L-R: Roberto Perea Alarcia, International Sales Manager and Javier Berasategui, Managing Director at Fournier
“A reliable and efficient tool connecting the worlds of live and remote gaming,” is how Roberto Perea Alarcia, International Sales Manager at Fournier, has described the success of the company’s BEE-TEK Electronic Shoe with customers and operators alike over the last year. Taking centre stage on Fournier’s showcase at this year’s ICE London, the innovative BEE-TEK smart dealing shoe is primed to strengthen relationships between the two verticals whilst introducing games such as Baccarat to new markets present at the international event in February.
Commenting on their decision to develop the technology’s connectivity between land-based and online, Roberto explained: “ICE London is to us arguably one of the most important events. It offers to us the possibility to meet a great number of existing and potential customers, present our products and get a feeling on the market. Today it is a fact that remote and live casino gaming are more interlinked than ever and one of our main objectives for this year is to continue finding new operators in need of a solution which can integrate live and remote gaming.”
“At present the solution we cover with our BEE-TEK Electronic Shoe is the need for conversion of game information into data that can be sent out to remote players,” he continued. “There are systems in the market that read barcodes printed in the card faces to transmit out the information. However this solution does not recreate a full casino experience as players want to play on-line with the same cards that are played in a regular casino. In our case playing cards have a completely normal appearance. Their success is in their invisible codes (B-codes™) that guarantee that all card values are perfectly read. We launched the technology in 2011 and since then our BEE-TEK Shoe has read over 2.0 billion hands without a single value read incorrectly.”
As a globally recognised industry brand, Fournier’s consolidation of its products across the globe has highlighted a number of key trends with both land-based casino players and remote gamers across a number of territories internationally. Originally we launched the Bee-tek Electronic Shoe for Baccarat tables in Macau as casinos needed a solution that could offer security/integrity to the game. Later on, the Bee-tek Shoe spread onto North American Baccarat tables and more recently to the rest of the world, as more and more operators introduced the game to attract Asian players. In line with this phenomenon, we have also witnessed another growing trend with the advance of Remote Gaming. Operators, many of them in Europe, that are in need to integrate live and remote gaming, have demonstrated to us how the shoe is one of the most reliable tools for integration and sending information from live tables to remote players.”
“At Fournier we enjoy learning from players because their feedback is key to make a great gaming experience,” he added. “Online players have in fact similar demands to those playing at the physical table. They value a game with no stops and flowing at a good pace. In this sense the seamless performance of our BEE-TEK Electronic Shoe helps to create that great experience for all players, either online or sitting at the casino table.”
As the BEE-TEK continues to give players, dealers and operators what they need both inside casinos and online, Fournier is not resting on its laurels as the company continues to enhance the possibilities of the electronic shoe alongside its other core product base. “We start 2019 with many plans ahead,” explained Roberto. “Considering the potential of remote gaming and its ongoing popularity, we want to continue learning about what else is needed in order to bring new solutions to the table, literally. We are focusing on developing solutions that can bring peace of mind and increased productivity to operators such as such as the Pre-Shuffled playing cards for Baccarat which today have become industry standards.”
He concluded: “In the last five years the expansion has been global. As I said before, in markets where there was no tradition of Baccarat have implemented the game to attract Asian players and our products have been there hand in hand to usher in this trend. With the BEE-TEK, we keep bringing security and speed to the game. We also give confidence to the croupiers and, crucially, improve the profitability of the casinos. Now that’s something you can bet on!”
To see a demonstration of the BEE-TEK Electronic Shoe at ICE London or to find out more about Fournier’s entire portfolio, please contact rperea@nhfournier.es
