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EXTREME LIVE GAMING


It’s Golden Ball time!


spins the ball. “The presenter is ‘triggered‘ by the actions of the players,” explains Darwyn. “That’s the engagement we’re looking to give the players. I wonder if there’s any risk in giving the players themselves a way to exert even the slightest influence on outcomes. “The whole ‘spin the wheel’ thing that I’m doing right now is pretty safe, but if you actually allowed a player to control things it obviously could be a problem, so these are the kinds of things we have to be careful of. That‘s why it’s in a controlled environment. Having said that, that’s why people like RNG: they know it’s controlled, they know they’re not going to win 100% of the time, but yet they still play it for that chance.” More interesting is the presentation of the roulette


table. Everything bar the table and wheel looks a lot like a slot game… “You have a roulette table with side bets generated by a reel based on Novomatic’s Book of Ra slot. So it’s great cross-branding. If an operator wants to push the best performing slot they have, they can bring it to the roulette table as a side bets ‘sponsor’. Also, the presenter starts talking about the winning results too - so that’s the kind of engagement we’re looking for. It takes it beyond standard roulette, and we can go further by incorporating the slot itself into the interface.” This might start sounding like a lot to fit onto a


screen, particularly a tablet screen… “We have a layout that’s specific for tablets, explains Darwyn. “It’s different but you can swipe tabs from element to element rather than try to squeeze it all onto one screen. The quality is just higher than the standard offerings; we really had to increase the production value, which you can see in the games.” I ask if trying to offering everything with such high


production values makes it a more expensive venture. “Fortunately, because of the advancements of technology - and because I don’t have to do a lot of R&D having done it before - not really. I’ll give you an example: We moved into this building in January, and we were live in April - just two months later - so


it helps when you’ve done it before!” At the time of my meeting with Darwyn, Extreme


Live Gaming were offering two live Roulette tables, two auto wheels, two live Blackjack tables and one live Baccarat table… “But we have a jackpot version of Baccarat,” says Darwyn, “and again it’s designed for tablet so you can play it in portrait mode. Also, this office makes it easy for us to expand and we own the building so we can expand to different floors.” To a degree I’m surprised to find everything in a


‘traditional’ office space; I was expecting an aircraft hangar filled with rows and rows of girls dealing in an industrial style. “I wanted to go against that,” explains Darwyn. “I wanted to go away from that type of stigma of live dealer. I think it’s refreshing and people won’t see us as just one of many. With other companies it’s all about ‘the pretty girls’ and that’s about it… and - if you don’t’ have the technology or you don’t want to push the boundaries - that’s all it can be. It’s all about who’s got the most tables and the most girls. We get to stand (very quietly) in a room where two


live tables are being broadcast. At the tables themselves the presenters receive prompts as if in a TV studio to know which player spots are live so that they can look to their camera specifically and welcome players. Each dealer gets a break every 30 minutes so that


they can give their smiles a rest. There are a mixture of nationalities employed, while new trainees take around two to three weeks from training to production depending upon their experience.


“But all of this is just a part of another product


that I’ve got in development,” Darwyn teases, “I have a product for live casino called the Live Box which allows a land-based table to be pushed out for internal use on tablets but through social gaming. I’ve checked on competitors and it hasn’t really evolved much from a CCTV camera streaming live tables to an online site. A lot of these product


SEPTEMBER 2015 83


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