Faces of Gaming: Next Gaming CEO and skill-based slots evangelist Mike Darley

Saturday, January 25, 2025 12:00 PM
  • Commercial Casinos
  • Igaming
  • Tom Osiecki — CDC Gaming and Raving Partner

Mike Darley describes himself as tenacious.

As CEO of Next Gaming, the last company standing creating skill-based slots, Darley’s tenacity is an important character trait.

Raised in Southern California, surfing the beaches and skiing the mountains, all he really wanted to do was become an educator. Darley taught grades 9-12 at Rowland Unified School District, La Puente, California from 1975 to 1980. Today he credits his early years as a teacher for his ability to celebrate people’s successes and to operate in chaos.

As CEO of Next Gaming, Darley finds himself the optimistic cheerleader for a new version of skill-based slots largely based on popular arcade games.

Proven leadership
Mike is Chief Executive Officer responsible for the management and strategic direction of Next Gaming, LLC. He brings over 40 years of operational and executive management experience within the gaming industry.

Previously, he held positions as Executive VP and Chief Operating Officer with Majestic Star, LLC, Sr. VP and General Manager for Fitzgerald’s Hotel and Casino, and VP of Casino Operations with Trump Casinos. Earlier in his career, Darley led casino operations and service management for Harrah’s Entertainment Corporation.

Darley conducted his master’s degree work in curriculum development at California State University, Dominguez Hills and earned his bachelor’s degree and teaching credential in secondary education from California State University, Long Beach.

Carries to this day
“My experience in teaching and the skills I obtained from teaching still carries to this day,” Darley said.

“I was fortunate enough to have a family of teachers and educators. When I was growing up, my aunt was a teacher, my uncle was a teacher, my cousin was a teacher – not only teachers, but administrators. When I was young and growing up, when we did get together for Thanksgiving and Christmas, I was around them and there was good, lively talk about education.” Darley recalled.

I asked Darley what teaching taught him early in his career that he draws on into this gaming career.

“What I carried over from teaching to the rest if my career is to value people, celebrate their successes, give them responsibilities, help them along the way, and then watch them achieve. That is the kind of stuff that I employed all through my career,” Darley remarked.

Career transition
In 1981, Darley and his friend Bert were visiting Lake Tahoe to ski and visit friends. On the flight back to L.A., “We looked at each other and said, ‘what a great life, why don’t we move here?’ As a tenured teacher, I took a year’s leave of absence to explore opportunities.”

“I moved to Lake Tahoe, and I started substitute teaching. Unfortunately, I was not making enough to pay my bills and I thought I better get a second job. I had friends that worked in the casino industry and thought that might be an option. I liked the atmosphere, talking to people and all the excitement that surrounds it,” Darley related.

“I started my career at Harrah’s Reno in soft count down in the casino vault, counting thousands of dollars from the various venues. Then, I worked my way up to the casino floor, where I could be a cashier. Eventually, I was in the high limit area managing the marker bank. My goal was to be a blackjack dealer and finally got into blackjack school. Well, once I got into blackjack school, I started making those transitions from blackjack to craps to box man to supervisor and all the way up until I got out of the pit. At that point, I left teaching for gaming.

“Fortunately, I had a great mentor named Bill Hughes who was the in charge of the casino hosts and player development. I like people and a casino host job opened up, and I was fortunate enough to get a host position,” Darley said.

Expanding
Harrah’s started expanding and Darley spent a total of 18 years progressing from casino manager in Tunica, Mississippi to director of table games at Harrah’s Indiana, and left the company to join Trump Casino in Gary, Indiana as Vice President of Operations.

“I worked for Trump Organization for a while, and then I was offered a job when Don Barden bought the Fitzgerald’s brand. The CEO of Majestic Star called me up and said, ‘We would like you to join our organization.’ I was surprised, and I said, ‘Doing what?’ and he said, ‘I want you to be a general manager’. I was given the choice of Tunica, Mississippi, Blackhawk, Colorado, or Las Vegas.

“Because I grew up in Southern California and had family in California, I said, ‘I’ll go to Las Vegas,’ and I got the job as general manager. I worked as general manager and was promoted to CEO for Majestic Star with Don Barton.

“I stayed there until Mr. Barden passed and there were changes to the organization. After that, Terry Caudill bought American Coin and Slots. He asked me if I’d like to come over and join that company and operate the company, which we called Next Gaming,” Darley declared.

“Terry Caudill and I sat on the board of directors of Fremont Street when I was General Manager of Fitzgerald’s and CEO of Majestic Star. Philosophically, we’re very aligned in how we treat customers, what we offer in terms of services and bets, and those type of things.”

Doing it well
Darley told me that the key to his success was wanting to do the best he could do with each new challenge.

“One of the most interesting parts of my success in obtaining all these jobs was that it was never expected. My personality said, ‘Just do something, do it well and then take on the next challenge, and then do that well, and then do the next thing well.’ I just kind of climbed the ladder, not with a goal of being a CEO, but with a goal being good in what I do,” Darley stated.

Skill-based slots
A few years ago, skill-based slots were the shining objects of the gaming industry.

Several manufacturers jumped in with great fanfare, touting skill-based slots as the answer to attracting the elusive younger demographic. After a few years, casinos discovered that skill-based slots, while exciting and entertaining, did not measure up to the necessary revenue earned by traditional slot machines.

Darley partnered with Taito and Atari to create imaginative and immersive new skill-based slot machines. The company reimagined classic arcade games with a gambling twist and created innovative slot machines which appeal to a wider player demographic than a traditional slot machine.

Recently, Next Gaming launched new player-friendly, skill-based product enhancements born of research and hard learned lessons.

Darley has been CEO of Next Gaming for 11 years, developing traditional slot machines, skill-based slots, and igaming-based games.

“Nevada authorized the ability to have skill-based gaming. The impetus from the commission was to allow skill-based gaming to bring a whole new demographic to the casino floor. That’s really the definition of why skill-based gaming came to be.

“What transpired was that we were way ahead of the curve. It was a good philosophy, but the execution of skill-based gaming became very complicated because when customers sat down, they didn’t understand the game.

“There were a couple years that casinos were embracing skill-based games, but at the end of the day, when the casinos looked at the revenue and they were not hitting floor average, they got nervous and took the games off the casino floor.

“Well, that, in my opinion, that really tainted a lot of people’s thoughts about skill-based gaming. Because even now, our games are engaging and they’re fun and they do all the things they’re supposed to do,” Darley stated.

Atari and Taito
Next Gaming continued designing traditional slots with titles like “Mayan Thunder” and “Grumpy Cat”. All the while Next Gaming tenaciously pushed on, design and improving skill-based games like “BUST- A- MOVE,” “Asteroids,” and “Arkanoid”, with “Missile Command” and “Tempest” coming soon.

“We started producing video reel games. We had a pretty good library, and then the discussion of skill-based games came into the conversation. People were talking about it. Nevada hadn’t regulated it yet.

“And Terry, being the entrepreneur that he is, and a forward- thinker, said ‘Mike, what about skill-based gaming?’ ‘I said, well, it sounds inviting. We can be ahead of that curve.’ Terry said, ‘Let’s do it.’

“We continued developing our video reel games, but not to the degree we had previously, and started our process of designing skill-based games.

“Looking at the dynamics of what the competition was putting out, I thought we needed something that will stand us apart. Because we can make all the games in the world, but what’s really going to resonate with the players?

“I thought, well, maybe some games that people already play on their consoles and in the arcades. So, at that point, I thought who plays what and where’s the demographic that might be valuable to us? And I thought, how about Atari? Atari is pretty cool. Atari is a well-known name.

“I started negotiations with Atari to license some of their games. At the same time, I was looking at a number of providers, and I thought, “Space Invaders” and “BUST-A-MOVE” and games from Taito are equally valuable, so I started a negotiation with Taito. At that point, I completed the acquisition of the intellectual rights to a number of games from Atari and Taito. We were able to build our games on brands that nobody else had with a built-in clientele.

“We developed games that played pretty much exactly like an arcade game on our platform, and created slot machines out of them,” Darley declared.

Younger demographics and strong memories
”What we’re finding through placing our games is that the younger crowd is not intimidated by skill-based slots. They are always online. We’re finding that the younger demographic loves these games and the 45+ demographics have strong memories of the games. That’s why they’re attracted to those games. When we go to shows and have people play our games, we watch their emotional reaction while playing skill-based Atari and Taito games. It’s a trigger.

“We have brands that connect with people’s emotional experiences and are entirely different from the slot machines on the casino floor. I remember one gaming show and a person walked by and pointed and grabbed their friends, and said, ‘Oh, my God, I missed more classes in college because of that game.’ It was taking them back to a time and they are excited about it.”

Easy, normal and skilled
After years of research and trial and error, Next Gaming made key changes to their skill-based slots and released the updated, more player-friendly version last year.

“We thought, we’re going to have a very wide range of people that want to play those games. Some of them are going to sit down and say, this is cool, but I don’t know how to play it, or I’m not good at it.

“We thought we needed different skill levels. So, we created an easy, normal and hard. Our thought at that point was, it’s going to be cool for people to challenge themselves, and they’re going to work their way up to hard. What we found out when we evaluated the games was that very few people could play up to hard. Most people were playing in the easy and normal range.

“What we had done was create a math model that was designed to reward the hard player. A lot of the payouts embedded in our mathematics were, I wouldn’t say, skewed, but were directed towards the hard player. Well, if I don’t have a large population playing hard, my math doesn’t work.

“I mean, it works, but it doesn’t reward the right player. So, we changed the whole math model to drive down those payouts to the easy and normal levels. Everybody wants time on device. So, when you sit down and you’re a novice player, you can play up to normal, but you’re probably going to stay in that range between easy and hard.

“It’s good for the easy player to sit on the game engaged and have a chance of winning because the math now is tuned in to rewarding that level. You can still win on the higher level, but our payouts are going to reward the easy to normal player as well,” Darley related.

Tutorial and pause
“The other thing that we did to the games is we embedded prompts within the game to help people understand how to play. We’ve got a whole screen that people can look at before they sit down that says this is how the game is played. There’s an introduction on that game when you first put your money in that is a tutorial of how to play that game, so you feel comfortable doing it.

“Now, the other thing we did, which I think was very smart, we put a pause on the game. If you’re playing and you’re scratching your head going, oh my, I don’t know how. I’m just confused. You can pause the game and take a look at the instructions.

“The other aspect of that pause button is if I need to pause, if I need to get a cocktail, if I need to get some more money, if I need to do something, I can pause the game, I can take a breath, and I can do what I need to do. Then when I’m done with my activity, I can press the un-pause game and get right back into the game where I started,” Darley said.

Honest feedback
I asked Darley where you can find Next Gaming’s skill-based slots.

“We’re downtown in Las Vegas right now at Binion’s and Four Queens. That gives us an opportunity to make any changes we want because Terry owns those casinos. It gives us an opportunity for people that are coming into town to play the games and get honest feedback,” Darley stated.

Online dynamic
“The other dynamic that’s happening now is online gaming. Skill-based gaming and online gaming are killing it, and part of our development cycle right now is to get online.

“We’re in the development cycle with our Atari games and our Taito games, which will come up first online. We anticipate that there’ll be some crossover from casino play to online play.”

In the game
I asked Darley what he believes is the secret to his success over the years.

“Tenacity. We’re in the game. You can’t be successful unless you play through this. The secret to our success, which is why we’re still here, and we’re the only one here, is attributed to our belief in what we do.

“Not only that, but the commitment that Terry Caudill has as an entrepreneur and invested in the company. Plus, our opportunity now to get online and have another revenue stream to expose a whole other group of people to our games is significant,” Darley stated.

Mike Darley began his working life as an educator and takes what he experienced as a teacher and transferred it to his gaming career. Darley heads the company that is the last remaining developer of skill-based slots. He believes that sticking to his game plan will eventually win out for Next Gaming and that igaming will open new avenues for revenue. Today the tenacious former teacher remains the evangelist for skill-based slots.

Entries in the Faces of Gaming series:

Tom Osiecki is a casino consultant who writes an occasional column for CDC Gaming called Faces of Gaming, about interesting and engaging people in the gaming industry.

Tom Osiecki is a marketing and management consultant for Raving Consulting and can be reached for consulting engagements at 775-329-7864.

If you know of a fascinating personality in the gaming industry you would like to see profiled, please send Tom Osiecki an email at tosiecki@cdcgaming.com