Video game gambling offers the best opportunity for casinos to attract new players but will not replace traditional slots and table games, three leaders in the field agreed Wednesday.
“Slots are not going away. Table games are not going away,” predicted Blaine Graboyes, CEO of GameCo. Inc.
Of the roughly 1 million slot machines located throughout North America, video game gambling manufacturers are talking about taking just 2.5 percent, or 25,000, of those.
Graboyes was speaking at the discussion titled ‘The 21st Century Casino: Skill-based Gaming Innovations,’ which also featured panelists Bryan Kelly, Senior Vice President of Advanced Technology at Scientific Games, and Darion Lowenstein, chief marketing officer of Gamblit Gaming. Graboyes and Lowenstein prefer the term ‘video game gambling’ rather than ‘skill-based gaming,’ saying the former is easier to understand and that skill-based gaming has been in casinos for years in the form of poker, blackjack and video poker.
Moderator Chris Grove, managing director of Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, cited statistics showing the popularity of video gaming outside casinos: 97 percent of households have at least one gaming device, and 160 million Americans play video games. Of those, 23 million are at least 21 years old, in the top income bracket, and already visit casinos.
“Everybody’s some type of gamer,” Lowenstein said. “My Mom plays Candy Crush.”
Kelly, whose company markets the Space Invaders slot, which includes a bonus round featuring the classic arcade game, said amusement style games particularly attract millennials who like to “drink, play and high five together.”
Graboyes said the real opportunity in video game gambling is in bringing new gamers to the casino. A recent study done for GameCo found that the lifetime value of a net new casino gamer – one who wouldn’t come to gamble if not for video game gambling – is $35,000 to $40,000 over their lifetime.
“For a casino now, the single greatest opportunity is: How do we market to attract this… new audience that wouldn’t typically gamble?” he said.
Kelly said Space Invaders and similar games available in the foreseeable future are unlikely to make as much money as traditional slots, but casinos say they draw new customers and new money.
Lowenstein said video game gambling generates energy and excitement from people competing against each other. “These are not people who are going to sit down and play a slot machine. These are people who want an interactive, competitive video gaming experience.”
He and Graboyes said a successful video game gambling machine must be easy for players to understand and, if available on other devices, faithful to the original.
“If I go up to a machine and I see it’s totally different from what I’ve been playing on my phone for the last 10 years, I’m over it, I don’t want to risk my money,” Lowenstein said. “But if a game looks the same, I’m going to be a lot more likely to put a few bucks in the machine and have confidence that I can win.”
While play-at-home video games tend to take players through multiple levels and last several minutes, those in a casino must be shortened. Graboyes said the timing is an important issue; current video gambling games might last 30 to 45 seconds. Future ones might be shorter, he said.
Another change is making sure the games live up to a cardinal rule: Don’t let the house get cleaned out. Because a few players are so highly skilled at games, Kelly said, a random number generator is necessary to control the payouts and maintain a house edge.
“It’s really important to try to cultivate that future gamer,” Kelly said. “If it starts with a video game, then it moves to slots over the next 20 years.”
“I don’t think slots are going away,” he continued. “(They are) the most optimized adrenaline machine on earth.”
