Insight VIDEO KING
TRADITIONAL BINGO, ON STEROIDS
G3 speaks to Video King’s Tim Stuart about the resurgence of traditional bingo
Bingo is enjoying an extraordinary surge in popularity, not just thanks to online and social gaming, where mobile, tablet and desktop bingo is massive in every country in which it is allowed, but also thanks to slot- style bingo products from Zitro and Ortiz Gaming, which brings the game to predominately casino audiences around the world. However, in one particular area bingo is still looking to shrug off its rather antiquated image, and that’s at the bingo hall/venue level.
In the US, where pay-to-play bingo remains confined to the bingo venue circuit thanks to online restrictions, states such as Texas and Arizona have been improvising and experimenting with the traditional game - seeking to bring not just new technology to the sector, but multiply the entertainment factor to the power of 10.
“We’re witnessing a grass-fire, a genesis of bingo in big cities that have embraced game show-like experiences, black-light, DJs, cosmic-bingo presented in enormous bingo rooms where players dance between games,” explained Tim Stuart, President/CEO of Video King, a supplier to the international bingo market. “It’s fun and crazy. We’re seeing the evolution of what’s being termed ‘bingo-tainment,’ where machines and tablets deliver bingo to charitable gaming markets, for cruise ships, the military, casino regulated jurisdictions and Indian gaming markets.”
Video King has vast experience in the bingo sector and is leveraging its expertise in the development of software and content to support a dynamic bingo market at the global level. The company’s latest tablet creation, the CHAMP-e, will be revealed at the G2E exhibition in Las Vegas later this month; an Android
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Tim Stuart, President/CEO, Video King
“Video King has been a major pathfinder in the electronic bingo realm with wifi connectivity and we have locations that link as many as 900 tablets via wifi in a single room.”
“We’re witnessing a grass-fire, a genesis of bingo in big cities that have embraced game show-like experiences, black-light, DJs, cosmic-bingo presented in enormous bingo rooms where players dance between games. It’s fun and crazy. We’re seeing the evolution of what’s being termed ‘bingo-tainment,’ where machines and tablets deliver bingo to charitable gaming markets, for cruise ships, the military, casino regulated jurisdictions and Indian gaming markets.”
product with state-of-the-art graphics and processing power. CHAMP-e is currently testing in charitable gaming halls in Peru, Illinois, before heading into Tribal gaming locations in October. “We will have devices deployed by the end of 2015,” states Mr. Stuart of the initial roll-out before full deployment in January/February 2016.”
The CHAMP-e is undergoing beta testing in live locations at present to ensure its most critical element - wifi connectivity - is working to plan. “When your server is dealing with hundreds of devices within the same location, it’s a huge technical challenge to maintain real-time connectivity,” explains Mr. Stuart.
Video King creates a range of in-house games that can be adapted to third-party platforms and can also port third-party games to its own devices. Each game is electronic, but they’re traditional Class II titles as opposed to those offered on terminal devices by Ortiz and Zitro, games that Mr. Stuart describes as ‘Class 2.9’ as the results are mapped much more closely to casino-style slots. “Our games aren’t part of the casino floor,” says Mr. Stuart, “we’re firmly in the bingo room, which is actually becoming a major part of many casinos in the US.”
Such is the pattern of expansion in the US casino sector that Video King’s system solution, OMNI, is able to interface with Casino Player Tracking Systems from other providers, including Aristocrat, Bally, IGT and Konami. The ‘bingo-tainment’ factor has seen core bingo expand to include massive gaming halls within casinos as well as much smaller locations, such as military facilities where 20 tablet installations offer fun and prizes to audiences of all ages and demographics.
To date, Video King has an installed base of more than 50,000 devices, which it rents to customers in markets across the US and Canada. The company has yet to establish a partnership with a distributor in Europe, but is actively seeking a partner.
“My view is that you need boots on the ground in Europe and a good partner that knows the landscape,” underlines Mr. Stuart. “I’ve worked in the past with Gala Bingo and Rank in the UK, in the days of analogue printed tickets, before the arrival of electronic card minders. It was the start of the digitisation of bingo that has helped ensure the success of Video King, which currently operates in 50 jurisdictions in the US, Canada and other parts of the world, with separate licences and software approvals for each and every one.”
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