!36-%2 (a*+e ga./0g:2a345( 1 0%/03/2010 09:38 Page 38
TABLE GAMING
Tables vs. slots: who’s winning? and they’re all full, slots players can easily gambling centres such as Vegas and Atlantic
outnumber the table players even when the City, where the showmanship and drama of
How important are slots relative to table slots area is relatively quiet. the traditional table is part of the thrill, while
games to the casino’s bottom line? casinos that are more heavily frequented by
It’s no surprise, then, that broadly speaking regular local visitors find that their customers
The short answer is that depends not only most North American casino operators would rather have a comparatively low-key
who you ask, but exactly where you ask them. consider slots the real gaming money-makers. session on the slots.
Asian casinos are far more reliant on table What’s perhaps less well-known, is the It’s also widely believed that slots, with less
games than their American counterparts. A extent to which the relationship between slots potential for making embarrassing mistakes or
typical large venue in Macau, for example, and table revenue varies even within the US. misunderstanding fast-paced gaming jargon,
might have about 750 table games and 1250 are preferred by newcomers to casino
slots – in other words, about 65 percent more Research by Gaming & Resort Development, gambling.
slots than tables. using 2007 revenue figures, showed that table
games accounted for about 30 percent of The Gaming & Resort Development
Bearing in mind that tables are for multiple gaming revenue in Atlantic City (a figure now research also looked at the contribution of
players and slots for solos, it’s easy to do the likely to decline as local competition grows), each individual type of table game to revenue.
math and figure out that it doesn’t take a very but ten percent or less in many states, and as Nationwide, by far the biggest earner was
high table occupancy for table players to little as four percent in Colorado (where the Blackjack, which generated more than a third
outnumber slots gamers at the Macau site. low figure may have been partly due to stake of table game revenue, distantly followed by
And even though the slots-to-tables ratio does limitations). Craps and Baccarat, delivering roughly 15
vary quite a bit across the Macau casinos, percent each. Poker variants brought in a little
their differences pale into insignificance when Perhaps the most striking contrast comes in less than that.
they’re compared with American venues. Nevada, where table games provided nearly
half of the gaming revenue of casinos on the There was then a substantial drop in the
A large Vegas casino, for example, might Las Vegas Strip, but only 15 percent elsewhere league table to Roulette, contributing less
have 2500 slots, but just 120 tables – a in the state. than ten percent of table gaming revenue,
chunky 2000 percent more slots than tables. followed by another drop to the minor games:
Again, a few calculations quickly show that One likely explanation is that table games Mini-Baccarat, Let It Ride, Pai Gow, and
even if all the tables are ten-seaters (unlikely) tend to be more attractive to visitors to major Caribbean Stud.
Reader devices use antennae to register the radio RFID for a range of other applications, including
signal and can thus detect where each chip is located Roulette and Poker monitoring.
at any moment in its journey from vault to cash desk
to table, as well as during the game itself. The The old ways
advantages, according to Abbiati, are not only in You could be forgiven for thinking, then, that table
security and avoidance of counterfeit chips, but also gaming today is all about digital. But in fact non-
in ease of tracking – management can trace and digital tables are going strong, and there are many
record the location of all chips at all times. To the enhancements on offer, such as table illumination
player, however, they remain traditional chips. systems, that don’t demand a commitment to
electronic games. And some vendors, such as Matsui
The Blackjack table, for example, is divided into Casino Equipment and Latvia’s CTC Holdings, remain
three areas for tracking: the float tray in front of the resolutely low-tech – offering everything from wheels
croupier, the working area between the croupier and to tables to chairs to cards to chips.
the play area, and the zone directly in front of the
players. That zone is further sub- Others specialise in particular niches: Britain’s
divided into six areas per player Martin Williams Casino Equipment, for example, is
so that individual bets can be known not just for its Roulette wheel and other kit
read. A similar system of dividing but also for a range of Poker cloths covering variants
the table into distinct areas is such as Casino Stud, Seven-Player Stud, Hold ‘Em
employed for Texas Hold ‘Em. and Eight-Player Stud.
Another RFID proponent is What unites all these approaches to table gaming –
Gaming Partners International dealer or no dealer, digital or thoroughly traditional
(GPI), whose RFID-enabled – is a desire to bring new life to old games, improving
products include an application their profitability. The rise of server-based gaming is
that links with JCM’s currency likely to usher in a new wave of interest in table-type
note validators and the chip tray games among digitally savvy younger customers, too,
to give management a real-time and while they may not dress like James Bond, they’ll
picture of the cash and chips at ensure that the tables hold their own against the
each table. The firm also uses slots (and the online competition) for a while yet.
42 MARCH 2010
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