Minnesota-based Table Trac is opening an office in Las Vegas in September as it expands its product offerings in the gaming industry.
The company founded in 1995 designs, develops and sells casino information and management systems, which today are installed in North America, South America, Central America, Australia and the Caribbean. It serves 280 casino customers in 13 countries.
Table Trac’s CasinoTrac casino management system is known for delivering comprehensive insights ranging from accounting and revenue audits to rewards cards and promotions.
Table Trac CEO and President Chad Hoehne said CasinoTrac is not only a trade name but an ecosystem of unrivaled uptime and security. He explained that they use COBOL, a programming language designed for mission-critical financial networks, governments, and business operations, on Linux servers, and provide “the gaming industry’s least staff-dependent, safest, and mostly unattended casino management system.”
“From the ground up, it’s all API based, and that helps us interface with third-party products like ticket redemption kiosks, player loyalty kiosks, point of sale, and hospitality applications,” Hoehne said. “We have a large array of 20 to 25 third-party interfaces that we provide with our system.”
When Table Trac was launched, it was involved in table games management, accounting, tracking, players club, promotions, staffing and personnel. It evolved into a company that has a complete back-of-the-house system that encompasses tables, slots, revenue accounting, marketing, players club and interfaces to points of sale with its line of CasinoTrac products.
“We found over the years that we started to become the players club for other CMS systems and by 1997 we were running as the players club de facto across the entire gaming floor for several of our Minnesota customers,” Hoehne said. “We expanded into table games in the Midwest, and we found our traction when we added the slot-floor portion in 2003. And by 2007 we started to do a lot of mixed floors in the Oklahoma market. We built the CMS product in conjunction with the table games product over the years and by 2010 to 2012 we started to catch a lot of attention in the CMS space because we built a system that’s simple to use and runs on a very stable platform and architecture.”
Table Trac employs 41 people, many of which work in customer service and support. There are 10 employees who work in development, creating the next generation of products.
“The Las Vegas office will be an executive office and showroom,” Hoehne said. “We have a mature product that has been performing very well out in the field. We want to have a presence in Las Vegas because that’s where everyone gathers to see CMS systems. When customers from across the country want to come and see a CasinoTrac demonstration or system, bringing them to Las Vegas is the obvious choice. Many of them are already going there for that type of activity, and we feel like our product line is ready to show in the Las Vegas market.”
Table Trac has added more features in player loyalty over the last five years. It integrated a player loyalty kiosk into the CMS. When operating the marketing function within the system, Hoehne said they are simultaneously updated on the kiosk for the players.
“Whether we’re generating free-play offers or food and beverage offers, those get generated within the system and are present at players’ clubs and also on the players kiosk and mobile app as well,” he noted.
Table Trac will showcase its products at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas in October, and this year will preview its Version 5 CMS system demonstrating new functionalities and user interface enhancements that have previously been a manual process. There are now wizards and guides that help people, for example, set up promotions correctly and achieve their results without having to read the manual.
Also at G2e, Table Trac will demonstrate its new player enrollment reprint kiosk, referred to as RePrintEnroll, a product that’s already in high demand according to Hoehne.
The Player Enrollment RePrint Kiosk is an unattended kiosk with the ability for a patron to reprint or enroll in the loyalty club by dipping or swiping their ID in the approved reader. Kiosks are available in either single hopper or four-hopper capacity to support multi-tiered branding. It has know-your-customer software to validate new customer information in an automated fashion and delivers the card to the guest.
“It goes hand-in-hand with our KioskTrac line of products where we have self service, player loyalty kiosk and promotional kiosk functionality,” Hoehne said. “It goes to the need for unattended customer service with the difficulties in staff that have plagued so many casinos all across the country. We provide a complete players club solution to the gaming floor that doesn’t require staff.”
KioskTrac has been available for about a decade and has even been enhanced with high-end graphics, games, and interactive experiences that will be out in early 2024.
“In the course of delivering the promotion to the customer, a lot of times we will engage them in some sort of game on the screen, a spin of the wheel or a scratch ticket or balloon pop game – all entertainment activities to do at the loyalty kiosk to reveal your reward,” Hoehne added. “There’s been great interest in these new features. The loyalty kiosk as well as the enrollment kiosk are products that can stand alone. They don’t have to be with a CasinoTrac CMS. We can connect this to other CMS systems through gateways.”
Table Trac works with both tribal and commercial properties and in the last couple of years Hoehne said commercial casinos have adopted the CasinoTrac system in greater numbers than ever.
“The system features and functionality are on par with any of the large gaming equipment suppliers; we provide great value and a high level of local service that isn’t found in the marketplace,” he said. “We’re very attractive to casino operators because of our platform and architecture, as well as our service and support.”
Hoehne said they are able to scale up and down with the CMS system. Their smallest floor is a gas station in Nevada, while their biggest floor has more than 2,800 games.
“Across that whole spectrum from small to large to medium, our same system is deployed,” he shared. “We don’t have different versions out in the field. It operates flawlessly from the biggest to the smallest. One of the things that a lot of CMS systems struggle with is scaling down to operators in the 200 to 300 game range. We do that brilliantly and as they grow into larger operations are able to handle that growth without exponentially raising the amount of computer power and amount of cost associated with that floor.”
In June, Table Trac announced a partnership with gaming fintech disruptors Koin Payments and Marker Trax to introduce its KTMobile app with an integrated cashless solution for its customers. KTMobile will be at the company’s booth at G2e.
The technology blend known as Cashless in a Box provides a digital wallet for casino spending and provides the operator the ability to extend their branded guest experience off the property.
Cashless in a Box not only packages the mobile, gaming, and financial technology, but also provides a launch plan with marketing, player education and support.
“KTMobile is exciting to us as well,” Hoehne said. “We’re looking to be going into field trials shortly in Nevada. It provides that mobile link to your promotions just like a kiosk. Everything is in the palm of your hand.”
