GOING MOBILE L
ast summer’s acquisition of mobile-gaming leader MacroView Labs gave Bally Technologies a leg up on
other slot manufacturers in the emerging world of mobile applications for the gaming industry. It also solidified the manufacturer’s plans to create a new division, Bally Interac- tive.
Bally Interactive consists of three different compo-
nents—the internet, and work the manufacturer is doing with online casinos and internet content, such as free games for casino websites; interaction among the casino, the play- ers and gaming sites; and mobile gaming, which relates one way or another to the other two functionalities. Heading up the mobile gaming functions is Aron Ezra,
who was the CEO of MacroView Labs and is now Bally’s vice president-mobile. Ezra says that while MacroView, founded in 2009, was
initially concentrating on how organizations in many differ- ent industries could interact with their audiences via many different mobile devices, the nascent company quickly focused on gaming. “The casino industry was especially dynamic,” he says. “Everyone was
willing to push the envelope; everyone wanted to figure out interesting new ways to interact with people, no matter where they were on the casino floor.” With its Interactive division in place, Bally is going mobile in a variety
of different ways. “Increasingly, mobile is the channel people are using to interact with their favorite brands, properties and destinations,” Ezra says. “There are over 550,000 Android devices activated every day. There are over 350,000 iOS devices (the iPhone OS—iPhones and iPads) activated every day, and hundreds of thousands of other types of devices activated daily. This is so powerful, because it enables a casino to engage with, enter- tain, interact with, inform, sell to people, wherever they are, any time, 24/7.” Actual mobile gaming is certainly part of the mix—Bally will soon
offer free-play games for casino websites and through social networks di- rectly to players, and the company currently makes play-for-fun versions of its popular casino games for use on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. “Peo- ple are more likely to play a game for wager if they’re more familiar with it in the free-play environment,” says Ezra. And of course, Bally is working to take its games to mobile devices as an extension of the casino in jurisdic- tions where it is legal. However, the capabilities of mobile technology extend way beyond of-
fering games alone. Bally is also integrating its slot-management and casino-management systems into the cloud-based mobile platform to en- able casinos to use their players clubs to leverage mobile applications and connect patrons to their club accounts any time from a variety of mobile devices. The marketing possibilities are practically endless. “The way our plat-
form works is unique—one single content management system we call the portal,” Ezra explains. “In this portal, the folks at the casino can change whatever they want at any time. Maybe the spa’s quiet, so the casino can say, ‘Here’s an offer: 20 percent off at the
28
MACROVIEW ACQUISITION GIVES BALLY’S MOBILE PROGRAM A BOOST
’ WE CAN EVEN
ALLOW CASINOS TO HAVE ALL THEIR RETAIL STORES SELLING PRODUCTS DIRECTLY THROUGH AN APP. THE MOBILE DEVICE BECOMES A VERY IMPORTANT CHANNEL FOR NON-GAMING REVENUE. —aron ezra
’
Vice President-Mobile Bally Technologies
spa, good for the next two hours.’ Only people within a 500-foot radius of the casino can see it, and only people who are, say, VIP members.” He adds that the information is blasted out from the internet “cloud”
to multiple different devices. “One set of information is there for iPhones and iPads, a different set of scaled-down information goes out if you have a more basic BlackBerry phone, a different set for an Android phone, and so forth,” he says. “We’re able to send out the right feature set and right information for the right type of device.” There is a wealth of customer service benefits as well. “One side of our
system is content management, but the other side is a very powerful ana- lytic engine,” says Ezra. “It tracks what’s going on and gives the marketer information on how long people are playing certain games, what they’re searching for—information that can’t be collected any other way. We liter- ally track feedback as people walk around. If someone has a bad experience with a bartender, they can send that message in, and an email can be sent to the guest services person, who can turn the situation around before the person checks out and writes a bad Trip Advisor review.” Casinos can also use the mobile system to host applications from local
businesses like golf course or taxi companies—creating new revenue streams. “We can even allow casinos to have all their retail stores selling products directly through an app,” says Ezra. “The mobile device becomes a very important channel for non-gaming revenue.” For social media sites, Bally mobile applications can link what’s hap-
pening on a property to players’ own accounts. “We can allow folks to get information to the property’s Facebook page, and log into their own ac- count from the apps—take a picture of themselves after a jackpot: ‘I just won $500!’ Social media fuels mobile and mobile fuels social media.” Mobile gaming also has a host of applications within the casino, from
employee shift scheduling to hurricane warnings to help for employees to do their jobs more efficiently. “Employees of a casino are not in front of a computer all day, and survey after survey shows that the way they want to be communicating is through their mobile device,” says Ezra. The application of mobile technology to the casino industry is just be- ginning. And Bally is at the head of the charge.
Global Gaming Business • November 2011
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