Casino Enterprise Management

Are you worried about the practical implications of server-based gaming infiltrating your casino floor? How to take full advantage of the across-property marketing opportunities that are becoming tied to TITO? What about the fact that your casino management system still won’t talk to your POS and property management systems? Wouldn’t you love to buy into the promise that one day—someday—you’ll be able to plug in any vendor’s system and make it work seamlessly with any other vendor’s system?

Well, stop worrying and wishing, and get off your duff—it’s time to do something about it.

With its G2G (Game-to-Game) standards successfully facilitating inter-manufacturer communication on your casino floor and its G2S (Game-to-System) standards almost perfected, the Gaming Standards Association (GSA) is continuing to tackle the challenge of S2S (System-to-System) standards. And it needs operators’ help to ensure its technical committees are addressing the irksome quirks and big issues that continue to aggravate real-life casino personnel.

Committed to creating benefits for not only operators, but also gaming manufacturers, suppliers and regulators, GSA facilitates the identification, definition, development, promotion and implementation of open standards to enable innovation, education and communication for the benefit of the entire gaming industry. But in the following pages, we’re focusing on five operator members of GSA—Ameristar Casinos Inc., MGM MIRAGE, MotorCity Casino, Penn National Gaming Inc. and Seminole Gaming—and why they joined GSA, what they’ve gained from the experience, and how you could benefit if you join their ranks.

GSA Operator Advisory Committee
Chairman:
Don Karrer, Corporate VP of Information Technology,
Penn National Gaming

Charter:
The Operator Advisory Committee facilitates the collaboration between (GSA member) operators and manufacturers, and system providers. The committee focuses on the functional requirements to ensure that GSA standards meet market demands.

The Committee:
•    Effectively creates and communicates the business value of GSA standards to the gaming community.
•    Solicits business requirement input from operator members.
•    Prioritizes business requirement requests submitted by operator members.
•    Submits priorities to the board of directors for review and approval.
•    Ensures alignment between the operator and manufacturer communities.
•    Operates in a manner that benefits the general gaming industry.
•    Educates and encourages non-member operators to join GSA.
•    Advocates GSA standards within the operator’s community.
•    Effectively communicates the business value of GSA standards to the gaming community created by newly adopted requirements.

For more information on GSA’s Operator Advisory Committee or other GSA committees, visit www.gamingstandards.com or contact Peter DeRaedt at pdr@sbcglobal.com.

Platinum Member
Seminole Gaming
Why did your company join GSA?
When I started working with the Seminole Tribe back in 2002, we began to build two Class III-style four-star hotel and casinos. We were determined to make Class II games look and operate like Class III games. But at that time, it was impossible to communicate between different Class II games, which are all server-based. There was no such thing back then as having a single player tracking system where you could earn points or get TITO on all games on the floor. It just didn’t exist.

To make that happen, I had to find a way to get my game vendors and my system vendor to work together. I knew that GSA’s mission was open standards, and I felt that that was the best opportunity for me to accomplish what I needed to do from a business standpoint. In fact, it was an absolute necessity—it was do or die—it was just a matter of finding out how to do it. So, I joined GSA in 2004 as a platinum member.

What short- and long-term benefits have you realized through your support of GSA?
I immediately became an active member after I joined GSA, and over a period of five or six months, I attended many of the technical committee meetings so that I could get up to speed rapidly on how to get my problem solved. As an operator participating on a technical committee, I was able to work with GSA to find a solution to my problem. I found that if an operator feels there are things today’s systems don’t have, like communication either between a game and a system or between systems, joining and becoming active in GSA is an incredible way to find the solution. But it’s not just a matter of sending in your check and saying you’re a member—it takes being active and placing one or two key people who understand your requirements and who actively participate in the standard setting process to get the job done. GSA is more than happy to do that. The people who are going to get what they are looking for sooner rather than later are those that are proactive and truly participate.

Would you encourage other operators to join GSA?
Definitely. This is the perfect time to become active and become a part of the solution, rather than put up with the problem. And the problems make a mess for everybody. To be able to see the solution implemented requires that an operator insist its vendors participate and implement the solutions. These vendors are not going to do it out of the goodness of their heart or because it’s the right thing to do. That’s a fact. I can tell you from experience that getting my problem solved was hard. It requires operators driving the process—we need to be change agents.

We now have an Operator Advisory Committee, which is something that every operator should participate in. It is an excellent forum for bringing all the different operators’ priorities to the board of directors in order to guide the technical committees appropriately. Of course, not all operators are going to have exactly the same priorities, and the consensus of the group may be, or should be, overall positive for the industry. However, if an operator has something really important to accomplish, it will find a solution much faster by participating at that committee level because the people on the technical committees are the people who implement the features in today’s games and systems.

What return on investment has GSA membership offered your company?
There have been many returns on my investment, but obviously the most notable was having my problem resolved. I believe that there is no better way to communicate with all of the vendors and promote your operation’s cause than to be part of the process. GSA’s problem-solving process works really well, and I am living proof of that.

Primary GSA Representative:
Lyle Bell, Senior VP of Information Technology
Company Name:
Seminole Gaming
Headquarters Address:
1 Seminole Way
Hollywood, Florida 33021
Website:
www.seminolehardrock.com
Key Executives:
James Allen, Chief Executive Officer
John James, Chief Operating Officer
Year Founded:
2002 (Seminole Hard Rock and Casino)
Year Joined GSA:
2004
Total Number of Electronic Gaming Devices:
10,000
Type of Casinos Owned:
Tribal

Platinum Member
MGM Mirage
Why did your company join GSA?
I arrived at MGM MIRAGE as the CIO more than two years ago. There was a mandate for me to drive enterprise-level shared solutions and interoperability in all functional areas, to include gaming and slots. It quickly became clear to me this was a very complex undertaking on the slot floor that required the utmost cooperation between manufacturers and operators. And GSA is the trade association that truly helps drive that. In consultation with other executives at MGM MIRAGE, we decided it was important not just for MGM MIRAGE, but for all gaming companies to take an active role in GSA. It is for the good of the entire industry. So, for the last two years, I have been an active board member, and MGM MIRAGE is a platinum sponsor of GSA. 

What short- and long-term benefits have you realized through your support of GSA?
The short-term benefits involve helping us build specifications for the next-generation casino floor. The consistency of the standards allows us as operators to work with multiple manufacturers and plan for a more personalized and sophisticated gaming floor in the future. With slots being such an integral part of our casino’s revenues, retaining and marketing to our best customers is critical. Standards allows for the seamless communication between systems and devices, so we have the appropriate data needed to run a business. Standards also drive portability. From an operator perspective, the use of standards eliminates resource-intensive analysis on proprietary technologies and interfaces, and focuses our discussion on value, quality, product and service. We now have more choices. Standards also protect our investments. Standards are robust, endorsed and encourage the cross-pollination of ideas in a much richer way than can be developed by a single entity.
Long-term, I personally believe that these standards, combined with a persistent service window and SMIB-less slot machine, will eventually turn every slot machine into a “guest portal” or kiosk of sorts. These slots will become branded and personalized while allowing for e-commerce, personalized and dynamic marketing, and driving the ability to up-sell and cross-sell other resort amenities.

Would you encourage other operators to join GSA?
GSA is celebrating its 10th anniversary and is now more than 70 global members strong with a healthy mix of operators, manufacturers and other affiliates and advisors. As an operator, we are less focused on the physical production of the standards and protocols. We are focused more on ensuring that we choose the right path, that the protocols work, that they truly are interoperable, and that timelines are adhered to. GSA is also very focused on the use of A2LA / ISO certified third-party firms to test its tools and protocols. I think this is important for the integrity of the standards and ensures an unbiased process. Being involved is critical to ensure the proper direction of the industry, as well as to ensure our corporate direction is aligned properly. 

What return on investment has GSA membership offered your company?
Once fully deployed, GSA standards and elimination of proprietary solutions will help drive visibility into patron behavior, allow for operational efficiencies, allow for faster addition and subtraction of services, and enable easier integration and plug-n-play components, while also allowing us to focus on quality and content, not proprietary technology. Collectively, assuming the right business model and a sound conversion from today’s slot floors, this could be a very powerful ROI once all GSA-endorsed protocols are institutionalized. All our new resorts such as MGM Grand Detroit, CityCenter and others will be wired for a fully functional server-based slot floor that leverages all the benefits of the three GSA-endorsed protocols. Going forward, any new investments in slot or slot floor technologies all require an unwavering compliance with these GSA standards. Our current field trials for server-based gaming at TI, and soon to start at Bellagio and MGM Grand Detroit, are not GSA compliant.  However, upgrades this spring and summer will include GSA’s G2S protocols. Although real-world standards are not in production, real-world needs and requirements that are necessary to operate the business efficiently are communicated to GSA through the Operators Advisory Committee, which one of my directors, Mick Constantino, co-chairs. These practical business needs are then built into the protocols. GSA is rich with a diverse group of very talented people. Our ability to network with each other and learn from each other is priceless.

Primary GSA Representative:
Thomas R. Peck Jr., Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer               
Company Name:
MGM MIRAGE
Headquarters Address:
3600 Las Vegas Blvd. South
Las Vegas, Nevada  89109
Website:
www.mgmmirage.com
Key Executives:     
Terry Lanni, Chief Executive Officer
Jim Murren, President and Chief Operating Officer
Dan D’Arrigo, Executive VP and Chief Financial Officer
Bobby Baldwin, Chief Design and Construction Officer
Gary Jacobs, Executive VP and Chief Legal Counsel
Aldo Manzini, Executive VP and Chief Administrative Officer
Year Founded:
1986
Year Joined GSA:
2006
Total Number of Electronic Gaming Devices:
More than 28,000 slots and 1,300 table games
Types of Casinos Owned:
17 wholly-owned casino resorts, 50 percent investments in four other casino resorts, and numerous other alliances

Gold Member
Penn National Gaming, Inc.
Why did your company join GSA?
As a byproduct of operating a multi-faceted gaming business in more than 15 jurisdictions throughout North America, we are painfully aware of the various standards and protocols in existence today. We felt GSA would provide us with the opportunity to work with all of the major gaming manufacturers and suppliers on developing common standards that would benefit our industry for the future.

What short- and long-term benefits have you realized through your support of GSA?
We are very aware that developing new standards is a long-term process. That said, the long-term benefits will come to fruition once the new standards are fully implemented in the field, beginning later this year. One of the major short-term benefits we realized was the development of new relationships with other GSA gaming industry peers and manufacturers.

Would you encourage other operators to join GSA?
Absolutely. One of the largest technical challenges we face as a gaming operator is the process of finding systems that support and enhance the profitability of our business. The gaming system of the future will run on networks utilizing GSA standards throughout the world. All of the major gaming manufacturers and suppliers have been busy rewriting their systems to conform to these standards. Joining GSA provides operators the opportunity to get involved and guide their hardware and software providers in a direction that meets their business objectives.

What return on investment has GSA membership offered your company?
By design, our business model utilizes several different systems and products; therefore, a common standard provides us with the opportunity to continue to successfully operate our diverse systems and not be locked into a single vendor’s solution. The common standard will also allow vendors to decrease their time to market for new systems and enhancements, thereby delivering products to meet our business demands.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Becoming a member is a great start; however, we always need more operators to actively participate in the multiple committees and groups within GSA. One such committee is the Operator Advisory Committee (OAC) formed in 2007—I serve as its current chairman. The primary purpose of the committee is to facilitate the collaboration between (GSA member) operators and manufacturers and system providers. The OAC focuses on business functional requirements to ensure GSA standards are meeting market demands. It currently consists of several major gaming and lottery operators located throughout the world. 

This is your future. Why not take advantage of a once in a lifetime opportunity to steer it into a direction that can significantly enhance the success of your company?

Primary GSA Representative:   
Don Karrer, Corporate VP of Information Technology
Company Name:
Penn National Gaming Inc.
Headquarters Address:
825 Berkshire Blvd.
Wyomissing, Pennsylvania 19610
Website:
www.pngaming.com
Key Executives:
Peter Carlino, Chairman and CEO
Timothy Wilmott, President and COO
Year Founded:
Established as a public company in 1994
Year Joined GSA:
2005
Total Number of Electronic Gaming Devices:
25,000
Types of Casinos Owned:
Operating in 15 jurisdictions across the country, Penn National offers a distinct brand of gaming entertainment, ranging from resort casinos to riverboat gaming to thoroughbred, harness and greyhound racing.

Gold Member
Ameristar Casinos
Why did your company join GSA?
Ameristar joined GSA because its leaders wanted to be involved throughout the development process and be part of the solution, rather than just be presented with an end result. GSA is vital in creating an open architecture, allowing us to maximize the benefits from products offered by a diverse group of manufacturers.  

What short- and long-term benefits have you realized through your support of GSA?
The need for integrated systems in the casino industry is stronger than ever. It is essential for all gaming devices and systems to be on an open architecture. GSA facilitates stable and continuing communications with manufacturers on a frequent, real-time basis. GSA enables the integration of existing technologies and provides the platform for emerging applications. We believe GSA standards result in streamlined operations, increased efficiencies and cost-effective solutions throughout the industry.

Would you encourage other operators to join GSA?
Most of the major manufacturers and operators are “active” members of GSA, and they are setting the foundation today for the casino floor of the future. We strongly encourage all manufacturers and even the smallest operators to get involved in GSA to have a say in the future of gaming.

Primary GSA Representative:
Bob Sobcyk, VP Slot Operations
Company Name:
Ameristar Casinos Inc.
Headquarters Address:
3773 Howard Hughes Pkwy. Ste. 490S
Las Vegas, Nevada 89169
Website:
www.ameristar.com
Key Executives:   
John Boushy, Chief Executive Officer and President
Gordon Kanofsky, Co-Chairman and Executive Vice President
Ray Neilsen, Co-Chairman and Senior Vice President
Year Founded:
Cactus Pete’s was first established in 1954; Ameristar Casinos Inc. was formed as the parent company of Cactus Pete’s in 1993.
Year Joined GSA:
2007
Total Number of Electronic Gaming Devices:
13,500 slot machines
Types of Casinos Owned:
Ameristar operates casinos in a variety of jurisdictions, including:
Jackpot, Nevada
Vicksburg, Mississippi
Council Bluffs, Iowa
St. Charles, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri
Black Hawk, Colorado
East Chicago, Indiana

Silver Member
Motor City Casino Hotel
Why did your company join GSA?
MotorCity Casino Hotel joined GSA to be a pioneer in the “standardization” of our industry and our CEO, Gregg Solomon, was the second GSA chairman. It has been a long held belief and desire of the executive team at MotorCity Casino that our industry needs to adopt standards both in gaming and systems. As operators we struggled with interoperability between our gaming platforms and slot information system. As we dug deeper into the world of SAS, we realized that although manufacturers were running the same level of SAS, many did not work with our system. Something was different from manufacturer to manufacturer. As an operator it was impossible to know which manufacturers complied with the SAS interoperability specification.  We joined and took a leadership position in GSA to solve these problems for our operation and the industry at large. 

What short- and long-term benefits have you realized through your support of GSA?
We have been able to test the SAS protocols of various manufacturers and compare the results to the specification established by GSA. This testing process has allowed us to tailor our purchases toward manufacturers whose games are fully compatible with our system and are therefore “plug and play.” We were also one of the first casinos to implement the S2S protocol, allowing us to streamline interfaces between disparate systems and provide the ultimate in guest experience.

Would you encourage other operators to join GSA?
Absolutely. Membership not only gives members access to tool kits and specifications, it more importantly gives them access to the leading minds in our industry. From past regulatory experience, manufacturing, and decades of operations, the membership of GSA is comprehensive, diverse and extremely motivated to see our industry grow and succeed.

What return on investment has GSA membership offered your company?
The ability to share ideas is the most important component to success today. Access to the people that GSA provides is immeasurable. The fact that this group is eager to discuss, debate and share ideas is the single most valuable asset membership to GSA provides. What price would you pay for knowledge, standardization and peace of mind?

Is there anything else you’d like to add regarding your GSA membership?
MotorCity Casino Hotel is so committed to standardization that we are the first operator in the world to require our manufacturers to verify GSA 6.01 compliance through an independent laboratory. Once certified, we can bring the game in and literally plug-and-play, eliminating interoperability issues and improving service to our guests.

Primary GSA Representative:
Phil Trofibio, VP Slot Operations
Company Name:
MotorCity Casino Hotel
Headquarters Address:
2901 Grand River Ave.
Detroit, Michigan 48201
Website:
www.motorcitycasino.com
Key Executives:
Gregg Solomon, Chief Executive Officer
Rhonda Cohen, Chief Operating Officer and President
Bruce Dall, Chief Financial Officer
Year Founded:
1999
Year Joined GSA:
1999, 2005
Total Number of Electronic Gaming Devices:
3,000
Type of Casinos Owned:
Commercial