NASHVILLE – There will be a “blurring of the lines” between the casino floor and hotel rooms in the near future, and it’s coming sooner than you think, according to a technology expert.
Patrick Tinklenberg, vice president of information technology with Sycuan Casino in San Diego, said gambling in rooms will be part of the future of the hospitality experience.
“You’ll be able to take the experience you have on the gaming floor (back) to your room to play on your phone, tablet or TV,” Tinklenberg said. “You can start a game in your room and (have) it follow you to the gaming floor, whether it’s bingo, keno, table games or slot machines.”
Speaking as a panelist on technology and casinos at the TribalNet conference in Nashville Monday, Tinklenberg said that there are no plans to implement what he forecasts for the industry overall at his casino.
He expects there will be some conflict between the casino operations team, which will say “don’t put too much” in the rooms because they want guests on the casino floor, and the hotel team that says “we want everything in their rooms and at their fingertips.”
The transition should be an easy one, because casinos already track customers through the use of their player card, Tinklenberg said. When they’re in their room, the gaming experience can be replicated with their player card, room key or possibly their phone, by digitally following the person from the casino floor to their room, he said.
As for the technology, some casinos already offer guests the ability to play table games remotely from a terminal on the gaming floor, so there’s no reason that can’t be duplicated in their room, he said. Some casinos also offer mobile sports betting at their properties, which could easily be enabled to television sets in rooms.
“If they’re watching a game on TV or if they’re sitting around in the room waiting to go out to dinner, they might want to throw 50 bucks on a roulette wheel or sic bo or baccarat,” Tinklenberg said. “You do a live stream of that game, and you can bet in real time. The technology has been well established. I don’t think it’s that far off.”
It just comes down to the willingness of casinos to implement the technology, and Tinklenberg said he can see that happening within the next three to five years.
There shouldn’t be any significant regulatory hurdles, he said. There may be a small issue in some states with tribal gaming over what sorts of activities can happen in guest rooms.
“What could hold it back, maybe, are some of the traditional folks who think a room is not the place to have people gaming (because) they feel they have less control. But none of the gaming is taking place on devices in the room: it’s (happening) on a server someplace.”
Tinklenberg said he’s uncertain what analytics have been done to say “whether it works or not,” but that he suspects the return on investment would be quick for the enabling technology in rooms.
If a tribal casino is going to try it, it will likely a smaller property that “dips its toe in that space” and takes a chance. He said it would likely be adopted at the commercial level first.
