Casino Enterprise Management

As the major U.S. stock indices slipped in May, largely due to weakness in the energy sector, and signs that consumer demand and confidence may be fading, the AGEM Index took a more aggressive turn

The term “visionary” evokes a host of strong words to describe a person. Hand selected, each for various reasons, this month we honor some of the geniuses behind gaming’s greatest innovations. They each have interesting backgrounds, impressive goals, outstanding resumes, and maybe even a few surprising characteristics. This is an inside look at each of them.

Check out the gaming industry's latest movers and shakers in the June 2011 What's Shakin'. This month, news includes new AGEM members, the industry's golf classic, IGT's new agreements, Bally's new hire and agreement with Caesars, PokerTek's distributor, GLI's European regulators roundtable, WorthGroup's anniversary, OIGA's new director and ICE's new venue.

Interrupted as he spoke by a loud, jarring sound, presumably caused by a sound engineer hitting the wrong button, Sheldon Adelson started with a joke—“Was it something I said?”—but then, with a sly chuckle, got more to the point: “Listen, I have some influence around here. Don’t do that again.” Making a rare appearance in a gaming trade show environment, Adelson was in a Venetian ballroom on this particular day to accept the G2E Asia Visionary Award.

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of participating in the tribal panel at the iGaming North America conference, which was held over a three-day period in Las Vegas. I decided to attend the entire conference and immersed myself into Internet/online gaming issues for a 48-plus hour period, hardly coming up for air. I came away with two epiphanies, as it were, on behalf of my tribal clients.

I can’t stress enough the fact that every casino executive needs to have a good understanding of the mathematics behind casino table games and table game promotions. Many executives worry about losses due to card counting and cheating, but they totally drop the ball when it comes to understanding the numbers. Take this quiz and see which answer you would use to make these simple but crucial gaming operational decisions.

This month's new products include Innovative Technology's NV200 Metal Bezel, Luminaire Press's Casino Direct Mail – Winning at Marketing: Double Your Response for Half the Cost, MICROS Payment Gateway from MICROS, TabletKiosk's Sahara Slate PC i500 and TurningPoint® Audience Response System from Turning Technologies.

This article introduces the concept of horizontal products and the innovation that they bring to the whole gaming floor. When looking at horizontal innovation, we will examine two critical factors: innovation of gaming platforms and innovation of the connecting systems.

This month's new Class II slots feature Bally's Stacked Hot Shot® Progressive Blazing 7s™, Cadillac Jack's Scotland Yard™, Dive Quest™ from Multimedia Games, Rocket Gaming's Phoenix Sapphire® and Jackpot Block Party™ from WMS.