ProgressiveTrac, the latest addition to CasinoTrac’s award winning arsenal of Casino Management System (CMS) products, made its industry debut at G2E earlier this month to rave reviews.
Developed as a slot progressive meter reader application for the gaming industry, ProgressiveTrac is the result of identifying a need and responding in a way unlike any of the very limited products of its kind in the market and none at the price point CasinoTrac is offering it.
“We went a different way with ProgressiveTrac,” explained Tom Livingston, Director of Customer Support, overseeing project management and software development. “It easily interfaces with CasinoTrac which already has built-in reporting for progressive meters.
“What we have done with ProgressiveTrac is develop a process of collecting progressive meter data using a capture app system to eliminate mistakes and speed up the entire workflow for a reporting requirement that can be very time consuming and labor intensive.”
Livingston has established himself as a leader in gaming over the past two decades, influencing both CasinoTrac and the broader CMS landscape. He acknowledges that “currently there is no progressive meter reading on the majority of gaming floors around the world”.
“The reason for that,” he continued, “is because there are a host of different progressive controllers which do not connect to many back-end systems or have any APIs due to age, usage, or connections to other sources.
“Therefore, staff must periodically walk the floor and manually record progressive meters, as required by local regulations.”
Enhancing the elements of progressive meter reading with ProgressiveTrac is a perfect fit for CasinoTrac. With headquarters in Minnetonka, Minnesota, and offices in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the company has a geo-positioned team with one hundred percent U.S.-based tech support.
With a customer base representing over 120 global casino operators across 13 countries at over 300 sites, in addition to 41 Native American Tribes, CasinoTrac this year is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its founding by Chad B. Hoehne, CEO and President.
“We did field trials and beta-testing for feedback, enabling us to fine-tune ProgressiveTrac for our customers to make sure it could be adopted by all our sites, as well as sites with other casino management systems,” Livingston said.
“There was much interest in the product from our existing customers prior to G2E, in addition to properties with other CMS who were exploring interfacing the progressive scanning possibilities of ProgresiveTrac with their existing systems. It can be system agnostic, which was particularly important to us when we were building it out.”
Livingston described a recent case where a customer switched from Class II to Class III property:
“In Class II the requirements for recording progressive meters were not complicated,” he began. “The minute they switched to a Class III property, the requirements from their gaming commission came down very heavy. They quickly discovered staff were spending six to 10 hours daily manually recording meters. They requested our assistance, and we were there to help.”
The development of ProgressiveTrac was in answer to properties looking at man hours, staff retention, and utilizing them more efficiently to keep costs down.
“It is a huge constraint for every property,” Livingston said. “With that in mind, if you are able to reduce their work schedules in order to perform their jobs more efficiently, then everyone’s time is better utilized.”
Livingston takes pride in his almost 20 years with CasinoTrac, which he knows, as a system provider, is dedicated to a customer-first environment.
“We have a dedicated support team committed to keeping our customers running flawlessly,” he said. “It is important to us to carry that forward as we continue to grow as a company.
“A lot of our development comes from conversations with our customers and determining what they need to make the system work for them. We listen to our customers and invite their feedback to continue to build and improve.”
