More than 300 casino executives are expected to attend the second annual Casino eSports Conference in three weeks in Las Vegas.
The event is growing from its inaugural conference last September with double the number of speakers and attendance. This year’s event will be Sept. 5th and 6th at Luxor on the Strip, where the casino opened a 30,000-square-foot Esports Arena in March to much fanfare and national attention.
This year’s conference billed as “For the New Age of Gaming,” will connect the casino world to esports players, marketers, developers, products, services, event providers, lawyers and educators. The event is also geared for casinos to incorporate iGaming and skilled-based gaming in addition to esports gaming.
One of the speakers, Jennifer Roberts, associate director of the International Center for Gaming Regulation at UNLV, said the conference is a timely discussion as a “meeting of the minds” of people trying to reach out to the esports community and how it fits into the integrated resort and casino environment.
“It’s just like a nightclub at a casino, another form of entertainment,” Roberts said. “It’s another amenity just like a sports book that is added to bring in a different demographic. There’s a lot of focus now on the Luxor Esports Arena and how that fits into the land-based resort. I think we’re in the experimental phase at the moment, and I think it’s pretty exciting.”
MGM Resorts International partnered with Allied Esports to build the arena in a former nightclub at the Luxor as the first permanent esports venue on the Strip. Last year, a Seattle esports betting startup announced a deal with MGM to host video game tournaments at the MGM Grand at Level UP, an entertainment complex and social lounge. Unikrn CEO Rahul Sood is one of the speakers.
Ben Fox, producer of the conference with his brother Ari Fox, said there’s a crossover is underway between casinos and esports as evidenced by MGM Resorts. People are paying attention to what’s happening, he said.
“People are starting to move very quickly,” Fox said. “They were ‘who cares about millennials,’ and ‘there is no way to make money in esports’ to now ‘where we are going to figure it out, and it’s here to stay.’ People’s perceptions are starting to change.”
Fox said it will take time, however, for the esports concept to take hold in casinos as people get used to the venues, Fox said.
“It’s building, and everybody is starting to get the picture,” Fox said. “It’s an exciting time for this stuff.”
Roy Student, a business advisor for Fox, said esports is becoming a buzz word and casino operators are asking the question about how they can make money. That’s drawing interest in the conference, he said.
The money appears to be in the ancillary functions of esports for drawing people who will spend their money in other places on the property, Student said. He said he foresees properties going for games that can bring in a wider range of customers, such as car racing compared to combat games. Most people have a better knack for driving than operating joy sticks for shooting and combat, he said.
The conference will feature Nicholas Cohen who leads esports initiatives at HARMAN Professional Solutions, which partnered with Allied for the audio and control solutions at the Luxor venue.
“The esports market was a perfect market for us to be involved in, and the arena was the best first step I could have taken,” Cohen said. “We will see more dedicated venues in North America. Esports is starting to be recognized as a legitimate sport with teams.”
It will be in the 2022 Asian Games, and the Olympics will decide if it should be included in the 2024 games in Paris, Cohen said.
“We’re on the verge of Olympian gamers, which is pretty cool if you ask me,” Cohen said. “For the first time ESPN showed an esports competition in prime time. It’s becoming more mainstream and more part of the conversation when it comes to a spectator phenomenon. It’s interesting to look at growth through casinos. They are awesome hospitality venues that are always trying to get people in there. The MGM partnership with Allied is a genuine experiment of this new way into the casino as a new attraction and part of the entertainment.”
Luxor’s arena is a combination of an Internet gaming café, sports bar and restaurant, Cohen said. People can walk in and sit at a gaming station and play their favorite games while ordering drinks and food. When there’s an event, they can pull out the gaming stations and turn it into stadium seating as an arena.
Blaine Graboyes, CEO of GameCo, which created the first skilled-based slot machine for the casino industry and will speak at the conference, said esports will continue to grow over the next 10 to 20 years.
“We’re maybe on the third or fourth rung of a 10-rung ladder,” Graboyes said. “There’s still great work to be done. It’s great that more and more casinos are embracing esports broadly. I’m excited about GameCo working on products that normalize video game gambling in esports as part of the casino gaming floor.”
Graboyes said casinos are experts at hotel rooms, gaming floors and being a landlord to restaurants, bars, nightclubs and other activities. Most of the esports activity in casinos is leveraging that landlord model, he said.
“I love with Allied did at Luxor, and MGM is deeply involved in that business as a landlord renting out space inside their casino,” Graboyes said. “That is an area that they are experts at and know how to market and monetize and promote.”
At the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas in October, Graboyes said GameCo will showcase a multi-player model for a game of up to eight players, and eventually, up to 64 players with the ability to run tournaments and cash competitions on the gaming floor.
“We’re using the same technology and approach that is typically used for slot machines and electronic table games,” Graboyes said. “I think we have come a long way in video game gambling. Casinos are continuing to embrace a new customer base. There is a very wide understanding and acceptance that casinos need to be reaching a new customer base. I wouldn’t say it’s millennials or has anything to do with age, but a new type of customer that wouldn’t think of casinos as a destination.”
GameCo is focused on the release on third generation games that involved the velocity of betting and pace of play to bring them on par to slot machines, Graboyes said. The newest game is called “Nothing But Net,” a basketball game in which each shot a player takes is a bet with a result, he said.
For more information on the entire program and to register go to www.casinoesportconf.com.
