This is just the first part of our show report – there’s much more to follow in the next issue, as the show offered far too much to cover in one report. Interestingly, some exhibitors expressed an interesting point of view; that G2E would suffer next year because of the date change, which was instigated so the show could have regular dates in consistent halls with the room to expand if necessary. Some major exhibitors expounded the theory that this year was testing the waters for many Europe-based companies, as with the show now so much closer to ICE in January, next year there was a good chance many companies would only exhibit at one of the two major northern hemisphere shows. This makes sense, as with the separation last year of four months there was enough time for companies to have new product at both; now there is just eight weeks between the shows, after many companies enjoyed superb business at ICE – and with that show’s reputation as the most international of all the shows – there is a danger that European visitors and exhibitors may be thin on the ground next year. But whatever happens, G2E will still be a landmark in the casino calendar; it’s still the show to be seen at, and it’s a hell of a lot of fun.

One benefit of the date change is that Vegas in November is much cooler than September – let’s be thankful the show didn’t move two months the other way, into summer. With the pleasant climate came a greater number of outdoor and external events, chances for people to meet and network away from the hustle and bustle of the exhibition floor; golf days, parties and other functions. This is a growing aspect of the show – it’s always been there, but with a friendlier outside temperature the potential for events is much greater.

MEI had a good show. Last year’s NASCAR themed stand with its trial promotion gave way to show three new products and posters with customer endorsements reinforcing their excellent reputation. As Phil Wesel, Global Marketing Manager for Gaming for MEI, explains, the familiar field trial offer hasn’t ended – and the company are looking to the future: “Probably for as long as I’ll be the marketing manager, we’ll continue to offer that risk-free trial. It’s been very successful, we are now in 300 casinos which are specifying our product. We went from about 140 to 160 last year, now I think we have 300. Our booth may not be as big as our neighbours down the hall, but we really want to be number one in this industry, the payments industry for casino gaming.”

MEI’s main products on show was the expanded capacity version of the CASHFLOW SC, the CASHFLOW SCM, which boasts a massive 50% more capacity than the SC. Phil explains: “It has a larger chassis and a diamond door, it’s designed to be every bit as robust in that larger form factor as the traditionally sized SC is so you can drop it 30 times onto the ground from six feet and it won’t yield the doors or anything like that. It’ll continue to perform. What we find is in high traffic areas and in high limits play areas is that this product makes a lot of sense. It really makes a lot of sense in the extremes; in the penny denominator games, if you’re pulling in tons of ones and fives a day then it makes sense to have a larger capacity cash box. If you’re in a high limit game where it’s $500 a play, it makes sense to have a large capacity cash box because some people put in five or 15 notes for one spin of the wheel, so it works both ways.”

Also drawing the crowds was the CASHFLOW Upstacker. This is the same form as the downstacker, with the TITO reader on the other side. This way, people put the ticket in the same way as always but it’s read on the opposite side.

Finally, MEI were introducing a CASHFLOW SC USB product, as Phil explains: “It supports all the GSA protocols, supports the GDS protocol that they’ve been promoting so heavily, and probably one of the OM’s and ourselves will be rolling out a product based on the CASHFLOW SC USB product line.”

Ever the forward thinkers, MEI were also promoting their aftersales care in the shape of a new training video on the STS support tool, which lets the vendor download new banknotes as they are issued. MEI see their support videos as on-demand training, understanding that a member of staff may not have the time to attend a training session but that they still need a measure of support from the supplier to get the best from a validator, for example.

Martin Spies and brother Jan, of Holland-based signage specialists Signs 4 U, used G2E for a recce of the competition and to meet with their existing clients. They plan to have a stand at ICE, but spent G2E, as Martin explained: “finding new customers of course, but we are here from the technical side of our company; we’ll be seeing what is new, what is sharp. Also some of our suppliers are exhibiting here, so that’s also a reason why we are here.” The guys were on the IGT stand, with some of their product (the signage for Three Kingdom Wars is especially impressive) and networking, getting the best out of the show.

Jan added: “You get a whole lot of new experience here, especially when you’re visiting all the casinos, all new ideas for existing signage, what is here and what is new. Also we have good relationships with old colleagues from companies over here we’ve been working for, so that’s still nice.”

Signs 4 U has just expanded as they are so in demand – looking at their work on Atronic and IGT’s games to name just a couple, it’s very easy to see why. They recently finished an order for Holland Casinos, and another for Casino Duisberg in Germany – Signs 4 U are on the up, keep an eye out for them at the London show.

Ainsworth were showing off their powerful rebranding, which is an eye-catching red, white and black logo. The theme ran throughout their stand, where we found Rick Williams, Director of Marketing enthusing about their very impressive Ambassador cabinet, with a huge and crystal-clear 26” LCD screen to draw players in. The cabinet is apparently winning fans with its stand-alone progressives, and the company are looking to expand by driving forward this attractive cabinet and its selection of games. The show was busy for them, as Rick explained: “It’s been very busy from a customer point of view particularly from the US because we’re breaking into that market now slowly but surely as our licenses come on board, and from a European perspective as well, we’ve had a lot of interest from Europeans. So it’s been a very good show for us so far.”

ICE is also likely to be good for the company, says Rick: “I’m very excited about ICE. ICE is our chance to really consolidate our position in Europe, not just in the UK market but all the way through Western and Eastern Europe. And with close ties in Unicum in Russia and also having our office in Graz, we are really in a great position to expand in Europe over the coming years.”

AlfaStreet had a stand which was at least double the size of last year’s, as they worked hard to make an impression on the Vegas crowd. of particular note on the stand was a dice game, based on their familiar eight-player platform often associated with their automated roulette solutions. The game is based on Sic Bo, the traditional Chinese game, and Alfastreet are hoping it will really take off for them in Asia. Marketing and Sales Manager Matjaz Petek enthused: “The Chinese community is spread all over the world, so I expect in other parts of the world there will be a lot of interest in this product. It’s based on touch screen monitors, it has all the features that our roulette has like money acceptors, ticket printers et cetera, plus the game can be attached to the player tracking system of the casino.”

They were also showing a system with remote betting terminals attached to a live roulette wheel, rather than the usual automated wheel. It allows the dealer to interact and gee up a crowd, or means an operator can get extra value from existing live wheels in other parts of the casino.

Finally, AlfaStreet were showing their table top terminal, which they say is the smallest in the market, their TT Series. It’s made with the bar table scenario in mind, but it’s so compact it could have a multitude of uses.

Matjaz was glowing in his praise of G2E – it’s still the show to be at, he says, because it’s “still the most important show in the world; even if we are selling more products in Europe than in the States, here we can meet people from Europe, Asia, the States, South America – everybody comes to Vegas to the show, so you have to be there.”

Casino Technology also had a much larger stand than previously, and gave an impressive showing to thousands of prospective and existing customers. Starring on the stand were the successful Gemini cabinet and its little brother, the Apollo cabinet. The Apollo is much more competitive on price as it boasts a single screen compared to the Gemini’s two, but essentially internally it’s a similar machine.

Also on show was the Casino Prince set-up, remote terminals to play off a live roulette wheel. Up to 64 terminals can play off a single wheel, and the company is hoping to push it forward into Eastern Europe and the CIS countries – expect it to play a large part in their ICE showing, as it is extremely competitive on price and, like all Casino Technology product, offers quality and reliability.

Cliff Lamberton of Ace Casino Equipment was also on the stand, following the recent announcement of a partnership between Ace and Casino Technology to provide a cashless gaming option where a customer requires it. Ace specialise in chip cards, where the player can put bills into the machine, add funds to the card and play from the card, then withdraw the card and play another machine without cashing out. It’s not time-limited, and offers Casino Technology another option to supply to their growing customer base.

Cliff explained where the company are going with the partnership: “Well they’ve been looking at mainly Eastern Europe through Casino Technology so Bulgaria will be doing the first installations in the next month or so.

“There are a number of markets we are looking at, at the moment. South and Central America’s a market we want to get into because things are fairly strong in Mexico. There, they play a a terminal-type game where the only way to play the game is if you’ve got a card loaded with points, so it’s a derivative. Customers can load points, they can then play on the games and then they can redeem the points through the cashiering software. The underlying technology is the same.”

According to Cliff, the partnership with CT is going superbly. He added: “There was the initial introduction of machines, where our companies collaborated wonderfully, the engineers got their heads together and a few small problems were ironed out very quickly. They’ve been great at getting their sales guys up to speed, so they’ve already got five or six guys over to demonstrate the system at shows. Which is great for us, I’m getting the systems demonstrated in Russian, Bulgarian, English, Spanish, so that’s been great, so it’s very much a cooperative relationship. I’ve looked at doing some exciting stuff together, you know some development stuff in the future.

“We’re not a big company so the only way you can really be competitive in this marketplace is partnering with the right people, we might not normally get exposure like we do partnering with Casino Technology, so a games manufacturer partnering with a systems company makes sense particularly for developing a future generation product.”

If there is one criticism of the show, it’s that the organisers do not necessarily take into account stand design when positioning exhibitors. Of course, this as a practical consideration would be impossible – but it would make more sense to put the larger stands on the edges of the hall and the smaller to medium ones inside. That way no-one is drowned out and the effect is that of a bustling market, something other international and domestic shows achieve remarkably well.

3M had some exciting product on display, following on from solid showings at other international exhibitions through the year. At G2E, they had the wonderful MicroTouch Effects Selector on display. Kelly Devin talked me through this innovation: “It’s a capacitive touch screen and what it has, it has 4 small devices called actuators that attach to a carrier that this touch screen sits on and when you touch the screen you are actually sending a signal to our controller, electronic controller, it’s going to the CPU and it’s saying you’ve touched this particular section of the screen, you need to play this particular effect back. So the signal goes in, it says you need to play a section number 20, the signal comes back, section 20 is played. How the section is played is the screen actually vibrates and moves in a particularly prescribed manner at a certain frequency based on what effect is being played.”

As the effect is software-driven, it can be used to directly enhance gameplay; a dinosaur racing across the screen can be touched at any stage and let fly a mighty roar, it’s fully customisable. It’s an engaging experience, and one that in the right hands could make an immersive playing experience.

3M have their eyes on downloadable gaming application though – with this technology, a manufacturer can have a fully customisable button display by using a second strip screen. Kelly explains: “We can also work with people to develop a mechanical button placement, so those buttons that you hit, step one, how many credits I have, how much I’ve won, how much I want to bet, spin, those basic buttons can be replaced with a smaller version of this. What that does, that allows on cabinet to be used for multiple games, you can now have video on the main screen and video on the smaller button panel. I can now download different types of games at different times during the day based on the people that are using that game at that particular point in time, so it allows much more customisation to the traffic that’s going in and out of the casino at a particular point in time.”

This will be available in the second quarter of 2007, and it’s well worth a look. Unicum, the exciting Russian manufacturer, has already adopted this, and there is even more that can be done. Unicum had four machines at G2E showcasing the technology, which is exciting in itself.

FutureLogic were, as always, leading the way with their TITO products, presented at G2E by the able team of John Edmunds, Mat Naraghi (of Welcomm), Rob Denham and Dan Turner among others. Ever concerned with giving the best service they can as they educate potential customers to the delights of TITO and their own thermal printers and promotions systems, their next step will be to locate an office in Macau to service a growing client list in the area. Dan Turner – who already heads up the Asia operation for the company – will be moving to the area.

As John Edmunds explains: “Well about 6 months ago I travelled over to Macao to see if all the news was correct and to see if there was a market for TITO and there was, and the casinos are real and the budgets are real and it’s happening now. And coming back from that trip, FutureLogic decided that the thing for us to do, the right thing for us to do would be for us to have our own office, our own warehouse, our own service in the region, in Macau, and having a FutureLogic associate running that operation, with an investment for three to five years minimum. You know, it’s one thing having a relationship with a distributor or a third party that works on your behalf and another thing actually setting up and running the office yourself. We wanted to be in the market place where we can support customers locally, and with all the growth and all the casino development, we wanted to make sure that the products were well supported.

“So Dan’s heading up our Asia operation as Business Management Operator for Asia, he’s going to be setting up the office, and driving sales growth across Asia, particularly in Macau, which we’re going to be using as a hub for growing our business around Asia.”

John continued: “We all know about the first Singapore license, the second one is signed off, within 6 weeks. We know about Malaysia and the Philippines and what markets they’ve got.

They’ve got big opportunities forthcoming in Taiwan, you know, so there’s a lot going on and we wanted to be there, making sure that FutureLogic are well represented.”

At G2E, the company were again showcasing their excellent ProMatrix Couponing System, which they apparently plan to push hard in Europe and Asia next year. It’s a system where a second coupon follows the cash-out ticket, and this coupon, allied to their backoffice software, allows the casino operator to market directly to the player’s hand. It’s quick, effective and can be set to any number of triggers. The software is simple to use, and the benefits are huge. How many ways are there to actually guarantee delivery of your marketing into a player’s lap? Meanwhile, the company continues to expand and support its customers worldwide while providing solid product – it’s little wonder that IGT have made FutureLogic’s Universal USB Printer its default printer until 2008.

Part two of our show report will feature eye-popping innovations from three of the show’s stars – WMS, Inspired Broadcast Networks and LVGI, alongside the major players of the industry who had some excellent product on display: Novomatic, Atronic, IGT, Aristocrat and many more.

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