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DEQ the Hall
Casino International caught up with Earle Hall, President and CEO of DEQ Systems, which specialises in progressive jackpots and table games. He’s looking forward to the casino industry catching up to DEQ’s G3 table game jackpot system…
DEQ is enjoying success on success, with installation after installation worldwide. What is the key to this rapid growth? Innovation and more innovation, as Earle Hall told Casino International.
Casino International: What is DEQ’s core product?
Earle Hall: Our core product is a platform called G3. It’s really the only innovation the international gaming community has seen in progressive jackpots in 25 years. There was only one generation of technology out there until DEQ showed up. That’s our heart, who we are as a company – we’re a tech company. Another part of the company is our table games division, we have some game titles like EZ Baccarat out on the market. But everything we do is intimately tied to the notions of side betting and jackpots.
CI: EZ Baccarat has enjoyed a lot of success lately – what makes it different?
EH: EZ Baccarat is a re-engineering of the operating system of Baccarat; it’s as though Baccarat is a Windows system and EZ Baccarat is a Apple Macintosh. Baccarat has some inherent problems, one of which is the commission, which has no purpose other than slowing the game and creating accounting errors for the casino. It’s hard for the dealer to collect commission from a player that’s just lost $5,000! A company called the Talisman Group in the US came out with an amazing innovation where they completely erased the commission by baring one of the hands on the banker’s side and creating a side bet that offsets the deception with excitement, rather than deception. While the methodology they invented was covered within the scope of our patents, we owe all the credit to Talisman Group for the marriage of the no commission with the side bet as well as the marketing approach and product packaging. They simply created a revolution in baccarat. What we did to complement that innovation was to create a Baccarat scoring system, which is tailored to the statistics the player needs and tracking the incurrence of the side bet. It’s more tailored to gameplay than just posting statistics on a board. As well, it automates to most electronic baccarat shoes and tracks the occurrence of the Dragon 7 side bet.
CI: Earlier you mentioned G3 – what is G3?
EH: It’s very simple really. If you look back 20 years a slot machine and a table game side betting system were exactly the same thing in the principles that were behind them; you took a 25-cent piece and you put it in a slot machine, and pulled on a handle and you saw whether you won or lost. A side betting system at the same time was exactly that. You put a dollar chip into a coin slot, and it qualified you for the progressive side bet. Slots today though have nothing to do with 25-cent pieces – they are multiple lines, multiple credits, multiple jackpots, and the level of innovation is impressive. If you look at what DEQ has done, we have observed and mirrored the evolution of the slot machine space into the table game area. Our systems are not based on dollar chips, they are based on credits like a slot machine. So when a player wants to play the side bet, they simply load up their mini computer that sits in front of them and they play credits. You used to only be able to play one chip at a time on a table game side bet, now you can do multiple credits in a side bet. Until we showed up, you could only bet on your own cards but now we have a second bet called the Dealer Bet, then a second jackpot, and a third…
CI: What markets is G3 for?
EH: This can be applied to every single table game in the world, pretty much. Different table games appeal to different customers geographically, so we created something that could be used all over the world. The only place we haven’t yet entered into with our side bet system is Roulette.
CI: What make G3 special in technology terms?
EH: Our side betting systems themselves are completely wireless; the servers are wireless, and the connections are wireless. These are things we showed at G2E in Las Vegas two years ago. We had a table in Europe, one in China, one in Canada, and one in South America wirelessly and securely hooked up to play the same wide area jackpot. As well, the technology base of our platform is built so that innovation is simple and fast to develop.
CI: So why isn’t every casino chain using G3 when you could have a huge wide area jackpot rolling on any card game?
EH: Innovation is sometimes scary and the gaming industry has been reputed for slow, sure steps. Once one of the casino chains decides to step up to the plate and innovate at the level other industries have, once one of them decides to do a worldwide jackpot, we are already waiting for them. Las Vegas Sands in Macau will probably the first casino chain in the world to accomplish this feat. We are currently installed at the Sands Macau and the next installation should be at the Venetian Macau with the goal of connecting the two casinos together. As well, we are very excited about an ongoing project with Cannery Casinos in Las Vegas Nevada. We are currently in submission with the Nevada Gaming Control Board with our Linking Product “Real Link.” Once it is approved, we will link all three casinos together on targeted table games.
CI: What has been the driver behind your growth, all the installations you have enjoyed in the last 12-18 months?
EH: We’re a long way into a major recession in the US; when things were going well for everyone four years or so ago, most casinos were not really looking to innovate. They were making money, so innovation wasn’t a great priority for them. But the last couple of years has seen a fair few casinos turn to technology companies and ask, “How can you help me make those extra dollars that will make the difference between profit or loss?” That’s where EZ Baccarat steps up, it’s a no brainer for increasing the revenue on Baccarat tables. The G3 is also simple; with side bet technology that’s out there now, on a table game with six seats the maximum side betting revenue they can make with legacy technology is six chips per hour. Six dollars a round. If you take that technology and replace it with DEQ’s G3 technology you’re going into multiple credits and two ways to bet, so your revenue immediately goes up with no extra labour or added costs.
CI: So the recession has been quite kind to you?
EH: It’s been a big part of what has put us on the map I think, with some major casino chains asking how we can help them maximize revenue.
We had a really good product back then, but right product + wrong time = failure. Our product has evolved a little bit over the last few years, but the market has evolved to need our product. It addresses a very specific need, and the time is right for that need to be met.
CI: Where does DEQ come from, what’s the company’s background?
EH: From day one, we have been doing what we are doing now. That’s why our technology is far ahead of everything else out there. From our inception, our patents – of which there are more than 20, which are around progressive and random side betting in 54 countries – are focussed on this. In our 12 years as a company, eight of those years were focussed on patents and building the technology. Then there was two years of pre-commercialisation and testing with a client, re-engineering to make sure the product fits the casino’s needs. We have also spent two long years obtaining more than 50 jurisdictional licenses. Our goal is to have 100 jurisdictional licenses in the next 18 months. so what you have seen in these last 12 to 18 months is the fruit of all that hard work.
CI: What are your main markets, to date?
EH: The company was kind of built in three phases – first in South America, because we had a strong distributor down there. We captured about 75 to 80 per cent of that market in a short period of time. We’ve had great success in Eastern Europe as well, as a couple of major chains adopted our technology. And the last 18 months or so, we have had great success in North America. But the trend of the last six or seven months has seen us pop up with product in Singapore and Macau, Malaysia and we hope to be in Australia pretty soon too.
www.deq.com
