The next big thing in Human Resources by Janice Chaka 37
Climbing Kilimanjaro Rebecca Harris joined the team, embracing the challenge to raise money for the Responsible Gambling Trust
41 Cybercrime Andrea Flynn of AA Casino provides her solution to the vulnerability of Cyberattack 43 Spotlight Chris Sanson catches up with developments at Alfastreet Editorial Policy: The views and opinions expressed in casino life remain principally the views of contributors and do not necessarily reflect those of the editor or publishers. The publishers wish to avoid inaccuracies and, whilst every precaution has been taken to ensure that information contained in this publication is accurate, no liability is accepted by the editor or publishers for errors or omissions, however caused. Unless otherwise stated, articles appearing in this publication remain the copyright of the publishers and may not be reproduced in any form without the publisher’s written consent. Printed in the UK by MPC Ltd.
Guest Editor
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n general it is great to see gaming expand around the world, however jurisdictions must be very careful not to cook the golden goose. As I sat at the computer to write this piece for Casino Life I glanced over at my emails with gaming news headlines and counted that three of the top five headlines were about jurisdictions looking at expanding gambling. I immediately threw out my original idea for this piece and I have decided to write about my view on the proliferation of gambling around the world. Unfortunately many individuals and governments believe casinos are licenses to print money and often take a simplistic view when it comes to gaming expansion. I am by no means condemning the expansion of gaming, but I am warning that there are ramifications and the decision should not be taken lightly. Unfortunately space will not allow me to elaborate on too many case studies, but let’s take a look at one example of how gaming expansion has been done right. On a world stage let’s look at Singapore where the government’s goal was not simply to extract taxes from gaming patrons, but was to drive tourism. The Singaporean government knew that without limiting competition for potential bidders they would not receive the level of investment desired. Mission accomplished! Singapore now has two of the highest grossing casinos in the world both paying relatively low tax rates, but more importantly than the tax the Singaporean government derives from gaming, tourism to Singapore has grown by 50% since the first casino opened in 2010. I am a firm believer that jurisdictions looking to expand gaming are better off by promising limited competition with low tax than offering higher tax and/or lots of competition, otherwise all the jurisdictions will do is split the market, which will lead to lower margins, leaving less money for the casinos to reinvest and before long they will be slot and table warehouses that do not draw outsiders to those locations but just cannibalize what already exists. Following the low tax, low competition, and high investment formula allows operators in jurisdictions to build larger projects, constantly reinvest, and better the chances for the new facilities to act as magnets for tourism rather than simply a facility for locals to gamble in. Casinos are more than devices for governments to extract gaming revenue and not viewing them this way will surely act to cook the golden goose. Just my two cents… Aaron Gomes Managing Director, Jupiters Resort and Casino Gold Coast, Australia www.JupitersGoldCoast.com.au Aaron.Gomes@EchoEnt.com.au
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THE RITZ CLUB LONDON VENTURES EAST It was 4pm in London one day last month (8am in Las Vegas) when Roger Marris, Chief Executive Officer of The Ritz Club London, took time to speak on the telephone with Jack Bulavsky, Special Assignment Correspondent for Casino Life
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oger Marris has been involved in the gaming industry since 1998. His background in gaming started with Harrah’s WSOP and Littlewoods, on the gaming side of the business. His career with The Ritz Club began in 2005 as the former Managing Director of The Ritz Online Casino when it operated from 2005-2007 (the company was sold in 2007). Prior to coming back to The Ritz Club as Chief Executive, he was working in a global executive role for a FTSE250 business, a role that took advantage of his strategic operational and management skills in a multi-channel business. The time spent outside the industry; including his experience of working in China, gave him valuable insights into how other multi-international businesses are managed. His experience in land based casinos along with online and WSOP has allowed him to focus on the challenges, technologies, developments and opportunities in the land based, online and social gaming industry. As Chief Executive of The Ritz Club, Roger has spent time looking at processes and management structures as well as developing strategic operational plans and introducing new channels of communication. He advocates stability in regulation and believes that all businesses should have a multi-channel perspective that embrace
different channels as opposed to fighting them; to ensure growth in the industry, mindful of the effect that the international operators are having on the UK marketplace. Your name is very well known among sports fan in America. I’m aware. Roger Maris, with one r, was a famous baseball player for the New York Yankees. When I lived there some years ago, I always got comments about my name. And there was even more attention whenever I used my credit card. How do you describe The Ritz Club, London? This is a stand alone business that sits in the old ballroom of the renowned Ritz Hotel in London. The Club opened in 1978 and a new management team came on board in1998. We are one of the most luxurious and exclusive private member’s club to be found anywhere in the world with a membership that caters solely to VIPs. It’s mostly an international clientele. That membership comes with many benefits including our prestigious and award-winning restaurant and bar and cigar shop. Because of our clientele, there is a screening process. Understand that we do not cater to what might be described in Las Vegas as “grind action.” We have a few slot machines, not thousands of
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them. We have fewer than 30 table games. More often than not, the room is never full. If someone is losing a large amount of money, that person wants to play in an element of privacy. We provide that. That is how I would describe The Ritz Club. We are a VIP casino, the only one of its kind in the world. Can you share some characteristics about your members? Our customer is a large stakes player and can be from anywhere in the world. I recently returned from China to become better acquainted with that culture. The Ritz Club, for years, has always been a first destination for Middle Eastern players and we still are. However, about two years ago, we starting see a larger number of Asian and Chinese players with large net worth coming to London. So we added the correct ambience, games, services and offerings that Asian players desire. Maybe they were playing in Macao or Las Vegas, but now they prefer coming here to play. How do you prepare for your special kind of player? We do our due diligence. Persons with that type of net worth and who play at the level of casino
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play we offer have expectations. We need to know and understand their preferences so they become comfortable and familiar with our services. No matter what they request, we customize their needs. Privacy? Done. Want to go shopping in Paris? We’ll make all the arrangements. Is there a certain sporting event or show they want to see? We can facilitate that. Does the member want a specific table or game or dealer? That will be arranged along with placing the table against a wall or looking out a window. Once players get to know us and what we will do for them, a bond is created which is extremely important for these VIPs. Tell me about your employees. In this type of environment, they have to be a cut above most employees. You are absolutely correct. Our 200 employees have become a huge marketing tool for the business. They are well taken of because our philosophy is to have a long term employee which translates to a familiarity for our customers. Club members are familiar and know our dealers and waiters and will ask for them by name when they arrive. For instance, our dealers, who know the importance of personal appearance and verbal
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presentation, operate at a high level but know how to cope with the pressure of high end play and not be intimidated by these ultra worth players. There is always a separation between employee and customer, yet there are also genuine relationships between the two. London and the Ritz brand are all about being British so there is no problem having English speaking only dealers. We have hosts on floor who speak any number of languages including Farsi and Mandarin. Our employees also understand privacy
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and security which is at forefront of the property. That’s why we have members coming to our fivestar brand. They’re comfortable here and have that knowledge that everyone, including all employees, understand discretion. How do you market such a private club? Foremost, we’re a people business. We can’t assume that our members will always be there just because we’re here. There are never any assumptions and we maintain steady friendships
such as remembering birthdays and anniversaries, not just for the club member, but for the entire family. Not that long ago, I learned that one of our members was going to be in London on business during his birthday and arranged to take him to lunch. He sincerely appreciated the gesture. There is no email marketing or sending flyers or giving a chip when they walk in. Yes, we send gifts on special occasions and know what they like and they even know that if they forget something or their car breaks down, we’re there to help. These members are more than customers. We’re a private company but it’s run like a large family business. You and your management team just celebrated 15 years since taking over The Ritz Club. What changes have you seen in that time? Fifteen years ago, our clientele was mostly European and British. Then it became Middle East and that business is still there. But over the past few years, the Asian market has dramatically grown and we have made a few changes. We became a
24/7 Club this year because our Asian customers want to play 24 hours a day. At the time, Middle Eastern players played from midnight – 6 a.m. Always remember that we are a private members club and cater to our members. The style of some of our games is also different. While roulette is the first choice for Middle Eastern members, baccarat is the most popular game for the Chinese. The high-end Chinese player plays at a pace and with money that we haven’t seen before. The amount of bets is quite staggering. There is a new wealth coming from the east and Europe is opening itself to China in many ways besides gaming meaning retail and luxury housing as just two examples. They play in a certain way and we’re learning and realigning as that market develops. However, several things will not change and one is the Club décor which is still prestigious and luxurious and our service and food preparation which is the finest anywhere. It’s what you expect from The Ritz Club.
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New Jersey, New Era Frank Catania reports back on the 6 US casinos going online
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n November 21, 2013, a new era began for gambling in the United States. That is when six Atlantic City casinos - Borgata, Bally’s, Caesars, Tropicana, Trump Plaza, and Trump Taj Mahal - began their trial period for Internet gambling. The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement delivered on its promise to get Internet gambling operators and related gaming industry license applications completed and companies authorized to commence operations. Full live play began on November 26. Unlike Nevada, where casino licensees can operate pokeronly sites online, and Delaware, where various games are offered by the Delaware Lottery, New Jersey’s casinos can offer a full range of casino-style games. Although most New Jerseyans are enthusiastic about the legalization of Internet gaming, some, including the Atlantic City Alliance, have worried that online
gaming could undermine ongoing efforts to entice more patrons to visit Atlantic City. This danger may be overstated, as studies have shown that Internet gamblers do not represent the same demographic as those who frequent casinos. Simply stated, online players tend to be younger than casino players, and are less interested in the trappings of casino visits. Nevertheless, to the extent Internet gaming attracts new players, those players present a great opportunity for casinos to cross-market. For example, someone playing online for a certain period of time could be the target of the casino’s marketing department. Like a good casino player, a good online player could be offered transportation, a room, food and beverage, or other comps if the player visits the casino in Atlantic City. This is a side benefit of online gaming. Early reports indicate that over 51,000 accounts have already been established with the six online
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casino sites. It is not clear how many players this represents, as one player may have opened accounts in different casinos. The key question, which has yet to be answered, is whether New Jersey is large enough to support all types of online gaming. I think not. The online casinos can satisfy a single player who enjoys playing slots or any particular game that only requires one player. However, games such as poker and blackjack require “liquidity,� that is, a larger pool of players. Poker players will not wait for a poker table to fill before being able to place a wager. We will have to wait and see whether New Jersey is able to enter into agreements with other states to increase the player numbers. The United States Department of Justice has not provided any indication of what its position will be if two or more states decide to enter into an agreement or compact
to allow players from one state to gamble with a site licensed and operating in another. In my opinion, New Jersey is on the right track when it comes to Internet gaming. Will it be as large a money maker as some predict? I don’t believe so. However, I do believe Atlantic City can eventually become a center of Internet gaming in the United States if it plays its cards right. Frank Catania Law Offices Catania & Ehrlich, P.C. Catania Gaming Consultants, 909 Belmont Avenue North Haledon, NJ 07508 973-427-2500 973-423-2003 Fax 973-886-7188 Cell frank@cataniaconsulting.com
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AGEM Seeks Growth Outside North America
Tracy Cohen is AGEM’s Director of Europe. Jack Bulavsky caught up with her at G2E Las Vegas
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racy Cohen is Director of Europe of the Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers (AGEM), a trade organization comprised of the top international gaming suppliers. Its mission is to further the interests of its members around the world. She also serves as Marketing Manager for TCSJOHNHUXLEY, the leading casino gaming equipment manufacturer and supplier with 10 offices worldwide. With more than 20 years experience in design and marketing communications for the international casino and gaming industry, Cohen oversees global trade shows and events, Public Relations, advertising, sales and marketing communications and product launch activities. What is your role as Director of Europe for AGEM? And to expand on that question, what defines Europe? As a result of the drive to recruit more international members, AGEM, headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, highlighted the need to have representation outside the U.S. My appointment as Director of Europe was primarily to address the growing need to have someone at the end of telephone or who could be contacted by email in a similar time zone. Currently, there are 18 of AGEM’s 128 member companies based in Europe as well as a further 12 with significant operations in the region. I have worked with many of these companies over the years and have established good relationships. Hopefully, this knowledge and understanding of the
market allows me to be better equipped to address any issues that affect a broad range of suppliers in the region and service their best interests, while bringing them to the table for the wider membership to address. How big an industry is gaming equipment manufacturing in Europe? Gaming Equipment manufacturing is mature and well established in Europe covering table gaming, slots, VLT’s and electronic multiplayers, as well as a host of associated businesses. Even though total spending on legal gaming is similar between the U.S. and the EU, the composition of spending among important sectors of the gaming industry varies significantly. In the U.S., gaming spend within casinos dominates the market whereas in the EU casinos, it is less so with gaming machines, lotteries and betting shops more significant than casinos. In addition, internet gaming continues to grow rapidly. Eastern Europe dominates the world market of electronic multiplayer games, with some very significant slot manufacturers in Austria and Germany and across the whole region. How would you differentiate European manufacturers from American manufacturers? It’s important to recognize that Europe is heavily fragmented, not just in terms of number of countries,
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TCS John Huxley’s Todd Cravens CEO for The Americas and Luke Davis, Marketing Director with Tracy Cohen G2e Las Vegas.
but within the different regulations in those countries. Spain, for example, has 17 different autonomies/ regions and that means a single country might have many different regulations. For the large international companies, this actually presents a significant barrier to entry, as the research and development work required to produce and approve products versus the amount of products they can sell sometimes doesn’t add up. Companies based and operating mainly in Europe are just as significant as they just focus on the areas of greatest return and benefit from barriers to entry. What games do Europeans like to play? Do they gamble any differently than anyone else? Roulette is much more popular in Europe than the U.S. both in terms of live gaming as well as for ETG’s (Electronic Terminal Games), but Blackjack, Baccarat and Poker also are popular. With regards to slot machines, a good slot game is a good slot game; the maths fundamentally makes a game successful. Specialist hardware (cabinets), great graphics, sounds, interactive and fun features or big brand licenses may be good acquisition tools, but the base maths are what makes a game that players want to play. Does the AGEM mission carry over to Europe?
AGEM’s mission is global regardless of location. Saying that, a large number of agenda items covered in the monthly meetings are U.S. focused due to a large proportion of members being based there. It is also easier to address items in U.S. jurisdictions, as it’s not as fragmented as Europe. But keep in mind that due to the increasing international membership, we have started initiatives to aid doing business in Europe, currently working with the ECA address some general issues that affect members. Here we are at G2E. Did you see a lot of familiar faces or do more of them attend ICE in London or G2E Asia? The industry is pretty much global now with most companies operating in all gaming jurisdictions. The nice thing about travelling to different shows around the world is seeing what’s new and happening in a region, while also catching up with old friends. The gaming industry is global, but small at the same time. You have been with AGEM long enough to see “things” or notice “stuff” between the two continents. What have you seen or noticed that separates the two or brings us together in terms of business or gaming philosophy? There are undoubtedly differences between the two
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Tracy Cohen with Michael Knutsson Director TCS John Huxley & son of the company founder, Bertil Knutsson
continents in terms of culture and regulations; however, in terms of gaming philosophy, the two are closely aligned. If an issue is affecting one of our members, you can be sure there are many others being affected too. European casinos are generally smaller than those in the U.S. and the game mix differs. This is particularly noticeable, for example in the UK, where the maximum number of slot machines is capped at 150 but this only covers one or two large operations. Generally the maximum would not exceed 80, which is vastly different to U.S. and particularly Las Vegas where there is no limit. Maximum stake and maximum wins are also considerably lower too. The area where Europeans are definitely leading is
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online gaming. Having been established for some time, the U.S. is looking to Europe in terms of regulation and also market knowledge and experience. Thus, more U.S. companies are seeking to partner with Europeans as online starts to take off in America. As AGEM grows, do you see it happening in Europe, the U.S., or elsewhere? AGEM has grown rapidly over the past five years with the majority of major gaming equipment manufacturers now members. As a result, I don’t think AGEM will grow significantly in the foreseeable future but we are seeing manufacturers from further afield (such as Asia) approach us about membership and how they can join.
Seatbelt
Approach Dr. Mark Griffiths has emerged as Britain’s chief gambling authority, with his personal blog recently surpassing one million unique visitors. Sam Miranda chatted to him about, amongst other things, the British Gambling Psyche
B
y Dr Mark Griffiths’ own admission, his path into gambling-related academia was “boring.” He was given three options for his PhD – gynaecological psychology, face processing and gambling. The industry is eternally grateful he chose the latter - in a 27 year career, Dr Griffiths has emerged as Britain’s chief gambling authority, with his personal blog recently surpassing one million unique visitors. A chartered psychologist by vocation, his impressive oeuvre spans slot and video game addiction, adolescent gaming and socially responsible gambling. Dr Griffiths juggles media commitments – he pens
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regular columns in The Sun and The Independent and recalls a ‘pleasant’ interview with the feisty Jeremy Paxman - with a number of advisory and consultancy roles. Does Dr Griffiths’ focus on addiction mean he is anti-gambling? No. Any media statements to the contrary have been taken out of context. Dr Griffiths champions a well-regulated, socially responsible gambling industry, where an appreciation for personal liberties and support for an economically empowering sector are coupled with protection for vulnerable players. Dr Griffiths, thanks for joining us. To start us off, can you summarise the research you do?
I’ve spent the last 27 years studying gambling, mainly problem gambling. Not that I’m anti-gambling in the slightest. People often perceive me as being public enemy number one because I research problem gambling. Yet my friends who research problem drinking – no one accuses them of being anti-drinking. There is a culture in this country that if you in anyway attack the industry for the products that they put out and highlight the plight of problem gamblers, they take it personally. We should be working together. Problem gamblers don’t support a long-term, sustainable business model because they have a short shelf life. We have a situation where 10 per cent of customers generate 90 per cent of profits. I want to replicate Camelot’s model for the lottery - where the vast majority of the population spends small amounts of money and it still generates huge profits – across the casino and bingo industries. What would you say is unique about British gambling culture? Having travelled around the world, I wouldn’t say we’re unique. But we’re relaxed and tolerant. The most profound change in British gambling culture came with the introduction of the National Lottery in 1994. Suddenly two thirds of the public were gambling, but there was a mismatch between people viewing playing the lottery as a form of gambling. You would ask people, “Do you gamble?” and they’d say “No.” But then you would ask them, “Do you play the lottery?” and they would say “Yes.” What followed was a drip drip effect. Football pools and bingo halls were saying, “You’ve taken some of our custom away and you’re not letting us advertise on television. We want an equal playing field.” This prompted a government policy of liberalisation and de-regulation. But then casino and gambling operators asked, “Why are scratch cards being advertised in the middle of Coronation Street? You the Home Office have just defined hard forms of gambling as ones which have high or rapid staking. You are allowing them to be advertised, so why can’t we advertise our products?” I would say in the past 15 years, gambling has become a socially acceptable activity. Now with remote opportunities, it’s endemic. We were one of first countries that legalised internet gambling. We’ve adopted a proactive, progressive stance. Yes, you still have your faith groups and people who have been
adversely affected lobbying against it, but we’re a gambling nation. “We’re a gambling nation.” Does that translate into high levels of problem gambling and addiction? The press would certainly make us believe so… The press equates problem or pathological gambling with addiction. The British Gambling Prevalence Survey (BGPS) that we do every few years reveals that 0.9 per cent of Britain’s have a gambling problem. The press have interpreted this as 1 per cent of people are addicted. All addicts are problem gamblers but not all problem gamblers are addicts. Problem gambling could just mean you spend too much of your disposable income on gambling, but this might not be indicative of addiction. The press use and interchange words to suit their story and lose all understanding of context. The number of people who are genuinely addicted is very small compared to, say, alcohol. So is the British media anti-gambling? It isn’t anti-gambling per se, but they are running a business. If you’re pointing out bad things like gambling addiction, people will read it. As human beings, we love reading about the suffering of others. It’s called social comparison theory - when you read about the misery of others, it makes you feel better. You’ve said gambling is endemic in British society. What have you discovered about different gambling demographics? Are people of a certain gender inclined to gamble on certain games? Men gravitate towards skill games. It’s interesting, because in Britain men are more likely to play slot games than women, whereas in other countries it’s the same. We’re the only country in the world which doesn’t use a random number generator. This means that there’s a level of skill involved – people can watch the machine fill up with other people’s money, then come in and get the pay-out. We tracked down the machine patent and found out that they use adaptive logic and a compensator. In this country, single site machines are located in chip shops, pubs and cafes, and they’re needed to keep the business afloat. RNG’s work on a yearly cycle, and these places can’t wait that long to recoup profits. So instead of probability cycles based on millions of spins, they are based on hundreds of thousands. This means you can
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watch a machine fill up with £300 of other peoples’ money, and intervene at the right time. Although chance determined, there’s an element of skill. Young males see it as a skill-based video game. Let’s move on to British casino culture. How would you describe the British casino as a social space? The Gambling Act was a step in the right direction for diversifying the appeal of casinos. I can go in and have a cheap cordon bleu meal – ten pounds for good food. I can enjoy slightly subsidised alcohol and spend a couple of hours at the roulette table. That’s four or five hours of entertainment with friends, and I’ve spent about £40. That’s cheaper than watching Nottingham Forest lose, and cheaper than watching Noel Gallagher at the arena. It’s great value. But the key is, I’m buying entertainment – I’m not going in with the goal of winning money. Compared to international resorts like Las Vegas, Atlantic City and Macau, our casinos are small and parochial. You could fit 20 or 30 of them into a Las Vegas resort. UK casinos have a hard-core clientele – less than 5 per cent of the British public have visited a casino in the past year. Why haven’t we seen British casinos branch out into Vegas style leisure and entertainment complexes? We could have had super casinos. I was part of a committee that awarded a super casino to Manchester, based on the location and operators that offered the best infrastructure in terms of player protection, harm minimisation and social responsibility. But then you had Gordon Brown come in as Prime Minister, and as a Presbyterian he made the top-down decision to veto super casinos, arguing that there were other ways to regenerate local economies. I think at some point, the government is going to realise the need for super casinos. A cost-benefit analysis favoured a super casino in Manchester. I did some research for Canadian gaming organisations where we talked about a centralised gaming model, which is essentially destination resort gambling. In a way, having a mecca is the most socially responsible way of controlling gambling. People need to make a precommitment to go there and gamble. In this country, we have too many ambient gambling experiences. You go into a chip shop, and there’s a slot machine, which means you gamble on impulse. Casinos and bingo halls are dedicated spaces.
Casinos are often described as an exercise in psychology. Can you provide some examples? Any design of any commercial environment uses psychology. When it comes to design, there are lots of things. Floor plan is key - in Las Vegas, it took me half an hour to get to the auditorium to see a show, by which time I’d passed thousands of slot machines. The sound of winning maximises availability bias, and music with high beats per minute makes people spend more money. We conducted a study at Nottingham Trent University which showed gamblers spend more money under red light than white light. These environmental influences are good at getting you to gamble in the first place, but they have a negligible impact on problem gambling. It’s the structural characteristics of the games that determine that. You talk a lot about socially responsible gambling. What kinds of measures exist to ensure this? How are operators embracing responsible gambling? I first coined the term in the mid-1990s. We’re now at a point where you can’t receive an operating license in the UK unless you’re displaying measures for protection and harm minimisation. We’ve come a long way. There are things to help players make informed decisions, and what I call the ‘seatbelt approach’ allows players set limits or temporarily exclude themselves. We want players to pre-commit to how much they want to gamble in terms of time and money. Online behavioural tracking is now widely available, and in the physical space, Norway and Sweden are leading the way with player cards which log gambling activity. I’ve developed a product called GamGuard – adopted by 30 companies - that assesses the riskiness of a game according to the structural characteristics designed in to it. Companies have a traffic light system for whether their product is likely to be problematic to a susceptible individual. They can make a decision about whether to change its characteristics, and adjust the availability and marketing of the product accordingly. We’ve seen a radical shift in past ten years, with every major company agreeing to a code of conduct. Protective measures and protocols will become second nature. Reporting by Sam Miranda. You can follow him on Twitter.
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It’s ICE time!
Glyn Thomas chats with Kate Chambers, Portfolio Director responsible for ICE, whom provides her insight on what to expect at the world’s largest business-to-business gaming event and explains why it’s essential for visitors to plan their time in order to get the very most out of three days in London Do you regard ICE as a brand or as a product? We had exactly this discussion at our team strategy meeting earlier in the year and the clear view is that ICE is a brand. Brands work continuously to deliver on behalf of their customers. Brands have a vision for the future as opposed to trading from year to year, they have a
relationship with their customers, a personality, they are trusted and respected and perhaps most importantly they make and live up to their promises/pledges. As the custodian of the ICE brand it’s my job to ensure that it continues to behave like a brand and continues to deliver on behalf of its stakeholders in everything that it does.
Can you explain the Sensational marketing theme for 2014? ICE Sensational is a truly experiential marketing campaign which is appearing throughout international gaming media, in print and digital direct marketing and in innovative social media promotions. Sensational works on many different levels both as an internationally understood descriptive but also as a communications platform to create compelling imagery pre-show and at show. The commitment we are making to our stakeholders is to build on the success of 2013 with a far reaching and truly ‘sensational’ multi-media campaign which connects with the 100+ nationalities who we welcome to London each year. Recently you announced a new event guide app, can you explain to our readership about this new service? Our mobile event guide app has been developed specifically for ICE Totally Gaming and ICE Conferences. The free app allows visitors to view the full event schedule, browse the latest product launches and develop a personal event planner that will remind them of appointments, business meetings, conferences and seminar sessions. It features a detailed interactive floor-plan that will help visitors navigate seamlessly around what is the world’s largest gaming expo as well as keeping them fully up-to-date with the latest developments through a link to the #ICE2014 social media tag. The event guide app is a dynamic, mobile window on the world’s biggest gaming exhibition and an essential information tool for visitors wanting to make appointments at show and generally keep connected with all of the latest developments both on and off the show floor. The ICE app will be available to download for free from the iTunes App Store and the Google Play Store. What’s new for 2014? To be honest, it’s difficult to know where to start! From an exhibitor perspective we have taken many of the stress points of 2013 away by adding an extra day to build-up and by doubling access in terms of the number of lorry ways. These are issues that we addressed immediately after the the 2013 edition was done and dusted and I’m pleased that we have dealt with the feedback from our customers face on. We have added some theatre to ICE 2014 and the ICE Sensational theme will certainly be an important
part of the overall experience for visitors attending the world’s most complete gaming event. We also have a new high level Networking & Business programme, which has been developed in partnership with gaming associations including IAGA, ECA, NCF and IAGR. Christened the Word Regulatory Assembly at ICE, it will open with a pre-show Cocktail Evening on Monday which will provide an opportunity for guests to network and prepare for the week ahead. This will be followed on Tuesday, by the World Regulatory Briefing, a high level, in-depth day focusing on regulation updates in key international jurisdictions. The Assembly will be completed by a Legal Masterclass comprising a series of free to attend, show floor seminars and surgeries which will deliver up-to-date insight and advice for the wider gaming industry. On the show floor there’s also a new sector dedicated to security, a topic which has a great deal of traction with our visitors. At the time of writing we have 64 new exhibitors from a current total of 487 which, in itself, is a powerful reason to attend. However, I believe the key characteristic of ICE Totally Gaming and the reason why so many buyers and influencers come to London each year from such a geographical spread of nations, is the plethora of new products and new services which are launched at this event every year. The symbiotic relationship between people and products is the basis of every commercial exchange event. The proposition is a simple one: people are attracted by the opportunity to see new products and the creators of new product are attracted by the opportunity to engage with a quality international audience of substance. The skill lies in bringing these elements together in a commercial environment. Where does the ICE Conference programme fit in to the proposition? ICE is a compelling proposition because it is both a commercial and an information exchange event. ICE Totally Gaming and ICE Conferences complement each other and there’s a significant cross over between the two; for example, the delegates who attend the International Casino Conference are also amongst the most loyal and dedicated visitors to ICE Totally Gaming. If you look at the Conference titles, which in addition to the International Casino Conference, include World Regulatory Briefing, CRM Loyalty & Retention, Mobile Gaming, Cybercrime Security & Regulatory Compliance
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In Gaming, and Monetising Social Gaming as well as two brand new conference streams; Game Design & Development and Next Generation Lotteries, all of the topics are right at the centre of the gambling debate and therefore totally relevant. How do you differentiate in the attendance figures between individuals who might spend an hour or so in the hall and the serious buyer who spends three days? That’s a very good question. Clearly someone who might simply be curious about the exhibition and undertaking a reccy of the event with a view to possibly taking a stand the following year, has a different value to someone who has made the journey to ICE with a specific purpose in mind and with a budget to invest in new equipment or with a brief to source a new supplier. If you spend two days at ICE the likelihood is that you should have a greater weighting than someone who spends two hours in the exhibition hall. To address this we have introduced the new metric of Visitor Days. Deeper analysis of the 2013 attendance data show that the number of visitor days (the average amount of time visitors spent at the event) increased from 1.51 days (2012) to 1.81 in 2013, taking the total number of visitor days spent at February’s event to 40,267. We believe that this is a more relevant measure of the potency of an event than simply quoting attendance figures, after all, the better the event the longer business people will
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spend at it and the more time they will have to spend with exhibitors. Would you also advise attendees to contact exhibitors ahead of the show in order that they have a time and location pre-planned in advance of ICE? As ICE continues to grow I think that’s becoming more and more important. The independent research we commissioned from Vivid Interface after the 2013 edition, showed that exhibitors held on average 52 business meetings at ICE, a figure, which when applied across the 481 exhibiting companies, totals some 25,012 commercial gatherings over the duration of the exhibition. The most active 3% of exhibitors packed in more than 200 business meetings over the duration of the three days. We are encouraging visitors to preplan their meetings with exhibitors to ensure that they don’t miss out on the huge commercial opportunities which are available. It’s clear that exhibitors come to ICE intent on doing business, with the research sample expecting on average 28% of their meetings to result in a positive commercial outcome. The challenge for visitors is to ensure that they are able to meet with the exhibitors they want to do business with and clearly the best way to achieve that is to arrange meetings in advance of the exhibition opening rather than simply leaving it to chance on arrival. ICE is simply too popular an event to stage meetings at, to risk missing out.
What has been your feed-back from attendees to the ExCeL as a venue along with their opinions on of its facilities as well as its location on the outside edge of the City with regards to commuting either from the surrounding area of to the exhibition for evening events in the City Centre as well as from getting to the venue from a central London base. We have certainly learned some lessons from build-up which we have addressed and which you’ve covered in an earlier question. It’s important to learn lessons from mistakes and we held our hands up to something we hadn’t anticipated and moved with as much speed as possible to resolve. The key reasons we took up residency at ExCeL is because it is the only London venue which gives us the ability to expand and because it is a modern purpose built venue. We put a lot of resource into promoting the new venue to our stakeholders and the audited attendance figure of of 22,247 unique attendees, was a 4.3% increase on 2012, 8.6% up on 2011 and a 17.8% uplift on 2010. ExCeL is in a growing and vibrant part of London which was home to the 2012 London Olympics. It’s next to Canary Wharf, the financial capital not just of the UK but of Europe and adjacent to London City Airport. It’s a key part of London’s transport hub and visitors can travel from Custom House at ExCeL to Green Park underground – part of London’s Luxury Quarter – in less than 40minutes. ExCeL will be new to some of our international guests and I think the positives vastly outweigh the negatives.
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It’s an even, bigger show with even more exhibitors, what provisions have you in place to assist attendees to navigating around new layout for 2014’s show? We are doing our very best to make ICE as accessible as possible and the changes that we have made to the configuration of the show floor – essentially making it squarer by going into both the south and north halls, will make it easier to navigate and stimulate visitor flow. The ICE app, which we have talked about in an earlier question, will also be a huge help and of course we have both digital and printed collateral available before and at show. Our friends in the gaming media play a central role in keeping ICE visitors updated on what exhibitors are planning to show and where they are located, as does the official show site icetotallygaming.com <http://icetotallygaming.com> . But ICE is a big show – the biggest event of its type in world gaming and in order to get the very best from a visit it is advisable to do some research, become familiar with the venue and pre-plan your business meetings. What’s your final message to visitors? Our message which is relevant to all of our stakeholders is, if you think 2013 was big – think even bigger for 2014! To register for the world’s most influential gaming exhibition, which comprises 55,00sqm of gaming innovation, go to www.icetotallygaming.com
ould be Internet Gambling C the Big Issue in 2014 – Nov 20, 2013 The Brandenton Times
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Is this the Real Life.. Is this just Fantasy? JJ Woods of Atlantic Casino Consultants was expecting a lot more from the latest changes to the bill on Gaming in Ireland DIARY On 15 July 2013, Alan Shatter TD, Minister for Justice, Equality and Defence, announced government approval for the General Scheme of the Gambling Control Bill 2013 (the “Scheme”). This Scheme is a preliminary step towards legislation, which if enacted will provide a significant overhaul of the law in this area and a comprehensive new licensing and regulatory framework for gambling, both land-based and online. As it stands, the Scheme has no legal effect, but provides an indication of the Government’s current thinking. The current legislation dates back to 1956 and is widely recognised as being archaic. Submissions to the Gambling Bill were invited by the Government Committee to reach their offices by the end of August this year and the hearing to these submissions were held in mid-October. The report
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on the submissions was released on November 7th and they are available to view at www.justice. ie This is a brief opinion on parts of the Bill and I have focused on Casinos/ Tourism and Tax. OPINION: The Government’s gambling control bill needs several amendments and I am sure that they understand that now. The Bill itself was eagerly awaited by many in the Gaming Industry an Industry that Ireland is slowly awakening to. Considering that it is taken 57 years and 45 years after the UK introduced a Gaming Legislation I guess the fairest comment would be that it did not set the gaming world on fire. CASINOS: It sets out a maximum limit of 40 casino licences that can be in operation at any one time in Ireland and limits the number of tables in casinos to a maximum of 15 and gaming machines to 25. It also suggests that the minimum amount of tables in a Casino should be 3 . These recommendations are in short nonsense! Ireland’s current population could not support any more than 15 Casinos at an absolute maximum.
As for the 15 table / 25 slots I would like to see the business model for this and to top it off the suggestion that 3 table Casino models should also be allowed? In my experience of countries in a pre-legislative state several small time operators opened 2-4 table type of models because there was no taxes enforced and there was no regulation, When it came to fitting out the premises they more or less did what they wanted knowing that when legislation arrived they would more than likely have to close up as they certainly would not be able to compete with the larger operators after legislation. Incredibly the Government Bill is catering for these types of Casinos after legislation and one does wonder what preparation and study was done in this area not to mention the message Ireland is sending out to the International Gaming World. TOURISM AND RESORTS: The Bill surprisingly makes no connection between Tourism and Casinos, Ireland relies heavily on tourism. Casinos and especially where they are located could and does play a part in Tourism in other countries . Prior to the Bill the Justice minister said that the Bill would not cater for resort style casinos as he did not think that they would work in Ireland. Whilst the minister was referring to one project in particular which is referred to as the Tipperary Project normally, I feel that the message that the Bill is sending out to investors Worldwide is extremely negative for a country that is years late entering one of the fastest growing industries today. A Resort style Casino does not necessarily have to be on a grand scale in fact by definition it should offer other leisure facilities besides the Casino. So in theory a Casino situated in a Hotel that has gymnasium, swimming pool, spa etc could be a resort style model. Ireland has an abundance of Golf courses and Racecourses and Hotels of which some are struggling in the present economy , A Casino facility could enhance their respective revenues which is why we should not rule out this type of Casino without fully investigating where it could be best located. TAX This is the area that the Bill avoided for now. It is
fair to say that no operator/investor will look too closely at the Bill until they have indications as to what to expect. Tax is by far the most important part of a new gaming legislation and will decide what companies are attracted here and how the Gaming Industry in general performs here. Yes of course Ireland should have rolled out itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new gaming legislation years ago and I particularly think that 2005 would have been an opportune time as the UK was then going through deregulation and I think most would agree this was not a successful transition and I feel Ireland might have capitalised on that whole issue as the Investors were very close by! The reality now is we will probably be the last country in Europe to introduce a new gaming legislation as Cyprus is already working on theIrs and interestingly they have started raids and a clean up campaign on illegal operators in Cyprus. Ireland on the other hand have allowed a significant amount of Slot Arcades and Casino Clubs to open with no proper licenses which will make the clean up all the more complicated unless of course they allow them all to stay open which is suggested in the Bill. If the Government really want to take the Gaming Industry seriously then because of their late entry into the market they may find that they will have to offer tax incentives to attract online and land based operators to our shores. The Gambling Bill for me has always been more restrictive than regulated and I feel from here on that the whole issue should have a more positive approach, why canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Ireland not become a Gaming Hub, a mini Las Vegas? Why not? I mean is the whole issue real life or just fantasy!! Atlantic Casino Consultants is a Company set up to deal specifically with the Irish Market and the impending Casino Legislation. JJ Woods Director of Operations founded and set up the Company in 2006, He was born in Ireland but left in the Seventies to live in London and for a career in Banking that lasted nearly four years after which he joined the Casino Industry in London where he trained and has over the last 25 years been involved in the setting up, design, management, and opening of Casinos around the world.
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GAMIFICATION THE NEXT BIG THING IN HUMAN RESOURCES Casinos should be ahead of the pack, by Janice Chaka International Correspondent Casino Life
C
ompanies are always looking for new ways to hire, train and motivate staff as well as to promote their health and wellness. Employee turnover is always a big problem and a gamble. You never know how a new employee is going to turn out. However, one of the ways that this is being used to reduce turnover and attract millennial talent is the use of gamification. What is gamification? It is the idea of adding typical game elements e.g. point scoring, levels etc. to an already existing process like recruiting, in order to encourage engagement. No job is fully described in even the best written job description. How many times have you started a new job only to discover all sorts of hidden things that you did not know about it? From who reports to you, to what your day to day job actually is. Gamification helps with this, because the idea is to take the risk out of a new hire for an employer and too give the candidate a good insight into what the job is really like. This will help reduce turnover, and increases employee job satisfaction. The great thing about Gamification is that it brings out our competitive nature, and by doing this we become more engaged. It is addictive because we need to get to the next level, face the next challenge and feel the sense of accomplishment for doing so. Like a trainee dealer learning how to deal roulette and work out a bet in a set amount of time, after which they can move on to a more complicated bet. Once they have mastered roulette they can then move on to black jack or poker. All of this and more can be done in a game like setting. This might not help with chip or card skills but it will help with the mental math needed to be a dealer. For pit bosses and managers it can be used to simulate having
a dispute on one table and sorting out the shift change at the same time. For waitress staff it can be multiple drinks/food orders etc. The possibilities are endless. There are a lot of companies already using gamification; from hotel chains to start ups. Gamification can be used as part of the hiring or assessment process but should not be used alone as a tool to decide whether to hire someone or not. It can help to shorten the hiring process, which can be very helpful for our time to hire metrics. Anyone can create a good resume or have someone do it for them, and because of the internet, most people now know the right things to say to get through an interview. But one thing you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do is cheat a gaming system. So in this way gamification can help create a good baseline and help you gather much needed data, which you can then analyze on your applicants. There are many companies out there that you can contact about this form of assessing applicants. Just make sure that what they offer fits your needs and that you can get the data you want from the assessments in a clear format. Make sure it makes sense to add it to your recruiting process and that managers see the benefits of this method compared to what you currently do. Most companies will give you a trial so that you can test it and see its strengths and weaknesses. Also, check if it is compatible with your current applicant tracking/management system. Gamification also has uses in onboarding and training new staff it can actually be a very efficient way of bringing someone up to speed. It also has the plus point of being interactive and can be done virtually. No one enjoys endless discussions on Power Point. So why not use this as an alternative?
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CLIMBING
KILIMANJARO Four months ahead of ICE Totally Gaming at ExCeL London (February 4-6), a team of gaming industry professionals travelled to Tanzania to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. ICEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Rebecca Harris joined the team, embracing the challenge to raise money for the Responsible Gambling Trust. Here is a diary of her expedition to the summit
DAY 1 Today is the first day of the adventure, kind of. I spent the morning packing and repacking my bags, checking my equipment lists to make sure that I hadn’t forgotten anything, then unpacked and repacked one last time to make sure. I arrived at London Heathrow and meet with my group, most of whom are strangers. It’s a little weird to think that I’ll be heading up Africa’s largest mountain with them, but they all look like a great bunch of people. Just have to get through customs first. DAY 2 After nearly eight hours on the plane we land in Addis Ababa for our change-over to be confronted with Ethiopian cockroaches! They’re not a pretty sight and I was glad to be getting on the plane to Kilimanjaro. It all seems very real at this point - there’s only so much training and preparation you can do and the enormity of the task finally sinks in that night. We arrive in Kilimanjaro and take a further two-hour bus journey to Marangu to meet our guide. After a tiring day we have dinner and head straight to bed.
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DAY 3 Precious final shower in the morning and a full-breakfast. After final prep we all drive out to the start point and begin with a four-hour, 650m climb through the alpine rainforest. What a welcome. We have an excellent view of the Kenyan plains and everyone is in good spirits. It was amazing watching our porters, who run on ahead carrying the tents and food. We have all the latest hiking gear while they barely have proper shoes, but they are infinitely faster than us, never complain and don’t stop smiling. On arrival at camp, they’ve set up the tents, including the dining tent, which is a welcome sight. DAY 4 The first real day starts with a cup of tea and breakfast. Our cooks are the true heroes of the trip, and take a bow to raucous applause each meal-time. They’re truly amazing and the food is wonderful, especially for these conditions. Today we trek for eight hours and climb a further
1000m in altitude while on the way to the Kikelewa Caves. The altitude change is already taking its toll, with some of the group starting to struggle with headaches and tired muscles, but everyone pushes on. Most of us are in bed by 8pm tonight, although Robbie Savage is enjoying a captive audience with his football talk. DAY 5 Today we set off on a short but steep climb up the grassy slopes and the views just get better and better. Our walk to Mawenzi Tarn takes seven hours and is situated a further 600m higher up. By this point most people are showing symptoms of the altitude – headaches, dizziness and tiredness. Bed time gets earlier and dinner conversation doesn’t stray far from who has had the fewest hours sleep, tips on how to stay warm in your sleeping bag and who snores the loudest. By now the air is quite thin so putting on your coat and walking at a ‘normal’ pace leaves you short of breath. A very strange feeling!
DAY 6 It’s a beautiful clear morning, perfect for our wellneeded rest day. We did have to get up and out for an acclimatisation walk though, which was hit by rain and wind which, despite our best efforts, dampened everyone’s spirits. We went up some steep slopes and learnt how to run back down the scree, which I’m told is the most efficient and painless way to descend the slope. We spend the rest of the afternoon at camp, sleeping, eating and playing cards; not very adventurous but everyone is tired and most have headaches. All the talk turns to tomorrow evening – summit night. DAY 7 Today we cross the most open part of the trek to our final campsite before summit. It took five hours and just walking towards the peak all day is a little frightening as it’s getting very big! We have lunch followed by an afternoon nap until dinner. Our summit approach begins at 11pm tonight. Everyone is too full of excitement and trepidation to sleep; no one knows what to expect.
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DAY 8 We head out after some porridge, toast and biscuits – pretty much whatever we can stomach. Even getting dressed for this climb is an ordeal – I’m wearing all the six pairs of trousers I brought and eight layers on the top, so moving, and certainly putting on a rucksack, seem like monumental tasks. Walking through the night is a particular kind of torture – there is no concept of time at this point – just mindless zigzagging, following your head torch and the footsteps of the person in front of you. The final hour to the peak is the most picturesque of the trip as the sun is rising. It’s a clear day and you can see for miles. It is, however, difficult to appreciate the views when the wind is so strong and at minus 20C, it’s almost too cold to take your gloves off to take a photo! We didn’t stay more than ten minutes at the top due to the conditions, but the feeling is euphoric, such a great achievement and I’m so proud to have finished. A quick photo in front of the infamous green sign is all that we could manage before heading down to the oxygen-rich air we now need.
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DAY 9 The early start is easy today since we know it is downhill all the way from here. After breakfast our support staff sing us the Kilimanjaro song and a few tears are shed. We start our descent, which takes about six hours and leads us through a lot of beautiful forest scenery. Thankfully, a cold beer is waiting for us at the end. Tomorrow we relax some more before heading home, exhausted but exhilarated. Rebecca would like to thank ICE Totally Gaming, ACE Publishing Ltd, Gambling Compliance, Gambling Insider, InterGaming, iNTERGAMINGi, Casino Life, Bingo Life, Gaming Intelligence and Scott & Jones for their support. If you would like to make a donation to the Responsible Gambling Trust, go to mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/ rebeccaclimbskili. For any further information, please go to www.icetotallygaming.com To register for the world’s most influential gaming exhibition, which comprises 55,00sqm of gaming innovation, go to www.icetotallygaming.com
Cybercrime thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s only for internet casino businesses!
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Andrea Flynn of AA Casino provides her solution to the vulnerability of Cyberattack
f you believe so you may wish to take a look at this incident which resulted in one casino VIP customer losing the equivalent of $387,000 from his funds deposited at a casino on Avenida da Amizade in Macau earlier this year. The high roller left his funds at the casino cash desk on account. Customers must provide personal information such as their contact number to the VIP room when they deposit money into its account. Should any customer entrust another person to withdraw the money, then employees would call the customer using the contact number they have on file in their computer system to confirm this person is entitled to make the withdrawal. The system appears to have flaws such as money laundering but however, up until now the casino was satisfied with it. So, when two men walked into the casino and requested the funds stating they had the permission of the owner, naturally the VIP room called the number listed on the customerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s records. The person on the other
end of the phone confirmed they were acting on his behalf and rightly so the casino paid out the 3 million Hong Kong dollars to the two gentlemen. When the real owner of the money popped by the casino to use his funds to play, the casino insisted they had been given his authority to pay out the two visitors. That is until they confirmed his contact number, then realised the casino computer system had been penetrated and the contact details altered. The police were called in and luckily the two culprits were apprehended when reentering Macau from Hong Kong. They will face public prosecution for illegally entering a computer system, altering data as well as belonging to a criminal organization. So, if a major casino has the risk of having their in-house system penetrated, what chance do the rest of us have? We discussed this with our professional hacker (known as PH). PH gave us that smile that you give when you hear a joke and already know the punch line. What was new
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to us was daily bread and butter to him. He enlightened us by detailing network vulnerabilities. Every casino, whether online or bricks and mortar, uses computer networks and hackers can easily gain access through various methods. PH illustrated his unique and valuable skills by explaining how a very recent and high profile client discreetly engaged his services to test their system security. He gained access quickly and easily through a test server left unprotected. This gave PH access to the online casinos’ internal network and eventually to their sensitive servers thus gaining passwords to the gaming servers. But what about internal networks we asked? They aren’t exposed to the internet. PH enlightened us that internal networks are not secure either. Due mainly to Trojans and other malicious software that infiltrate via infected employee laptops. Attackers will make use of malware to gain access and once in, the security is found to be extremely lax as the company still believes this internal system is a secure environment. From our own experiences in major online companies, we knew this to be true. Many employees are granted extra privileges such as taking laptop home. Family members may use the laptop for their own use, may install and run programs that contain a back door or even simply use programs such as Skype that cannot easily be monitored for security incidents. We all are pretty sure we are vigilant on what we do with our laptops though and PH realizing how confident we were demonstrated an example from another casino company contract. He created a Skype account which looked like it was coming from his casino client. He then did a search for employees that stated publicly they also worked for the same casino company. After contacting them he stated he was the casino computer administrator and after a short conversation PH requested they run a program he would send them. The majority of employees complied which inevitably gave PH access to the victim employee’s computer and of course access to the main internal network. Once in, PH is in a position to gain access to further systems and access customer details as well as all other sensitive information that was not protected. PH’s role at this point is to highlight these weaknesses to his client and propose recommendations to secure
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the system. The professional fraudster wouldn’t be so helpful until they have taken what they can for financial gain. Luckily for us, PH is available for penetrative testing and we will gladly recommend his services. However, if any company still feels they are not vulnerable, then here are some quick reminders; • ANTI-FRAUD The online casino anti-fraud department are pretty good at stopping any attacker sending funds to a predetermined bank account. However their own vulnerabilities are in the back-end which is often excluded from security checks. PH confirmed he has accessed those even protected by firewall and not publicly accessible. Once in you are free to access customer data and reset passwords if you so wish. • CASINO WEBSITE If your website has nothing of value then even your reputation is greatly at stake. However, should you add items of value such as other web applications then one vulnerable web application can compromise the underlying system and any other website on the same system. • ONLINE CASINO WEBSITE Firstly and obviously is the illegal access to customers’ accounts and banking page. More frightening is the penetration of the game rules. On one such attack, PH was able to compromise a game of his clients’ website to pay-out each time he lost! This was done by altering the game to permit wagers in negative number of chips. One attack on a banking page permitted PH to add credits to his account by fooling the system that a third party payment gateway had authorised deposits into the account, using his own custom developed program. • Networks are used by both casinos and online casinos. As previously described, once you know how, it appears to be the easiest system to penetrate and at the expense of the integrity of the casino as well as loss of custom and funds. Luckily, PH is on the side of the good guys only, and in superhero style, uses his skills to protect the weak preventing incidents before they happen. Please feel free to contact us at AA Casino Solutions for your first consultation on Website Penetration.
SPOTLIGHT – New products
Organic
Expansion Interblock install the popular G4 Organic in Uruguay
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nterblock together with South American distributor Koala Gaming recently installed another G4 Organic Roulette™ in Football Shape with 10 player stations in Punta del Este, Uruguay as part of the strategic plan for South American market for continued expansion. We can proudly announce the installation was carried out very successfully. Mr. Gonzalo Téllez, Director of Koala Gaming, explained, “Interblock’s Organic Roulette in eyecatching Football shape is one of the most sophisticated products, which first entered the Chilean and soon after Uruguayan. We strongly believe in the further expansion of Interblock’s excellent performing products. Our next step will be Peru, a country we look at, with great interest.“ Mr. Tomaz Zvipelj, CEO at Interblock, further commented the installation, “In the past year we have made tremendous step forward in South American market. After placing several products in Chile and Uruguay, exhibiting at Peru Gaming Show in August, we believe Interblock brand awareness has been strengthened and market is starting to open up with
several new opportunities.” Conrad Punta del Este Resort & Casino Being one of the best known casinos in the continent, the Resort is located in the heart of Punta del Este, only 15 minutes from the international airport. The Conrad Punta del Este Resort and Casino is a Hotel with a Las Vegas Casino style, unique in the region, attracts players from all around Europe and Asia. It’s been strategically located on the east of Argentina, 35 minutes from Buenos Aires by airplane, and from the south of Brazil, 2 hours and a half of Sao Paulo. Interblock team is looking forward to further cooperation with our South American distributor, Koala Gaming and believes that many more casinos in Uruguay and South America will decide to upgrade their venues with Interblock products! Book your presentation of the Organic4 at the Interblock booth S6 110 during ICE Totally Gaming 2014 by emailing tina.ferko@ elektroncek.eu as well as register for the show at www.icetotallygaming.com. www.interblock.eu
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ExCeL, London 4 - 6 Feb 2014
Totally Gaming
If you thought ICE 2013 was big, think bigger! For free entry to the most SEnSationaL gaming expo in the world register at icetotallygaming.com
Multi-popularity for Alfastreetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s EGMs These last 3 months have been especially busy for Alfastreet with business trips and exhibiting at shows 2013 Chris Sanson caught up with Albert Radman during a brief pause between flights. How was this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s G2e for the company? Very successful indeed. The G2E in Las Vegas is one of the most important gaming exhibitions in the world and has huge influence on everything happening in our field. We are present every year and it gives us great pleasure as itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the perfect opportunity to meet and great our clients, colleagues, friends and of course get great feedback from the visitors regarding our latest products. Is it reasonable to say that the companies main
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focus for growth is overseas? Most definitely. These markets have the highest potential for growth, new venues are being open almost every day. Since our beginnings almost 20 years ago (we are actually celebrating 20th anniversary in 2014) all our efforts have been focused on the world markets, as we strive to be the best in our field. To be the best you have to meet and exceed the worlds highest standards. The brand Alfastreet has been, since we started, a synonym for quality and excellence in all world
markets and we are proud to see our products get recognition in all world markets, from Asia to the US. What was your opinion on the numbers & general quality of inquiries from the shows you have attended over recent months? We have received very good feedback on all shows we have been to – which directly reflected on the demand for our products. The decision makers from all over the world are present on G2E Las Vegas and we are getting a chance to meet and establish collaboration with new partners on each edition. These contacts immediately transfer to orders and we are happy to see successful new installations happening as we speak, thus strengthening our position at all world markets. We are already excited about ICE London, so that we can get together with our existing and future partners and show them our production. The Big Wheel is a popular Game for Alfastreet what are the essential features that make it so popular in addition to its striking eye-catching design? It is the latest and literally the brightest addition to our range. The technical design is amazingly unique and gives the player the most realistic experience, when it spins, therefore intensifies the thrill of anticipation. Everybody gets involved completely and this is what I believe made it such a huge hit. The build quality standards are the highest and it is made to bring thrill and joy to players all over the world and of course great satisfaction to our clients. As with all our products extensive testing has been performed for this unique design and we can
guarantee flawless operation on any casino floor. What where the other games that were a hit at G2e for Alfastreet 2013 and will they be at ICE 2014?. Alfastreet prepared unique design for our machines specially for G2E Las Vegas. Our single terminals and the R8 got a special leather, precious wood inserts, and the spectacular RGB LED lighting, that can be changed with a smart phone application. The outside has been covered in special black and white carbon. Overall the effect was just stunning, as all of our visitors were completely surprised and (what pleases us the most) wanted to have them! We believe this is the ultimate recognition for all our efforts. We also presented some new playing options of our existing games and some new ones. The “Multigame” option on our machines is gaining a lot of acclaim, a player can choose whichever combination of our games he wishes, therefore maximizing his or her enjoyment and winning options. For ICE 2014 we are preparing some huge surprises, as we want it to be unforgettable – as you already know, next year will be very special for us in so many ways and we want our friends, clients and colleagues to enjoy it with us! With ICE 2014 a matter of month’s away can you provide readers with an insight into any of the organizations plan’s for what is a very special year for Alfastreet. As I already mentioned, we are preparing something very special, and we’d like to take this occasion and send a very warm invitation to all Casino Live readers, to come and visit us, and uncover all the surprises together with us!
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SPOTLIGHT – New products
Flashdance™ The Newest Aristocrat Class III Game Category
“
What a feeling!” That’s what slot players everywhere will soon be cheering when Aristocrat’s new Flashdance™ slot game dances its way across the casino floor. Flashdance is a new 50-line, five-level progressive video slot game that is as much fun as the iconic movie it based on. All your favorite characters from the movie are here along with songs from the legendary soundtrack. Hi-def sound and a surround sound iChair™ completely immerses players in the game for a fun time that will have them break dancing in the aisles and spinning on their backs with excitement. Housed in the award-winning VIRIDIAN WS™ cabinet, the incredible Flashdance graphics and animation stretches out across the 21.5” LCD widescreen all the way to the 31.5” LCD feature top box. Bonus features include Maniac Free Spins, where players collect Sticky Scatters to increase wins; What a Feeling Free Spins, where players collect Scatters to unlock free spin games in the top box to produce more wilds, and wilds cascade to lower games creating more wins; Dynamic Stacked Symbols, where stacked symbols increase wins; the I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll Remix where symbols remix for a chance to win more credits; and the Flashdance Progressive where players collect records to determine their progressive jackpot prize. Preferred denominations are 1c, 2c and 5c. The new Flashdance Slot Game – it’s not just a game; it’s an Aristocrat game! For more information, call your Aristocrat Account Representative at (702) 270-1000.
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A BRAND NEW GAME The combination of SG Gaming and WMS with Williams Interactive provides a platform for world-class gaming hardware, content and service.
VISIT US AT ICE 2014 MONOPOLY is a trademark of Hasbro. Used with permission. ©2013 Hasbro. All rights reserved. BEETLEJUICE, WILLY WONKA: TM & © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. THE WIZARD OF OZ: TM & © Turner Entertainment Co. (s14) [20-Nov-13] ©2013 WMS Gaming Inc. All rights reserved.
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