Derek Stevens of Circa Las Vegas is known for many things and one of them is his flamboyance. Stevens talks a big game and he usually delivers on his claims. He wanted the biggest sportsbook in town and set out to create it. Along the way, he took a long-time Vegas staple, the weekly sports betting contests, and injected them with his personality and money. The Circa contests have out-distanced and out-shone the rivals by far. Recently, Stevens was in the news for something less spectacular, but still interesting in a Stevens’s way.
Stevens owns the last standing Sigma Derby mechanical horse-racing game, a kind of slot machine. Rather than throwing it in the dust bin where every other casino owner has thrown theirs, he is moving it from one of his casinos to another. He said, “Sigma Derby is more than just a game. It’s a piece of Las Vegas history. For generations, it has brought together friends, families, and complete strangers who instantly became part of the excitement the moment the horses started moving. People planned entire trips around playing Sigma Derby during its time at the D Las Vegas and we’ve heard countless stories from guests who made lifelong memories around this machine.”
No other casino seems to have felt the same excitement. Maybe there is a place for nostalgia and only here can you taste that special something from your distant past kind of place. It has been tried before. For example, in Reno in its final years, the Nevada Club tried to keep one floor of the casino for old, single-coin, mechanical slots, he machines of the 1950s and ’60s. The room certainly attracted customers, but it suffered from the old age of the machines. The old slots could not make a profit. The Derby has a like syndrome.
The Sigma Derby was introduced to Nevada in 1985 by Sigma Game Inc., a Japanese game manufacturer. The history of the game’s invention is clouded, but when it was introduced in Nevada, it was fully developed. Whether or not it was successful in Japan is also a question. Not in question was the manufacturer’s commitment. Sigma believed in its game and was confident that given a chance, the Derby would bring a new level of excitement to the casino floor and revolutionize Nevada casinos. Sales did not go well, so Sigma began a program of trials. “Put it on the floor, give it a chance, and you only have to buy it if it is a success” was the pitch — a not uncommon strategy at the time.
Sigma may have been confident, but it still brought a marketing team with each installation. Girls dressed as heralds for a horse race pranced up and down, making announcements and teaching people how to play the game. The girls created interest, the game not so much. Mostly, it failed the test, for two reasons. The first, like the mechanical slot machines in the Nevada Club, it was too slow. It could accommodate 10 or 12 players and it took time for them to place their bets. Then, players had to wait while mechanical horses raced around the track before collecting any winnings or making another wager. It was just like a real horse race, except without the excitement of real horses and the brilliantly dressed people cheering.
The other problem was size. The Sigma Derby took up too much room; it probably displaced 25 or more regular slot machines. That is a heavy load to lift, before the speed of the game is considered. Speed does not seem like it is a thing in slot machines, but it is. In fact, it is the reason that slot machines have taken over the casino floor. Faster play is more exciting. The pause between the bet and the outcome is tense and exciting. Games that deliver more of the moments of tension are more exciting.
For example, craps and blackjack are more exciting than keno. Keno gives a player at most 10 outcomes an hour, blackjack 50 an hour, but a slot machine can produce many times that. The slot machines in the 1980s were not as fast as the games today, but they were far ahead of the Sigma Derby. The speed of play is also important for the casino. A casino’s theoretical win is a percentage of the wagers made. The glacial keno gave the casino 25 percent of the amount wagered, but could not deliver enough volume. Blackjack and craps are faster and generate more revenue than keno. The top prize, however, goes to slot machines by a wide margin.
Slot machines require less space and fewer employees and take hundreds of times the number of bets in an hour as compared to other games.
And now back to Derek Stevens and his Sigma Derby. If he has extra floor space not suited to slot machines or table games, but large enough to hold a Sigma Derby horse-racing game, it might work. If it draws its own crowd and does not crowd out any other money-making event, it might work. And if he has the only one in existence and with a ready-made audience, it might work. In the end, given his history, I would not bet against Derek Stevens and his old-fashioned horse racing machine.
