AXES.AI
JB: In terms of responsible gambling, what is the impact of this technology? EH: If we talk about addiction at large, somebody that has a void in their self-worth is going to try to find an outlet. They will try to fill this void through outlets which are perceived as negative such as alcohol, drugs, or gambling. Addiction is just an expression of lack of self-worth, self-esteem, or self-love. Casinos use high-end technology to detect when a person is going from adrenaline to cortisol. When this is detected, they pause the machine or slow the machine down. They can even change the screen to show the machine is going into auto-regulation mode. When this happens the hurt theory effect will take over because the person will come out of cortisol, leave that space they were in and going into a shame space. The hurt theory really works the best in a social setting because it works based on the fear of being judged. The best way to auto- regulate is using technology to detect when someone is coming out of their median gaming session and nudge them. Our technology can send out messages in the player app to say, ‘Do you know you’re gambling more than you should be?’ or ‘Are you having more or less fun?’. The hurt theory is about the pressure in adhering to the rules of a social group. At slot machines when players are sitting at a table they’re having a one-to-one experience with the machine, and players do not feel enveloped by the hurt theory group. That’s where the machine can nudge you with the proper data in real-time. If the person ignores the nudge, that’s where you can interact on the machine level. If we had the technology functioning in
every casino in the world, we would be able to protect those at risk of gambling harm. This would then allow the industry to market themselves better and make more money. We’re afraid to market better because we have to project that we’re implementing a theoretical responsible gaming policy. In other industries, the level of artificial intelligence to do marketing and target spend before the person knows they’re spending is outstanding. In the gaming industry, we’re preventing ourselves from evolving because we’re holding onto theoretical bad without putting the technology in to eliminate it. We could have a worldwide increase of around 12-14% in gaming revenue just by implementing the technology.
gaming and are showing record profits because they’re using data-driven marketing programmes.
JB: How can this technology increase the profitability of casinos? EH: A great example of this is, in my opinion, one of the best casino chains in history, Station Casinos in Las Vegas. When they were in their heyday of growth, Station Casinos taught their managers how to build a relationship over time and not let their player burn themselves out. With tourist destinations like the Strip in Las Vegas, players are only there for around 3-4 days. This means you need to get them in and get their money because if you don’t, the surrounding restaurants, shows or experiences will. However, the real operators like Station Casinos know that if you burn a player out, they will go to the competitor hoping they have a programme in place. I’m referring to tracking bets, speed, speed of spin, time between spin and amount of money cashed in. With this you can almost identify the same player because a player will cash in money faster than a change of player. We can track everything anonymously so there’s no reason why you can’t have an anonymous rewards system in place. Even for someone that doesn’t want to be KYC-driven, you can still reward them, understand them, and send an alert out to floor staff. I love KYC simply because there cannot be any bad when you’re in a KYC environment. Your cost of marketing goes down by around 80% in a KYC environment because if you’re using the right data mining tools, you can know which player is most profitable as well as when and how to market to every segment of your players. I think we’re going to end up shaming the land-based industry because we now have the online industry which is showing tremendous profit while creating a safe environment. Everyone is KYC’d, all the money coming in is being checked, AML is being done electronically and the online is experience is 100% focused on marketing. Sports betting is also showing up with the same model as online gaming. Before we had land-based gaming at the top of the triangle but now you have two segments against one. There are two segments out of three that are KYC-driven, highly technology driven in AML and responsible
JB: How has AXES differentiated itself from other companies with a similar offering? EH: We forced the route and street market segment first because the big names in the arena – the likes of IGT, Aristocrat, NOVOMATIC, Konami – cannot do the route and street market. This is because a professional route and street operator will have 4-5,000 machines over around 1,000 locations. When I refer to route and street, I mean slot machines located in a gas station, corner store, etc with a low-volume footprint of machines over an extended geography. In the state of Georgia, we’re the dominant player with over 10,000 machines but there are only around four or five machines per location. Our cost as a company and the cost of our clients to install one machine in one location is the same as installing 1000 machines in one location. This is because all we’re doing is putting a box in a machine. We then had mid-sized casinos, those with 800 slot machines in the building, come to us from all over the world. That’s how we started to pick up clients in Ireland, Philippines, Panama, Dominican Republic, etc. Our mantra was to be non-threatening to the Big 5 for three reasons. Firstly, we didn’t want to get bought out early. Secondly, we wanted to have such a compelling offering that we could be compared to the Big 5. Now that we’re entering the tribal markets in the US, the casino staff are amazed that we could have all the features of eight systems in one. The final reason is we’re not a gaming company. Some companies have tried to do systems and failed because they did slot machines. Instead, they had to go out and be a slot machine company with a system. Everyone out there is a slot machine dominant with a system minority, we’re the only pure systems company out there.
JB: What has been the reception of your technology? EH: When I was asked to join AXES, I benchmarked it against four other industries. The closest strategy that I could find that made any sense was Spotify. How did Spotify pick up 5 million users from iTunes so fast? Their strategy was based on ‘freemium’, premium and UX. We established very early on that the only way to get a foot in the door was through price. We had to build a technology base where there was no cost. The only thing the client
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