22 Indian Gaming June 2014

Andrew Burke, Senior Director of Product ManagementAGSwww.playags.com

Tribal Partnerships: They are our core business. We grewup in Oklahoma in the Class II markets. For us, we wouldn’tbe here without tribal gaming, so we think about everythingwe do at AGS as it gears towards the tribal market. Everyproduct we make is available in Class II. That’s always been our bread and butter and we’re going to always rememberour roots and make sure that, with our tribal partners,we’re continuing to make product geared towards theirmarkets. Then we take games that work in those marketselsewhere.

Competitive Edge: We’re bringing some of the first brandedgames to Class II, including Are You Smarter Than A FifthGrader?®, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not® and Family Feud®.We’re really trying to push both technology and competitive-ness on the Class II side.

Top Game: We’ve never had a product off to as hot of astart as Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. It’s our first big successstory since we’ve really begun to expand at AGS. We havetons of the machines out in Oklahoma and California, andwe’re really seeing some great performance out of them rightnow.

Future Trends: We have to start to understand at the gamelevel who’s sitting in the seats. We tend to operate in a vacuumwhere we have groups of twenty-something males creatinggames for the core demographic, which is primarily 50-year-old plus women. We have to get more diverse in our group ofteams that are developing these games; start to learn more about the people sitting in the seats and ask, “How do we engage them and really pull them into the experience?” The Class IIenvironment lends itself well to that because we’re on a connected network and we’re not using the full benefits of thenetwork to deliver messages to the players. We need to get messages back from them and start to hone the experience andcustomize it for the person that’s actually in the seat. Wehaven’t crossed that chasm yet and it’s time to.

John F. Glaser, Manager of Sales, North AmericaAinsworth Game Technology www.ainsworth.com.au

Tribal Partnerships: Tribes are a major customer in everytribal gaming jurisdiction that Ainsworth is approved in.They’re the reason for our success. Most of our footprint that we grew came from the tribal markets before we hit the commercial markets, and our tribal markets continue to perform extremely well. We have great relationships with the operators in tribal markets and consider them our partners.

At the National Indian Gaming Association’s 2014 tradeshow, we spoke with many of the leading game manufacturers about what tribal gaming means to their companies, how their products help tribal casinos keepthe competitive edge, their top new games and where they see the industry headed as far as new technologiesand player trends. Here is what they had to say...

Game Technology Companies Discuss the Current Market andLook to the Future

NIGA CONVENTION

Competitive Edge: We’re trying to drive new types of gamesto properties. All of the existing games do very, very well andwe don’t want to stray away from that too much, but we’re alsobringing in a new cabinet that features the same operating system. This helps the tribes because they don’t have to rein-vest in multiple systems. Ainsworth has multiple cabinets butone operating system, so we don’t have the operating systemdu jour. We have cabinets on the floorsfrom six or seven years ago that are stilldoing well. Our competitive edge is newmath models, graphics and sound packagesto keep floors fresh.

Top Game: Our Wheel Winner™ family of games are doing very well wherever we place them. These gameshave a solid math model and a lot of fea-tures that are very intuitive to the players.It’s a sale product and there’s a whole fam-ily of games that have been incorporatedinto high denomination. We’re just doingamazing things with high denom becausewe actually changed the math model forthose players. We’ve got a nice nichecarved out in high denom, which was kindof an ignored segment of the business. Wewere the first ones to really bring a signifi-cant presence with dollar, five-dollar andup math models. Reels of Wheels™, ourbig top-box feature games are also doingextremely well. What makes us so success-ful is that our math models are solid.They’re good, long-time earning gamesthat have very few conversions. If we doour job right from the front end, theydon’t have to do conversions and thosemath models just continue to work for a long time. We’ve got seven and eight year-old games that are very solid performers.

Future Trends: You’re going to see moreopportunities for players with cash optionsat the slot machine. They’ll be able toplay off of their own bank that we createand be able to do transactions at the actual device. The interactive piece willcontinue to grow but the big thing towatch is time on the device – it has to begenerating the same level of handle ormore. We have some IP product comingout. There are a handful of IP games in themarket that are working, and for the most

part, there will be more development in that area. We are depen-dent on the casinos’ individual marketing department to drivemore players through the door. I see bigger units going out,like Reels of Wheels, and more player services through videoscreens. We have to be careful of that so we’re not taking awayplay on the game. The trend is going to be more player-oriented than anything else.

June 2014 Indian Gaming 23

24 Indian Gaming June 2014

NIGA CONVENTION

Matt Wilson, Vice President MarketingAmericasAristocrat Technologieswww.aristocratgaming.com

Tribal Partnerships: For Aristocrat, tribal gaming is aboutlong-term sustainability and partnership. We built our businessin conjunction with tribal gaming in America, so if you look at the regions of the country where there is a lot of tribal gaming, we typically do very well. Our product is well alignedto the tribal gaming player base. Our games typically do verywell in the repeat player market and that’s really what tribal gaming is all about. We’ve built our business in America froma partnership with tribal gaming and we consider it to be a hugesegment and one that we’re committed and loyal to.

Competitive Edge: One of the things that we’re acutelyaware of is the aging demographic of the slot player. For us,it’s about trying to make sure that the next generation of slotplayers is engaged and that Class III gaming, and Class II gaming for that matter, appeals to them. We’re doing a lot tomake sure our technology is at a position that is relevant forconsumers in today’s industry. We have a new product calledthe Helix™ Slant and we’ve spent a lot of money doing researchto make sure that this product is really at the cutting edge ofconsumer electronics. We know that people who play slotmachines also use smart phones and they buy big screen tele-visions, so we’re really trying to make sure that the hardwareand technology we bring to market is in line with what con-sumers are using on a daily basis, which you’ll see in our Helixcabinet. We use infinity edge displays and make sure everythingis true HD-1080p, so when players are going into a casino acrossNorth America, they’re looking at technology that is at the cutting edge of consumer electronics. We’re also spending alot of time researching the brands that we bring to market – a great example is The Walking Dead™, a very relevant pieceof IP. We’re very focused on remaining at the forefront of

gaming across the North American market by staying relevantin terms of technology and also IP.

Top Game: Batman 1966, which premiered at the G2Etradeshow in 2013, is currently our top game in the tribal market. It runs on our Helix Slant cabinet, so it has the latestpiece of technology in terms of hardware and a great brand.Many people who play slot machines are 55-65 years-old, sopeople of that age were watching Batman 1966 in their teenageyears or in their younger years. It has a real resonance and brandaffinity.

Future Trends: As an industry, we’re a little hamstrung by regulations, so we probably can’t move at the speed, in termsof evolution, that we would like. Interactivity is becomingmore and more a part of games, so making sure the players havean opportunity to interact with the game, rather than justhaving a set of spinning reels and an outcome, is important.Licenses are becoming a more prevalent part of the gamingindustry. With the advent of social gaming and online gaming,we have to be acutely aware of how consumers are playing andinteracting with content in the land-based environment and alsoonline. There’s a huge, burgeoning social business out therewhere people are playing slot type games online, so we needto see how those trends translate into the Class III world. Weknow that players are not just playing at casinos now – they’realso playing outside of casinos and there’s an emerging social,community element to slot machines that will eventually trans-late into a trend in the Class III brick-and-mortar business.

Gina Lanphear, Senior Director, Marketing Cadillac Jack www.cadillacjack.com

Tribal Partnerships: Cadillac Jack has been a huge supporterof tribal gaming since our inception back in 1995 and we’ve continued to grow and develop as tribal gaming has grown anddeveloped. We feel like we have been a piece of the puzzle as

Gina Lanphear, far right, with Lauren Lambrix and Jesse LeBel

tribes opened casinos and experienced success. Many tribes havehad such a great opportunity through gaming to help solidifytheir success, sovereignty and provide infrastructure and support for their people. We are very proud to be a part of thatsuccess as the industry continues to grow.

Competitive Edge: Cadillac Jack’s products help tribesmaintain their competitive edge and we are constantly devel-oping new and innovative games with new math models, feature sets and enhancements so that players really want tosit down and continue to play. In particular, one of our new product lines, the Power XStream™ series, is already performing at about 52% above house average in manytribal casinos across the country. Operators are experiencingreal profits and these games have staying power. The innovations we are developing as we mature as a companyare contributing to the success of the casinos.

Top Game: Our new Power XStream series has had phenom-enal success across the country. We released two games at the end of last year – FireWolf and White Buffalo, which havecontributed towards being 52% above house average. ThePower XStream series’ awards are based on symbols uponadjacent reels and the the pay mechanic works left to rightas well as right to left, which allows for more wins for theplayer. The Power XStream series features a number of reelconfigurations, math models, volatility as well as featuresets. Some of the new games coming out are based on ourEcstatic Wilds feature set, which includes the new MonarchSun and Thunder Bear games, which are very dynamic andexciting. With these two games, the wild symbol will stickon reel three, the center reel, in the free spin series bonusround. We also have our Power Block feature set, as part ofthis Power XStream series, which is on our Dark Romanceand Great Griffin games, which will be out in a couple ofmonths. With these games, an entire block of symbols willcover a large portion or a partial area of the screen, thus allowing for a number of wilds. We’re very excited about thisseries. It has performed incredibly well so far, and casinosacross the country are going to continue to love the successthat they’re seeing from these games.

Future Trends: As the industry evolves, we are going tocontinue to see the newest, latest and greatest innovations. Players are very loyal to games and features they find to beentertaining and have success on. Players are always going tobe loyal to those types of games, but at the same time, theyalways want something new. A lot of players gravitate towardsthe latest and greatest, so we’re going to continue to see newinnovations. As to exactly what those are, the future will tell,but certainly more ways to keep players on the games and coming back to casinos will be paramount so there is successfor everybody involved.

Patti Hart, CEOIGT www.igt.com

Tribal Partnerships: One of the things that makes us uniqueis that we’ve been a part of the movement in Indian gamingfrom the very beginning. You can’t really separate IGT fromIndian gaming. We helped with the legislative process and havea high level of responsibility to not only gaming, but also totribal communities and education. For instance, we have anintern program that embraces Native American youth. It’sreally about helping tribes accomplish their mission, which iswhat Indian gaming was designed for in the beginning – tostrengthen tribal communities. It goes beyond building goodproducts and is a part of the fabric of who we are as a company.

Competitive Edge: Our job is to focus on the player. The waywe help casinos keep their competitive edge is by making certain the players and visitors that come into their propertiesfind the experience to be interesting, compelling and relevant.We do so by working hand-in-hand with our tribal gaming customers. Players are getting more finicky about what theylike and what they prefer. Our relationship with the tribal operators is critical because together we have to understand theplayer dynamic and how it’s changing. We cannot be success-ful if the tribes are not accomplishing their mission, so we makecertain that we’re organizing IGT around the Indian gamingcommunity of the future.

Top Game: Tribal casino markets vary. The California market is a more volatile player market than say Wisconsin orMinnesota, so there isn’t a one size fits all. Generally in the California market, more highly volatile, math driven games tendto be more successful, almost regardless of theme. When youget outside of California, for instance in Oklahoma, there’s aresurgence and interest in Class II games – even peacefully coexisting with Class III games. At Foxwoods and Mohegan

June 2014 Indian Gaming 25

Patti Hart and Knute Knudson

26 Indian Gaming June 2014

NIGA CONVENTION

Sun, our big branded games do incredibly well. Avatar has beenvery successful in Connecticut. The days of one-size fits all arebehind us. The great opportunity for IGT that distinguishesus in the market is that we have the broadest portfolio of product. Tribal casinos know their players, their objectives andmission and so they are a demanding customer. They make usa better company because they demand the best in products.

Future Trends: One of the player trends we see growing isthe whole notion of communal experiences – more tournamentplay and a social element coming into the casino experience.It’s one of the reasons there is a resurgence in bingo, becauseit’s very social. The Class II experience has that feel to it, sogoing into the Class III space and taking the communal component of what you see in Class II and what you see in traditional bingo makes Class III more interesting. We’d loveto see more movement in the area of cashless gaming. We seedemand at the player level, but we’re not there yet as an industry. We don’t pay for much with cash anymore, and as theyounger generation comes up, they are a cashless generation.When you’re competing with entertainment options, you haveto eliminate friction points and using cash, will over time,become a more significant friction point for the younger generation that wants to do everything on their iPhone, smart-phone or with a card. Cashless gaming is a trend that will pickup in the years to come.

Matt Reback, Vice President, MarketingSteve Walther, Director, Product ManagementKonami Gaming www.konamigaming.com

(Matt Reback) Tribal Partnerships: Tribal gaming is veryimportant to us and if you look at where our products are doingreally well, it’s typically in Southern California and at tribal properties in Oklahoma, Michigan and Florida. Our productsare a really good fit because we build games that have stayingpower for people who may play between three and twenty timesa month. It’s the same with our systems. All of the marketingbehind Synkros™ is around how to engage customers who arehigh frequency, and how to drive repeat trips, and create anentertaining experience through advanced incentives, tournaments, super series and add-on marketing features.

Competitive Edge: We are very focused on creating productsthat do well in high frequency properties with a lot of regularcustomers. It’s because of the math models that we build andthe reliability of our games that we end up building gamesaround properties that have high frequency. Dungeons andDragons® was the feature product for Konami at the NIGAshow. This game is through a partnership with Hasbro and we’vecreated a product that looks, acts and feels totally different thananything we have ever put out. When you walk into the casino,

it makes it competitive because it’s a product that looks so different than anything else. The properties with Dungeons andDragons are going to be able to offer something that peopleare going to say, “Wow, I saw it, heard it and it stands out!”Synkros creates the most competitive edge for a casino throughthe configurable incentives engine. It allows operators to set up tournaments, bonuses, offers and rewards, and then track,configure and do yield management, proformas and post-formas on those types of marketing initiatives. It keeps casinosreally competitive.

Top Game: We’ve already gotten hundreds of pre-orders forDungeons and Dragons and it just launched. We have a cou-ple of new KP3® titles on our KP3 platform that are perform-ing off the charts. Those games are Dragon’s Law™, SolsticeCelebration™ and Tales of the Moon Night™. KP3 is a newplatform for us in the last year and a half and we’re starting tosee titles that aren’t seeing any erosion of performance after 9-12months. Usually you have a fall-off, but these games have a following, which is really great for our customers. We’re in thebusiness of helping them make money. We’ve also launchedDragon’s Way™, Celestial Celebration™ and Kunoichi's Fortunes™. We’re starting to bring out graphic and visual clonesof math that we’ve seen has worked and they are doing as well.

Future Trends: We have games for hardcore gamers with highvolatility and different play mechanics, but with our Titan360™, we learned something important. We wanted to see ifthere was an appetite for amusement-style, gravity-activated,community-style games and we found out that yes, there is. The game is at two locations in Southern California, two locations in Las Vegas, and also in Alberta, Canada and AtlanticCity. Everywhere there are crowds and our customers tell ussometimes they have to patrol the games and make sure people are getting their fair time, because as soon as someonegets up someone else sits down. With Titan 360, what we saw

Matt Reback and Steve Walther

was people looking for an entertainment experience. We’re actu-ally going to be bringing more units out into the market andwe have not seen any fall-off in the play where we have itinstalled.

(Steve Walther) It’s almost July and we haven’t changed anyof the base game themes of our initial installations. It’s been ayear and we’re just now starting to make changes because wesaid, “Let’s try something new.” They’ve been performing ata good rate.

Additionally, real-time 3D is really starting to appeal to us.One of our games that is doing very well is called LotusLand™, and not only do the reels spin in their normal spinmotion, but in the bonus feature some of the reel symbols actually spin in 3D to determine a wild multiplier. There’s consistent motion on the screen in 3D, but without having touse 3D glasses. It provides a nice effect without having to fatiguesomeone’s eyes as traditional 3D does. When you put real-time3D into the gaming platform, it adds that additional elementand dimension, and is very appealing to the players.

Brad Johnson, Vice President of Marketing& Product ManagementMultimedia Games www.multimediagames.com

Tribal Partnerships: Multimedia Games got our start intribal gaming. We invented Class II gaming twenty years agoand went to the courts to fight for it, so our whole history beginswith tribal gaming. It’s the core of our company and still oneof the main reasons we’re still in business. Everything we doas far as our products and games starts with and ends with, “Howis it going to work in tribal casinos?”

Competitive Edge: We put out the best Class II games thereare. For tribal casinos, Class II is a product that helps them intheir compacts. It’s a main revenue supplier for them and the

responsibility is on us to keep creating all of our best gamesfor the market. We’ve been doing that for years and years andyears and we have no plans to move away from that.

Top Game: It’s a combination of a lot of good standardtitles and a lot of good mechanical reels. Our premium product is doing really well. Moby Dick™, for instance, is doing two or three times the house average wherever we’reputting it. It’s one of these games where people will walk overto the Class II side to play it, and so it’s a big draw for the casinos.

Future Trends: Things have changed over the years, forinstance, with progressives. People used to play for superlarge, life-changing, jackpots, but found they are hard to win.Players today want to play for things they feel they can win.Our whole math, game development and design is based on howcan we can give the player the best experience today. We wantthem to say, “That game is really fun – I won a big award andI love that product!” We’re focusing more on what kind of experience we give the player the day they’re in the casino andless on life-changing jackpots. Gaming is like any industry,you’ve got to stay on top of what customers are looking for.You have to constantly be thinking about the future and notjust what has worked in the past. You have to keep in touch withthe player.

Rick Meitzler, Vice President of SalesNovomatic Americas Saleswww.novomatic.com

Tribal Partnerships: Tribal gaming is a huge new market for Novomatic. It’s our first step into the U.S. market. We anticipate tribal gaming to be 40-50% of our business.

Competitive Edge: One difference about Novomatic frommost other companies is we’re not just a manufacturer. We operate over 200,000 machines worldwide, so from that perspective we learn what we do right and wrong and bring that

June 2014 Indian Gaming 27

Jens Halle and Rick Meitzler

28 Indian Gaming June 2014

NIGA CONVENTION

experience to the market. Because of that, when we put gamesout, they are very low maintenance. We are able to keep the cost down because we build 90% of the parts for the game. We’re a proven operator, are cost effective, and use ourexpertise to help better the market, product and price-wise.

Top Game: Our hottest new product right now is definitelythe Dominator® cabinet. It combines optimized usability andtop quality design with great looks. The result is absolute performance. The Dominator’s advanced ergonomic features, game synchronized LED-effects plus sophisticatedgraphics and top sound create an unforgettable in-depth gaming experience for the guest.

Future Trends: Obviously, everybody’s talking about Internet gaming. We’re very involved in that through acompany called Greentube Internet Entertainment SolutionsGmbH, which is part of Novomatic. We are very large in thatsegment of the business in Europe, and are now bringing itto the U.S. The brick-and-mortar casinos are not goingaway anytime soon. We’re concentrating very heavily onmachines and software that can better serve this market. As trends change, the technology is getting better, faster, andgames are more fun to play. We’re trying to find new ways ofdoing different things with bonusing, community banking andcommunity play. We want to enhance the player experiencefrom the casino side, and the Internet gaming side is an exten-sion of that. We see brick-and-mortar as our core business.

Gary Green, Senior Consultant to the PresidentOrtiz Gamingwww.ortizgaming.com

Tribal Partnerships: Tribal gaming meshes so well withOrtiz because tribal gaming, as we all know, started with bingo.With Ortiz, the product is a bingo product, so it’s like OrtizGaming and Indian gaming were made for each other. AsMaurilio Silva, President of Ortiz, says, “We’re one.”

Competitive Edge: The thing the Ortiz games do so well isthey take what everyone knows – the bingo we all learned toplay when we were nine years old – and they add this level ofexcitement and bonuses on top of the simplicity of the game.So, it really does take tribal gaming, not only to the next level,but full circle going to the next level.

Top Game: The hottest game, not only in the U.S. but alsoworldwide, is Triple Bonus and everybody loves it. We also havea game called Six Bingo that has been wildly catching on in the U.S. The difference between the two games is one isAmerican-style bingo with a free space in the middle, and theother is Spanish-style bingo with a 3x5 card.

Future Trends: A lot of people are asking is where iGamingis headed. I’m a technology person and I like iGaming, but I don’t think it’s the next step for traditional brick-and-mortarcasinos. I do think that social gaming has its place, for instance,a game that you can put on Facebook or other forms of socialmedia. But the next steps are new ways to engage the player –new ways to use technology to create time-in-chair. One of thethings that Ortiz is doing is community bonusing, where people get excited about staying in the chair to help theirneighbor win because they get a piece of their winnings. Whattechnology is doing is taking us to a new level in order to create more time-in-chair and more excitement for the brick-and-mortar casinos.

James Starr, Senior Vice President, SalesVGTwww.vgt.net

Tribal Partnerships: Tribal gaming is our major market segment. In fact, almost all of our customers are from tribal gaming casinos. We provide Class II games and that’s really whatwe’re focused on – to help advance tribal gaming and protecttribal sovereignty.

Competitive Edge: We’re launching our new XSpin™ platform, which will have a lot of video product. Operators willstart seeing more variety coming from VGT. Historically,we’ve been a 3-reel mechanical company, but now we’ll havethe variety of 3-reel mechanical to video and we’re starting tolaunch progressives. The shortfall for Class II has always beenthe shortage in variety of products, so we’ll start having moreto offer in our product line soon.

Gary Green (right), with Maurilio Silva

June 2014 Indian Gaming 29

Top Game: Currently, our hottest new game is our 5-reelmechanical game and we’re getting ready to launch ourFrankenstein® video product. We expect that to be one of ourhottest games along with Lizards On The Loose®.

Future Trends:As far as new technology, there’s a lot of mobilegaming on iPads and tablets. Some states have already passedInternet gaming, and we expect more to follow. The industryis now going after the younger generation, so you’ll see a lotmore video-type products on the market. You’ll also see more themes about game shows and TV shows from the 80sand 90s.

Tim Stuart, President/CEOVideo Kingwww.videokingnetwork.com

Tribal Partnerships: Video King has a huge presence in Indian Country across the U.S. We work with approxi-mately 35 different tribes. Our relationships have been verystrong throughout the years and very communicative. We’vealways worked extremely hard to develop long-lasting relation-ships.

Competitive Edge: We’re coming from the electronic bingoside and have new product coming out by the end of this year.This includes new ten-inch and seven-inch handheld electronicbingo devices to deliver bingo games and other forms of Class II content.

Top Game: Our product plays core bingo – the kind playedin bingo halls – and we also have a whole series of add-on PowerMutual® and progressive games, so it’s core bingo with

games added on top, depending on respective jurisdictionswhere they will allow or won’t allow add-on games.

Future Trends: With the development of the electronictablets over the past five years, in many areas, we’ve seen ayounger demographic playing electronic bingo games on theseelectronic bingo devices. By adding more games and more content, our goal is to go after that younger demographic.

Dean EhrlichSenior Vice President Global GamingOperationsWMS www.wms.com

Tribal Partnerships: Tribal gaming has always been animportant part of WMS, and we respect the partnerships thatwe have with our tribal customers.

Competitive Edge: This business is about creating productsthat resonate with players. We have a pretty impressive trackrecord of being able to deliver on that. As long as we continueto come up with those types of products and appeal to the customer base, then that’s how we’ll continue to make it a win-win for our tribal partners.

Top Game: At WMS, we have our product sales and gamingoperations business. On the product sales performance side, (with our Blade cabinet) we have a theme called Dancing in Rio™, which is performing very well out of the gate. From gaming operations, Monopoly Boardwalk Sevens™ has been incredible for the last nine months. Willy Wonka™ has also had solid performance and continues to haveduration. Iron Man™ on our Gamefield xD™ cabinet has also

Tim Stuart, center, with Jerry Clauson and Sonya Huscroft

30 Indian Gaming June 2014

NIGA CONVENTION

been very successful. All in all, we’ve been on a good run in ourgaming operations products released in the last several quarters.

Future Trends: As far as garnering new players, we need toget a younger demographic invested in the casino environment,but it’s not going to be done in the traditional slot machine fashion. There is going to be a blending or a convergencebetween the four walls of a casino and other devices that ayounger demographic are willing to play. They’re not goingto sit at their grandparent’s slot machine. They may play thatsame game, but they will want to do it on a different device,like an iPad or a phone.

The future isn’t going to be business as usual – we need tochange the playing field. To do so, casinos need to appeal tothe current player, but also bring in different types of productsthat will evolve and appeal to the untapped younger demo-graphic. ®

4132 S. Rainbow Boulevard Suite 148, Las Vegas Nevada 89103, Phone: 702.220.4562 Fax: 702.220.9784 www.apmlasvegas.com

Navigating your path

Project Management / Scheduling / Project Controls / Earned Value Management / Consulting