The most interesting of Octavian's line is the Maverick 1000 flatpack slot machine and games kit. It's a brilliant idea, a self-assembly machine that the company claims can be put together very quickly. The idea is that the machine goes out to the customer like IKEA furniture, then the customer puts it together. The key benefit to the operator is a brand new machine for not much more than the price of a 'pre-owned' machine, which makes it very attractive to the smaller operator and it could take off particularly in Eastern Europe outside the EU, where countries may not have access to such secure, stable technology thanks to the relative strength of the Euro.

Harmen Brenninkmeijer, Octavian CEO, explained: “The Maverick concept is an important development, as we are able to provide local manufacturers with a cost-effective entry point into modern-day networked gaming for their customers in developing markets. It will not only help Octavian to market its games and systems in these countries, it will also support machine manufacturers by promoting the adoption of the latest gaming machine technology in developing markets.”

Also on show was the succinctly-named Tournament, an add-on to the ExtraCash system which means players can compete against each other and the clock. This kind of player interaction is becoming increasingly popular in slot machines for casinos, and Octavian's Tournament seems to be a simple way for some operators to get in on this growing customer trend.

Also on show were a number of DreamGames and AWP titles: Hot Race, Wild Ride and Free Wild were on show for the first time, as was Cocktail Cash, a new downloadable title which was apparently completed the week before ICE.

Helen Hedgeland, Group Marketing Manager for Octavian, said after the show: “This was our most ambitious stand yet, and arguably the most exciting mix of gaming solutions seen on a single stand. It was a successful formula and one we shall be repeating at G2E Asia and AGE."

ebet, with whom Octavian will be merging this year, were also present on the stand, as were LVGI, who caused such a sensation at G2E a couple of months previously. ebet demonstrated Freedom, a powerful card-based cashless system, and Assist Suite, a fully integrated gaming floor management system.

LVGI showed their brilliant WagerVision, SlottoVision and AdVision technology, which allows the monitors of a casino's existing slots to be used for advertising, sports betting or additional bets. It opens up the world of marketing for the casino regardless of operator or title, direct to the player.

At G2E, LVGI walked away with second place in the Global Gaming Business Awards for Consumer Service Technology, behind IGT and impressively, ahead of Bally.

LVGI's Chief Marketing Officer Steve Crystal explained what happened for the company after G2E and their explosion onto the world casino stage: "Out of the show [G2E], we did get the interest of a number of large corporate accounts and we’re into confidentiality but suffice to say we’re now in various phases of contracting with some of the most significant corporate players in the industry who are testing and evaluating our technology for placement into their casinos.

"From the standpoint of our objective - which was to inform the industry of our product and to highlight the fact that is was an innovative, unique product that would drive the incremental revenue on the most valuable real estate, the slot machine - we accomplished that coming out of G2E.

"What we have focussed on at ICE is our partnership with Octavian, which is our international distribution partner, and with Octavian’s announcement at G2E that they were merging with ebet that only strengthens our ability to penetrate the international market. In our market place we look at three million existing machines worldwide, of which two million are international and only a million are domestic, so the international market for LVGI is the larger market. Our partnership with Octavian and now ebet is where we’re going to drive most of our business and with that, I think ebet brings strength in Australia and Asia, two significant markets in our PortalVision application, and Octavian brings its traditional strength in markets such as South America, Europe and Russia; the combination of both of them gives us excellent reach into those markets and this trade show has been focussed on reaching out to those markets.

"In addition to that we’ve used our ICE presence to promote our partnership with Golden Gaming in Africa where we will be launching an effort to, initially, introduce our Keno game to the existing casinos which is content for our PortalVision product and then ultimately rolling out PortalVision into the casinos and then ultimately participating in several casino initiatives in the African continent."

The company generated similar buzz at ICE as at G2E, and I suspect they left with yet more orders and enquiries about their superb product line.

EGT landed in ICE with their new cabinet leading the charge. The cabinet is called Vega Vision, and is a dual-screen model with 19" TFT displays, one of which is touchscreen. It's a good-looking slot cabinet, easy on the eye and seems to have been designed with player comfort in mind, marrying form and function well. The cabinet has been designed with the future and ease of maintenance in mind, with easy stacker and counter access, and an option to install a casino management system.

EGT were showing a hot title on Vega Vision, Rise of Ra, an Ancient Egypt-themed 15-line multi-denom video reel. Managing Director Vladimir Dokov said of the new game: "The new video slot has completely new mathematics and aims at exacting operators with elite casino floors. A novelty in EGT’s conception for making games that thrill players is the 3D animated scatter game that enhances player interaction.”

The company's familiar and successful Classic Blend cabinet, and a range of games for it, were also on the stand, with the full range on show. Inca Gold, Crazy Bugs and Gold of Roma were three brand new titles at ICE, all five-reel games with 20-bet lines.

The Classic Blend Jackpot system also got attention. This solution makes it possible to connect up to 64 EGT machines in a LAN, and supports 16 progressive jackpots for each active denomination and three mystery jackpots common to the four chosen denominations.

The Bulgarian company have also agreed an Asian distribution deal with Pacific Net Games, and have added more space to their Romanian office thanks to demand for their product in the area.

Aristocrat followed an outstanding series of international exhibitions with a superb showing at ICE, as did some of their exciting partners – Interblock, PokerTek and ACE Interactive.

Aristocrat had cause to celebrate, with their new offices enjoying their official opening shortly before the show; at the show itself, the company's stand was twice the size of last year's, highlighting their confidence and ambition going into 2007.

The company was showing three new slots for the UK market in Geisha, Arabian Nights and Big Ben. The latter is noteworthy because it is a standalone progressive, so the jackpot is built into the game itself. This was far from everything though, as Aristocrat exhibited an impressive 75 products on the stand. Also of note were the two new double standalone progressives, Outback Jack and Wild Panda. As UK Marketing Director Natalie Spicer explains: "Outback Jack has shown phenomenal performance in every other jurisdiction we have placed it so we are absolutely certain it’s going to do the same here, it’s got fantastic features and it’s quite player interactive so we’re really happy to bring it to Europe.

"The other great game title that we have is the 100 Lions game concept. The game title under 100 Lions is Wild Panda and again we’ve got four of those on the stand; again it's had fantastic performance in other markets around the world. We are also introducing Zorro-Link, which is really taking over the success of the standalone Zorro game and combining that with the Hyperlink concept that we have, bringing those two together for a fantastic game.

"We also have PowerPay, it’s a new concept altogether. Basically, you take a standard game, the game we’ve chosen here is Wicked Winnings, and you double your credit for the chance of winning many more features; it basically brings bonus features and added value to games which may not have that already. The advantage of that for the player is they get more interactivity and the chance of winning much more. The advantage for the operator is for the average spend per reel."

Their investment in US-based PokerTek looks set to reap dividends, not least because on top of the brilliant PokerPro table, a new innovation saw the light at ICE; Heads-Up, which is basically a two-player game, a head-to-head machine which takes up next to no room on the floor, but offers the customer something not usually found within the casino. Heads Up was simply not profitable at all for operators – until now. Slick design and a great idea superbly executed, this is what we are coming to expect from both PokerPro and Aristocrat.

Natalie summed up Aristocrat's new direction for the future, saying: "Aristocrat is not just a slot manufacturer: we’ve now combined with PokerPro, with ACE Interactive and we've got more diverse offerings than we’ve ever had. We’re a gaming provider, not just a slot manufacturer."

Speaking of ACE Interactive, this is the Swedish company that Aristocrat bought in 2006 with an eye to the future. ACE are specialists in server-based gaming, though their background is actually in lotteries. Aristocrat saw the potential of their lottery technology for casinos and bought them; judging by ICE, it was a very smart acquisition.

ACE is all about open server-based gaming, something many companies are talking about, but according to Claes Peyron, Head of Sales and Marketing, ACE has the edge as their offering is the most modern out there. He said: "We've got very strong emphasis on openness. When we talk about future proofing – everybody talks about future proofing modern systems – our definition is that it’s the provision of a system that is open enough and flexible enough to cater for future needs in that you can as easily as possible place for future sales channels, our future sales channels as easily as possible add third-party applications and third-party content. When it comes to openness and future proofing that’s what we mean – we’ve used modern technology to be as open and flexible as possible."

They are still developing product for the casino market as it's an entirely new set of regulations for them to learn and apply, but ACE has a VLT product that is tried and tested. It's not going to be very long before they make a big splash on the casino floor.

Their corner of the Aristocrat stand saw a display of their very impressive iVT machines, which is their VLT product. It's very nicely designed, intuitive, robust. An innovation on display was the ability to abort a game halfway through, collect a ticket and potentially transfer the game to a mobile gaming device, so you don't even need to take the ticket to another machine to continue playing. Very smart indeed. The back-office software looks superb too, with far greater potential than simply switching games around from a hard drive.

Interblock's stand was simply awesome. Its very design made it stand out in the auditorium, truly reflecting the games exhibited on it. It was an extension of the Organic (G4) range, a wonderfully different and unusual set of gaming solutions for casinos. Their automated roulette machines are breathtaking; imagine roulette designed by HR Giger, and you're somewhere close to how different Interblock's product is. What's impressive is the depth of the concept. It's not just a sales pitch, it absorbed everything on the stand, including the beautifully-presented sales literature and every surface in sight. the machines are designed with soft, welcoming lines, not the clean, brushed surfaces we are used to seeing. Is it too radical for the industry? Not if the traffic on the stand is anything to go by, this aesthetic breath of fresh air could be the start of a new direction.

Products, apart from Roulette, include Cards (Baccarat and Blackjack), Dice (Sic-Bo, Fish-Shrimp-Crab, Craps), and hybrid machines (for example, Roulette with Dice, one at each end of a lozenge-shaped configuration of 12 player stations). Stations also boast sensors to detect the presence of potential players, enlivening the display to lure in customers, and also the potential for biometric fingerprint scanning. Incredible!

Interblock's G3 range, their more standard machines, were also represented, but the show belonged to Organic.

WagerWorks exhibited as part of ICEi, next to its parent company IGT, which was in ICE. The traffic to WagerWorks' stand was heavy throughout the show, understandable as they were presenting seven new games. We didn't get a chance to speak to them at ICE, but after the show, Paul Mathews, company President, said: “This year was the first time that WagerWorks had exhibited at ICEi with our own stand, adjacent to its parent company IGT. The pre-promotion leading up to the show and the stand design proved to be a resounding success and resulted in WagerWorks attracting a number of quality prospects. Attending the show was an effective marketing tool and we have booked the same stand position for 2008. WagerWorks launched seven new games at ICEi, however, that is just the start of an exciting year of development, with many more game releases and a major new technology announcement planned for the forthcoming six months.”

Following a busy 2006, MEI arrived in London feeling confident, and no wonder. Their free, no-obligation trials of the SC-83 bill acceptor yielded fabulous results, with some casino operators in Europe specifying they would only use the SC83 from then on. That's some endorsement, and all stemming from a trial offer.

At ICE, MEI were showing some interesting new product. ATEI also saw some MEI action, with their MEI GEO, geared more toward the amusement market, announced. It's a stackerless bill acceptor, ideal for smaller operations and at an attractive price. It hits the UK in May and Europe in June.

On the casino side, there were three new entrants of note. First is a training DVD for the CASHFLOW SC series of bill acceptors. It's a simple idea but one that will be welcomed by operators, as it leads to greater self reliance for maintenance and of course, even less downtime for a note acceptor.

As MEI's Phil Wesel explains, "We also have found that the training video that we introduced recently seems to be more popular in Europe than we had predicted, primarily because the casinos are smaller. So whereas it makes a lot of sense to have that distributed training in North America where a person could watch a video at their convenience, it makes even more sense when you have a property that has less than 50 slot machines, to just hand somebody a training video that they can run on their PC at their leisure."

Second is the new upstacking version of the increasingly-popular SC series, which gives more flexibility when it comes to cabinet space and means it can be retrofitted to cabinets that only have space for an upstacker.

Finally, the CASHFLOW SCM is a larger capacity version of the note acceptor, allowing for fewer collections as it has the capacity for up to 1,000 notes and tickets.

Lucky Line were at ICE for the fourth time, presenting three new Roulette models. Nostalgy can be an eight-player setup, or it can be run remotely from the wheel with up to 100 player terminals, while Charlie comes in six- or eight-player configurations. Charlie's modern design, in leather, chrome and wood, means it should fit into a wide variety of casinos regardless of interior decor.

Also on show was their Colos Roulettes, in six- or eight-player.

Atronic built on their G2E showing, with the European debut of the exciting and imposing King Kong Cash four-level progressive taking centre stage.

Also of note is their well-implemented and attractive five-level progressive Game of Life linked video slot concept, based on the MB game. The look of Game of Life is great, really eye-catching and the kind of game that will get new players playing; it's bright and fun, and very easy on the eye, and brings the best out of the dual-screen e-motion cabinet. The physical game package is an excellent piece of branding, too, which would stand out in any casino.

Four-level bonus link CASH FEVER, and our old friend Dr Cash, was on show with a revamped version for the Asian market in Simplified Chinese, which should prove a hit. Supported by six Atronic games, including IC Treasures and Crystal Lake, it had no shortage of admirers at ICE.

Also new for Atronic was the Harmony slant-top cabinet, a solid-looking machine supported with ample game titles. As Sylvia Dietz, Atronic's Marketing Director, enthused: "The reception at the show has been phenomenal. We have had comments that many people think it’s the most beautiful slant top machine you can buy now."

Mystery Magic, a mystery-driven jackpot which will bring excitement and of course mystery to the gaming floor was alongside symbol-driven progressive jackpot Hot Link, as Atronic look to further strengthen their presence in the world of multi-level progressives.

Atronic's server-assisted gaming solution Dynamic Floor Configuration sat proudly alongside the more traditional gaming product. You'll be hearing more about this in a future issue of CI, along with the fruits of their collaboration with Inspired Networks, some of which was on show at ICE too.

The stand was shared with sister company Atronic Systems, who showed off their guest entry control system SpeedGate, which helps casinos spot barred or under-age players.

Of course, Atronic Systems' popular cashless gaming system CHIP CASH and the linked gaming concept Tournamania were also promoted heavily.

JCM brought their Intelligent Cash Box to London, an award-winning development which sat alongside the Universal Bill Acceptor on a stand packed with quality product. Also available were the Recycle-Accept-Dispense RAD 7.0 Card Recycler System, and their Trident Table Safe System, which was also seen on TCSJOHNHUXLEY's fantastic stand.

Speaking of TCSJOHNHUXLEY, as expected they had an enormous array of product on show. First up was their dominant CHIPPER CHAMP, which we saw at last year's ICE and at G2E, but this was a production-ready model, which the company say has undergone extensive enhancements. It sorts faster than other chippers, and can apparently sort any chip while identifying and isolating foreign chips and notifying the dealer.

TCSJH are also stepping into the world of RFID as seen at ICE. The company has signed a distribution and service agreement with EurasiaTrak, which claims to be the first company in the world to offer a complete line of RFID products including real-time sensing of gaming chips in play, with a resolution of less than one inch per stack.

Donald Robinson, Sales Agent for EurasiaTrak, explains some of the product's key features: "If you’re hooked onto a shoe, and you know the outcome of the game you know that three sevens came out, you’re able to know that this guy needs a payment, and this guy needs a payment if he won… If you’re my brother-in-law and you come to my casino and you lose on this betting spot but I pay you, it’ll flag it up as an overpayment, you should have lost and you were paid, but is that just a stupid error from the dealer? We’re able to hook up this technology from the surveillance, we could pick a picture walk up and look at who we made a mistake to and then next week, four o’clock still at the same table, you’re coming for your pay cheque and here’s another key picture of you, we got you, now we can invite you upstairs and have you leave the company.

"Now we’re able to do zero performances, we’re able to do all types of analysis now. How many hands per hour are you winning, which are my best dealers, which need more training, these are really management tools."

EurasiaTrak RFID allows automation of all table opening and closing, chip accounting and provides statistics any manager would find useful. TCSJH showed its abilities on a Blackjack table, so customers could see it working in an operational context.

Novomatic's excellent Novo TouchBet Live-Sic Bo and Live Baccarat were also on the stand, as TCSJH have a distribution deal for certain territories. It's a remote player terminal set-up, with a maximum 250 player stations attached to one game, making it incredibly economical and with all the security and confidence that comes with buying a Novomatic product.

TouchTable MultiPLAY Roulette, developed by TouchTable AB, merges a traditional Roulette table and live croupier with an electronic betting surface, using a 56" Quad HD LCD screen to give a representation of an actual table layout.

Like other electronic versions of casino favourites, one of the benefits of MultiPLAY is the speed of the game; there is no wasted time between games as payouts and checks are instant, and security is total. On top of that, it looks absolutely superb, and boasts new Touch ID technology which TCSJH say can identify each individual player and their betting activity.

Their Triple Towers Horse Racing now looks like a possible world-beater, from its relatively humble beginning the graphics now look polished and it could deliver high revenues to the casino. It's a simulation with six different betting modes, which should keep both hard-core punters and casual gamblers happy.

In short, it was an excellent showing for TCSJOHNHUXLEY – another company set for a healthy year.

German company Dallmeier, a pioneer of digital video recording, showed its dedication to development and innovation, quality and reliability at ICE. Thanks to extensive experience in the CCTV monitoring field, Dallmeier has experienced rapid growth and ensured its position at the forefront of the digital video systems market; at ICE, they demonstrated a range of technology and solutions that would be ideal for any casino setup.

Dallmeier can operate different products and individual solutions from one video operator station with the same software; this means no difference in operation for the operator.

The cameras use Cam_inPIX technology based on the most up-to-date Digital Pixel System (DPS) platform. This innovation is what makes their products stand out, as Sales Manager Karlheinz Biersack explains:

"With this technology, the picture information of each individual pixel is converted digitally at the point of capture and processed in the most optimal way. Therefore, even situations with a great range in contrast can be recorded and documented in picture qualities previously unseen.”

The Dallmeier stand illustrated the startling difference between their offering and standard CCTV with a live demonstration of both, and Karlheinz continued: "The standard conventional CCTV camera cannot properly display the colour of the jetons and our camera can display light colour variations, like between white, green and yellow. This is a big advantage because if you have to verify a certain event at the gaming table and you cannot identify which colour of jeton a customer has put on the top row it is difficult for the casino."

The effect of Cam_inPIX technology is most noticeable on cards and anything with glare or reflection; the technology balances colour and light to near perfection, it's quite an achievement.

In the integrated digital matrix solution (DIS-2/M), they sensibly offer a two-disk solution, so if the first recording hard disk fails for some reason, number two is mirroring operations (RAID Level 1). But there's more to it than that, as Karlheinz explains: "The operating system of this module is on a Flash memory card, so even if there is a failure or a service case you do not have to install an operating system on a hard disk drive, you just can exchange them. The system itself, even if two hard disks are defective, can still stream the live picture to the analogue monitor, and we have a loop-back application so you will not lose any picture. The other advantage of this technology, at the front panel of this model you have all necessary connections. There's the video input, network input and we have all of the controls for the output system, cameras, everything is in the front so you just have to remove the connections there, slide out the plate, feed in a spare one, initialise it and it will work again. It’s very service friendly and in five minutes you have a working system again."

There's a lot more to Dallmeier's product, but it's too detailed to go into here. Instead, you will be able to enjoy it in a future issue of Casino International.

Cammegh were busy as usual, every minute of each day of the show, it seemed. This year, they were showing two new Roulette wheels, which is no small achievement.

Mercury II, which is the successor to their successful Mercury wheel, features proprietary sensor technology made by Cammegh, and they say the sensors themselves offer the greatest discretion on the market today, as feedback suggested to these Roulette innovators that customers can be put off by seeing such security features as visible, flashing lights tracking the ball.

The same technology features in their other new wheel, the AR1. Cammegh as a company is very excited about this wheel, as it's their first completely machine-finished wheel. The bowl is cast from aluminium, and the materials are extremely durable. Cammegh are estimating that this wheel will have the longest playing life of any of their products to date.

Pitboss is Cammegh's next diversification, an exciting new wheel analysis system which features a PDA entry system for an table inspector or dealer to input values, cash drop and other information. Pitboss GM is the back-office package, while Pitboss TI is the PDA application.

Finally, of their new product, they were showing the evolution of their excellent Billboard technology, called Billboard HD. It's, you guessed it, a High Definition version of the Billboard, with beautiful clarity that is readable from some distance. The viewing angle is over 170 degrees, which is impressive in itself.

IGT had an immense stand and, as the pre-show publicity indicated, were promoting their 'Big Picture'. At the centre of this bold vision is their sb product line, their server-based gaming architecture, the openness of which was demonstrated with IGT's Advanced Video Platform machine, plus connections (via sb Director and server) to WMS and Novomatic slot machines. IGT's commitment, a view which is growing industry-wide, is to quality and delivering the best product they can to the customer, hence the open platform, which utilises the GSA's G2S(Game to Systems) and S2S (System to System) protocols. As Karen Thompson, IGT Europe's Marketing Manager summarised: "There are companies promoting open architecture, but IGT has come to the show with a true open design using GSA guidelines and demonstrated that fact by adding WMS and Novomatic machines. Looking to the future, open architecture just makes sense in order to get the product to market as soon as we can with all the bells and whistles we think the industry wants.” Rest assured, we'll go into this in more depth in a future issue of Casino International.

Multi-level progressives play a large part in IGT's 2007 catalogue, with the iconic Wheel of Fortune machine, and a superb Indiana Jones AVP Wide-screen both looking fantastic on the stand. New video slot themes are not forgotten by IGT, who brought the best of the company's offerings from G2E to the European market, presenting Wolf Run, Super Happy Fortune Cat, Da Vinci Diamonds and more.

IGT’ss Star Wars licenses still look particularly strong with new titles for Europe in Dark Side and Rebel Assault to add to an already solid line up.

At G2E, IGT showed their Multiplayer Station, a community-play idea with a computer generated dealer/croupier. At ICE, they showed this with Roulette and Baccarat, and it looks great. The games are sophisticated enough to keep players playing, but simple enough to get them on the terminal in the first place. The hardware also looks good, and IGT are currently sounding out operators to see what further games they would like to see on the new product.

Three Kingdom Wars is one of the newer products, and with Signs 4 U signage, it looks absolutely sensational. It plays beautifully and should appeal to an entirely new demographic – people that grew up playing console games, the Super Nintendo and MegaDrive generation and the PlayStation people in addition to traditional gamers and, of course, the Asian markets. The game's identity is clearly Sega, it's very recognisable. Karen explains: "If you look at the game, immediately you can see the Sega graphics influence. They were instrumental in development of the bonus sequences. We’re just really proud of it and of the partnership and the products that have come of it. It’s certainly produced a great game.” Bonus sections feature gameplay which is truly reminiscent of console games, and the overall design is certainly striking. Interestingly, IGT's MLP products are now offered on their stylish Trimline cabinet, which is yet one more reason to buy!

Of course, IGT product is not just about graphics, and Karen explained a new approach to bonusing according to the playing style of the customer: "We’re developing more and more bonus mechanisms that encourage max bet play from the customer. So an aggressive player has a more aggressive game to play. It allows them more opportunities to win more.”

Videobet brought their online gaming know-how to ICE with an eye on the server-based gaming world. They offer a broad range of downloadable content supported by a wide variety of RNG levels and configurations. Combine that with their experience of managing back office operations and minute control, and you have a formidable server-based gaming supplier.

One very interesting aspect of the company's offering is their Cross-Platform WinAJackpot network, which apparently allows players to sing up with a single account to play online, by mobile or in a land-based gaming environment. The company can create a bespoke server-based gaming solution whatever your needs.

You'll be hearing a lot more about Videobet in a forthcoming issue of Casino International.

3M showed their wonderful MicroTouch Capacitive TouchSense System technology at ICE, which never, ever fails to impress. The impression is startling, a truly tactile touchscreen with genuine subtlety in its effects.

As 3M's Francesco Fasoglio explains: "You can actually configure the touch screen to have up to 47 different effects, so each of these buttons [on the stand display] is a different type of vibration, a different type or length of vibration, so you can really make the experience for the gaming player more exciting and more entertaining."

The technology brings to mind the possibilities of server-based gaming, where you would no longer need fixed buttons on a machine, but could have a reactive system like this on a panel for the buttons, making it 100 per cent customisable. 3M are way ahead of that thought and have done some preliminary work (including a slot machine which incorporates some of the technology) with Unicum, the Russian gaming giants who were sadly missed at ICE.

Francesco continues: "We are looking to work with some major OEM manufacturers that could implement this technology in new gaming machines to give the player a really new experience. The potential is not only in the tactile but also that the software engineer can design completely new games based on this, because it gives you a lot of flexibility."

Also on show was their MicroTouch ClearTek II technology. Over to you, Francesco: "We are the leader in this market, and obviously we want to continue to re-emphasise the valuable position of our product. Our capacitive technology is substantially different from our competitors, and is at least five times more resistant that older capacitive technology available in the market. This again is an advantage for an OEM that’s making a machine, because it’s not only the cost of acquiring the technology that is important but it’s also the cost of all the chips, the systems; if you have a touch screen that copes with at least five times more wear, it’s more life in the field without needing a replacement."

3M are pushing their reputation as a system provider, not just specialists in touchscreens, but also the means to 'drive' that technology.

Bill acceptor specialists CashCode, following their acquisition by Crane Merchandising in 2006, were showing a broader range of product than usual, though not all in ICE. Under the Crane banner, sister companies National Rejectors Inc (NRI) and Telequip also enjoyed a presence within ICE/ATEI.

CashCode's main selling point is one that is impossible to ignore: the company states that operators using their acceptors have realised revenue increases up to 30 per cent because of higher bill acceptance, low maintenance and low jam rates.

At ICE, their major product was the Bill-to-Bill Currency Management System, a product aimed at casino redemption kiosks. Like so many of the best ideas, it is wonderfully simple; this CMS is designed to optimise cash management as it means a casino kiosk no longer requires separate cash-in and cash-out dispenser and acceptor modules, as one system manages both. Less cash handling is required as the kiosk becomes relatively self-replenishing, so labour costs are also reduced. It looks like a superb piece of equipment, more on this soon.

Amatic had some interesting new games, not least the excellent Mille Miglia Race, which was inspired by the famous annual Italian old-timer race for classic cars. Amatic's founder is a lover of classic automobiles, and so the game was born! Admiral Nelson uses the legendary historical figure in an engaging and attractive game, while Frog Princess should appeal Europe-wide as it is based on the famed fairytale. Crazy Bee rounds off their newer titles at ICE.

Most interesting if their cabinets was the slant-top automated roulette terminals, for remote play. They're attractive cabinets, and the main appeal is the flexibility they give the operator; arrange in space around the wheel, on the other side of the hall, wherever, however. The cabinets cleverly have a multi-game configuration option, so you can play Admiral Nelson, Bingo or Roulette, it's the player's choice.

On the secret side, Amatic were showing their new X3000 cabinet, which has been designed, according to Franz Plasser of the company's sales department, for the Spanish market. It's a dual-monitor cabinet, and Franz explains why: "We discussed the design and what the market needed with our agent from Valencia, and this is the final result of that. Also relevant is the price situation – we put a lot of effort into design and high quality development. With research, we discovered that a slot machine without a double monitor and everything would struggle to compete in Spain.

Casino Technology were showing off their fabulous Multi Gemini multi game product, which of course comes in the stylish, dual-screen Gemini cabinet.

The slot gives customers a choice of four fun – and well established – games, in Golden Elephant, Silk Quest, Purple Hot or Gold of Babylon III. The clever thing is that the games are not mathematically linked, so they can relatively easily be replaced or updated. It complements the company's other multi- game offering, Gamopolis, also in the Gemini cabinet, but with the games Happy Kingdom, Purple Hot, Pure Hot, Blazing Dice and Euro Poker. Both give real value for money to the player and operator, and are built to Casino Technology's usual high standards both in terms of durability and aesthetics.

New games on show at ICE from Casino Technology were dominated a little by higher-volatility titles, like Wild Tiger, Beauty Magic, Kung Fu Master, Coffee Magic and Ocean Delight, while the low-volatility Peaches Riches features a classic fruit symbols look.

The company's stand was large and impressive – their huge blue banner stands out even in a skyline as cluttered as that of Earls Court during the world's most exciting casino exhibition.

Evona were showing off their GameNet Jackpot product, an extension to their recognised core product of automated roulette installations. GameNet allows the casino operator to connect all their machines – or just a selection – to a network which features a jackpot system. This works in five ways, with a main jackpot screen to lure players in, with up to five levels of jackpot to be won. Tournament Jackpot is won by the player with the highest prize during the tournament's set time frame, which is controlled by the operator; Happy Hour Jackpot guarantees a win during its set time period, which would be a great way to drive customers to your machines at quieter times of the day; Golden Jackpot and Silver Jackpot are won when players hit pre-set limit values, or even a combination of symbols, or a combination of both – the greater number of ways to win makes this quite attractive to the player; and finally, Global Jackpot, which can run over multiple casino sites (where legislation allows), and of course gets the largest jackpot of them all.

Of their well-known Roulette product, on the stand Evona were showing the Octavia, Talia and Victoria, all of which attracted interest, of course. A newer product which should do well for Evona is their Sic Bo game, for up to six players on the machine.

Also of note is Evona's BetX online betting terminals; these have two functions. First, they play pre-programmed, pre-loaded video greyhound races for customers to bet on and second, is as a real sports betting terminal.

Progressive Gaming had what was comfortably one of the show's busiest stands, and when one looks at the products on show, it's no great surprise. PGI's product line is large and varied, so we'll only get to touch on it here, but hopefully we'll give you the idea!

Top of the tree, arguably, was their World Series of Poker p2p Edition game, which is a live multiplayer poker system allowing players to compete in real time. It looks great and plays like a dream, and has a wealth of options that make it extremely attractive for operators. PGI's Steve Allen talked us through the setup: "Instead of being an internet poker system, which would be open ended, this is a closed private intranet poker system that can be located under a single roof or can be a wide area comprising multiple devices and different locations and a single poker network.

"All the poker protocols that are used are standard internet protocols, with TCP/IP communication, SSL encryption, VPN networking, which means we are hardware agnostic and we can go on any Pentium-based CPU platform and operate. We don’t require any proprietary hardware, we can operate on anything from a handheld wireless device, desktop kiosk, bar mount or any kind of cabinet format that you might think of as long as it has the adequate amount and satisfies other regulatory requirements.

"The system can be tied to a player tracking system, so that the players can share a card and access both systems independently or it can be done, accessed via manual log in. It’s cashless account-based waitering so the player establishes a cash account by going to a cage and depositing some funds on account that they’re preparing to wager against, and then can select from whatever tables are available that the casino wishes to offer, whichever stakes they wish to offer, whatever form of whatever type of limits, no limit, hot limit and so on. The system has all tournament capabilities so we can offer single or multi, you can go and schedule tournaments as well as free roll tournaments since there is a player tracking module included.

"Virtually everything is completely controllable. What the rate structure is, what the jackpot structure is, if any, and so on. Within the tables range, the player can actually play at four tables simultaneously or four tournaments to four locations simultaneously.

"There is a great deal of control there for the player and obviously with the interest in poker we feel that the moment is right to bring in modules like this. It's very expandable too, we can operate with just a few terminals or we can support literally up to thousands of terminals into a large network of multiple properties with no problem at all.

"We took large-scale internet technology and adapted it for a casino market, adding things like the device management features that will not be included in an internet poker system so that we actually monitor the device, verify the software using hashing and so on to actually be able to control and to ensure that nothing is being affected in that environment and no one can access this system to change the software in any way. All the normal things you would expect from a slot machine, even thought this is not a slot machine it has already built more intrinsic security built in to the system we still can need all of the extra requirements that the regulators would place on other types of gaming devices that are in the market place. And a new wrinkle that we’re adding into the system is the ability to use Blade PC technology which actually removes the computer, actually removes the CPU from the gaming devices and places it in a central location, so the only thing in front of the client is a touch screen monitor and perhaps a card reader. Everything else is located on a CPU which is located in a secure environment, even a remote location for example. So a device will cross an entire country with all of the CPU’s for those devices in one central location and we think that adds an incredible level of control and security, also simplifies maintenance, an amount of cost saving without having to do a lot of the maintenance remotely."

At the moment, PGI are only offering Texas Hold'Em, but if this proves as popular as it certainly should, they will expand that range of games, possibly incorporating non-card games.

Also impressing visitors was PGI's Texas Hold'Em Bonus, another WSOP-branded offering with a broad-ranging side-bet option which should certainly increase player interactivity and perceived value. It's a custom felt layout designed to fit a standard Blackjack table and comes in both six- or seven-spot layouts.

PGI's stunningly comprehensive Casinolink Enterprise Edition was also on centre stage; this really is too deep to go into and once again, you'll have to wait for a later issue to go into this in detail, along with its Gamestation server-based gaming solution.

Speaking of PGI, Italian casino equipment suppliers Abbiati announced the expansion of their relationship at ICE, as a licensing agreement was signed which gives Abbiati access to PGI's 13.56MHz RFID technology.

For Abbiati, this means they can use the technology in all their chips, plaques and jetons on a worldwide, non-exclusive basis with the exception of the United States.

PGI's RFID technology is quick and reliable – in fact, it's very quick if the show demos are anything to go by.

Abbiati MD Giorgio Abbiati enthused: "RFID technology is emerging and will mature into a must-have product as it gives the customer a total solution including complete cage and table management for security and movements throughout the casino. This investment is part of our long-term plan that ensures Abbiati maintains its position as one of the world's leading casino equipment suppliers."

Abbiati's stand was another that was very busy, and with the RFID announcement, it means their already-comprehensive supply range is improved further.

Giesecke & Devrient had something rather special on display in their Caion kiosk. Caion stands for Casino-All-In-One. Josef Schoettl, Sales Development for G&D, explains: "With Caion we can fulfil all requirements for a casino in terms of automated cashier requirements in each stage where they are at the moment. For example, Bavarian casinos are still gambling with coins and they do have a lot of hand plays and jackpots to pay out. We use this machine as a terminal for the employees to pay out for the slot machines, so the employees go to the machine take the jackpot and hand it over to the customer at the slot machine." Sounds perfectly simple – and it is!

Josef continues: "Later on, if the casinos decide to go coinless they go to tickets to TITO or playing with cards, they can just transform and switch over to a customer terminal, to a self-service terminal, then the use of the machine would either be bill breaking and ticket redemption or bill breaking and card handling which means card issuing, card redemption and card topping up etc.

"TITO and smart card can also be combined, and you can combine even a self service terminal and an employee terminal, but that decision has to be made by the casino."

It's a good-looking kiosk, unobtrusive but solid as a good kiosk should be. Combine that with its enormous functionality, and you have a product that should be very much in demand.

After an absolutely stunning G2E exhibition, WMS were a company very much in demand. With a superb product line waiting to roll out in 2007, this should be their biggest year yet internationally. The crowds at ICE were most certainly not disappointed with the creativity and enthusiasm WMS brought to London.

Even after G2E, there were still surprises on the stand. WMS has a Village People Party game which, according to producer Scott Herrington, is a work in progress – it's also a hit waiting to happen. A lively game with camp appeal and a sincere sense of self-effacing fun can't help but be a hit with casino customers of all ages.

The stand was large, and had what seemed to be a full product range. It's when you see it all together that you realise how well WMS cater to casino operators; high volatility, low, five-reel, three-reel, mechanical, video… the list goes on.

Their imposing – and great fun – Monopoly machines abounded, and ICE proved that people find the machines and the license irresistible. The Monopoly Super Money Grab is something else again, though, with five-reel mechanical slot which uses Transmissive Reel Technology. This means there's an LCD screen over the reels, so effects and excitement can be generated on a mechanical reel like never before.

The Top Gun machine, with its custom stand and arresting Bose 3Space audio, is powered by CPU-NXT2 which gives a 'state of the art 3D platform', as WMS describe it. Customers might describe it differently, but everyone will be impressed by this machine.

Wage-Net, WMS's server-based gaming solution, is a tool for the future, but with this company the future is very much now. As the Bluebird cabinet was launched in 2003, the company kindly future-proofed it so it's ready to be networked now. Wage-Net already has GLI-21 approval, and was developed with Cyberview's considerable expertise in networks and server-based gaming.

Heroes of the show though, were FutureLogic. John Edmunds and his team are known as fixtures at exhibitions worldwide as they promote their Gen2 thermal printers and the excellent marketing tools of the ProMatrix Couponing System. At ICE, though, they surpassed all expectations of this friendly and knowledgeable team. Two weeks before the show, John discovered that the company's stand materials were on a boat somewhere and would not be making it to London in time for ICE. It has been suggested that it was in the MSC Napoli, which was listing off the coast of Devon at this time, but reports of the stand being sold at a car boot sale in Exeter are apparently wide of the mark.

Many of us would have held our heads in our hands at this time, but not John and company. In John's own words: "I suppose what I'd like to think is that in an emergency the team pulled together and produced the goods. But the bottom line was, we didn't have a stand, it was stuck out at sea."

The team ended up building the stand from materials bought from British big-box store B&Q, and you wouldn't have known that this was the case. They were busy as ever, charming the crowds and promoting their TITO solutions.

ProMatrix is undoubtedly a winner; anything that gives the operator a chance to market directly into a customer's hand can't be anything other than beneficial. The only obstacle to this product is surely TITO itself being adopted more widely, but with their attitude towards education of potential customers as well as simply sales and support, FutureLogic are, as ever, moving in the right direction. Unlike their original stand materials.

John concludes: "The main focus for the stand and the message we're putting out is 'global support, local knowledge'. Now, we've got our own offices – not partners or distributors – in the US, Europe and Asia, what with the new office opening in Macau. You just can't beat working with the actual manufacturer directly in the market."

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