Artificial intelligence was merely a gleam in the technological world’s eye in 1995, the year that Chad B. Hoehne’s development and patent of the trailblazing table games management system TableTrac led to his founding of Table Trac, Inc.
Today that gleam is a starburst of algorithmic wonder that Hoehne and the Table Trac team have harnessed with its proprietary AI-driven Table Games Manager/Manager Trainer, which leverages Table Trac’s more than 30 years of table games transactional and pit player data.
“This patent came about as a component of a larger project to apply AI to our CasinoTrac V.5 system,” Hoehne explained. “The platform and architecture of our system make it uniquely compatible with MCP (Model Context Protocol). This is the component which drives AI to make decisions using information to operate and interact with CMS using the API (Application Programming Interface) that a human would use.”
The seeds for this incredible journey were planted a year after Table Trac’s founding when Hoehne, who serves as the company’s CTO and President, had the vision to encompass the burgeoning CMS sector, CasinoTrac, in all jurisdictions. Today systems are installed in more than 300 casinos worldwide.
“We are coming up to the first anniversary of the launch of this project,” Hoehne said. “A unique aspect of our approach is that it permits the AI to operate in-house using some the latest GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) technology. Instead of using the cloud to send data back and forth, this operates within the casino’s on-premises network performing AIU functions in a tightly closed loop.”
Hoehne acknowledged that the Table Trac passion for research and development within the table games component of casino operations has been his driving force for more than three decades, saying, “The company from the start was dedicated one hundred percent to the automation and computerization of live table games play. That passion is still alive for us today”.
The efficiency that the TableTrac AI-driven Table Games Manager/Manager Trainer brings to table games operations is more than significant. It takes this vertical into the modern world by reducing antiquated human intervention and paving the way for supervisory personnel to reposition their talents and expertise.
“The time-consuming process required of opening up a table can be accomplished by AI with a simple command which will result in executing the function in the system,” Hoehne said. “We have observed the table games market, particularly in larger operations, having more tables and fewer supervisors.
“TableTrac’s AI-driven Table Games Manager increases productivity with a force multiplier to permit a pit boss to have a visual representation of the casino floor with multiple table games pits and being able to direct the functions on those tables using voice commands.
“Back in the day you would have one supervisor for every six tables. That soon increased to 12 tables. This makes it impossible to provide the quality of service to customers that is required in today’s market. AI will augment the casino’s ability to operate the pit as well as provide a higher level of customer service.”
The efficiency of AI from a player standpoint, according to Hoehne, is going to make it possible for supervisors to give the players at their tables accurate ratings impossible to calculate in the modern table games environment because of a lack of supervisory staff.
Hoehne revealed that there are expansion plans for Table Trac’s proprietary AI solution already on the drawing board.
“This technology we are talking about applies across the entire CMS landscape, from revenue auditing and accounting to player’s club operations, marketing, and slot operations,” he said. “This is all possible through the API-driven technology. We can layer AI over the top as a way of envisioning it. The AI layer sits above the CMS system layer.
“This gives individual managers the power of control with a much broader range of functions by transferring much of the tedious, time-consuming work to the AI. The work-a-day activities that we perform is where AI can step in to assist the casino with more accurate and better casino operations.”
Even broader applications of the technology across Table Trac’s suite of casino management solutions will reinforce CasinoTrac’s long-term product roadmap of innovation strategy which the company identifies as, “The future is not something we are waiting for – it is something we are building”.
“This really puts all the pieces together for our operators,” Hoehne believes. “It is certainly the next quantum leap in automation of the table games management function for them while making it easier for staff to facilitate tracking larger numbers of players.”
