- Russ Ristine, G2S: How to Get There from Here

In this month’s Casino Enterprise Management magazine, Russ discusses the current state of G2S and how casinos can transition their current gaming floors to open, high-speed networks.

OK. I know how busy you are. So here’s the Cliff Notes version (which is not nearly as interesting or informative as the actual article that, did I mention, is here and only takes a few minutes to read, should you find the time).

Right now, your gaming floor network probably looks something like this . . .

(You can read about the pros and cons of proprietary gaming floors here.)

Here’s one solution for transitioning to an open, high-speed network . . .

Note that your first step into the world of the open, high-speed networked gaming floors does not have to be the transition of your entire floor – convert a single area or bank of machines with an eye toward transitioning the rest of your floor as it makes sense to do so.

This step is important because it is when you make decisions that will impact your floor for years to come – and you will have lots of decisions to make. Remember, you want your floor to be extensible and to be able to support standard third-party applications as new features are developed. For these reasons, your EGMs must be able communicate with at least six hosts (to accommodate a download server, regulatory server, marketing server, slot performance server and a couple for future innovations).

Once you have the basic network structure in place, you can start adding application servers to bring new features quickly and easily to your floor . . .

And, viola! As your G2S network matures and your team becomes comfortable with the new environment, you’ll be ready to expand the network across your gaming floor when the time comes.

Players of the new Lord of the Rings™ game can now extend their gaming experience outside the casino by logging on (by computer or mobile phone) to playerslife.com, a website that lets EGM players play “casual games” for bonus points. They can then use those bonus points on the casino game, which incentivizes return visits to the casino. Players also have the option of playing the same casual games at the EGM to earn bonus points.

The site creators have done a nice job of creating a community space, with a player forum and developer blog. Real-time game play updates of both casino and online players dynamically display on the home page,providing  a sense of excitement and connection with the game experience.

But my purpose in pointing Player’s Life out to you isn’t to do a review.

What I find exciting about the Player’s Life concept is that it represents a move toward connecting current technologies and trends with the gaming floor. WMS took a good look at casino players and their interactions with both technology and gaming, so they knew exactly where to start.

Some people believe that the technologies that open-standard, high-speed networked gaming make possible will be too much for customers – and that may well be true for certain player segments. But what they forget is that same technology will allow casinos to be many things to many people. If personalization is the way of the future, then open standards are a must because the slot floor will need to be versatile and extensible, making plug-and-play applications indispensable. Monolithic slot floors that simply offer variations of the same type of games and technologies aren’t going to cut it. There are simply too many other entertainment options for perspective players.

The casino players of the future will want entertainment and excitement from the casino experience that they can’t find elsewhere. To succeed, gaming must find a renewed, technologically savvy attraction for players. This will take close collaboration between vendors and casinos, flexible technologies, a clear understanding of players and a vision for what gaming technology could be. Player’s Life is an important first step in that direction.

That is the question being discussed by casino operators worldwide. To facilitate the discussion, it may be useful to step back and take a look at some of the pros and cons of the typical slot floor network on most gaming floors today. As a point of reference, most casino slot floor networks currently look something like this:

The Pros

Comfortable

Like your favorite sweatshirt, your current network may have a few holes, but you know it well and it still serves its intended purpose.

Well-Tested

Most existing slot floors have been around for nearly 20 years, so many of the problems have been found and (hopefully) corrected.

Avoids the Awkwardness and Frustration of Dating

When you commit to a vendor that uses a proprietary slot floor system, for the most part, you only have to focus on that one relationship. Whether it’s calling support, getting training for your team or inquiring about new features, having a single point of contact (and responsibility) can be reassuring. Of course, marriage can have its own share of awkwardness and frustration, but I’ll leave that for another time.

Less Regulation

Since all traffic on a proprietary slot floor goes through a Slot Machine Interface Board (SMIB), new functionality that does not affect the game does not require regulatory approval. (Well, it didn’t until Ticket In/Ticket Out was added to slot floor systems. After that, the system was considered a gaming device, so any change is now highly regulated.)

Less Expensive

By far, staying with your existing slot floor network is the less expensive option in terms of up-front costs because you already have the system and network in place. Your costs for an existing proprietary network mainly involve new features, minor upgrades and maybe a bit of training.

The Cons

Overly Complicated

If the new feature is going to be initiated by your enterprise data warehouse or marketing system, and includes an interaction with the player and an update to the credit meter on the EGM, there are potentially five different protocols that need to be modified (some of which may not even be controlled by your system vendor). With so many moving parts, the possibility of issues creeping into a feature increases for each protocol on the network.

Inefficient

There are as many as six different program environments that must be modified, tested, approved and deployed to your gaming floor in order for a feature to be available to your players. No wonder the typical development cycle is 18 months or more! This lengthy and complicated development cycle presents significant challenges to the rapid development and deployment of new features.

Slow, Limited Communications

The final connection to the EGM uses a slow, polled serial communication link running a protocol called SAS (created 20+ years ago). This SAS link works pretty well over a local connection with the SMIB, but it can’t be used to move large amounts of data to or from the EGM, nor could it ever be used to talk to multiple hosts. Most player interactions are done using player peripherals hung off a third-party SMIB that is supplied by your slot system vendor because player interactions can’t happen across the SAS communication link.

Discourages Innovation

All of the protocols in use (other than SAS) are developed by the system vendor with an eye towards securing their floor network environment (an incredibly important concern when processing vouchers, transferring money and doing other important business functions). However, most don’t employ off-the-shelf security mechanisms (like TLS or SSL) as those types of industry standard solutions are not really available for custom-developed communication protocols. Plus, due to the proprietary nature of the interfaces, any innovation must come from or be sanctioned by the slot system vendor. While slot system vendors are very capable, network lock-in as well as proprietary/non-standard protocols discourage standard Internet technologies and new ideas from moving easily to the slot floor.

In a nutshell, there is certainly a case to be made for proprietary networks. Each casino will have its own set of considerations when deciding how to move its slot floor into the future.

What do you see as the pros and cons of proprietary slot floor networks?