G2E offers operators a rare opportunity to see, in one place, where the industry is headed next. New technologies, systems and products arrive on the show floor with the potential to influence everything from the player experience to how casinos operate.
With so much new technology competing for attention, operators have to assess more than what a product can do. They need to understand whether it can be deployed, how it will work within their existing operation and where the supplier intends to take it next.
Mackenzie “Mack” Haugh sees that process from an unusually early vantage point. As Chief Delivery Officer at Gaming Laboratories International, he, along with the global teams across GLI’s 31 locations, sees many of those technologies long before they arrive at G2E polished, certified and surrounded by booth lighting.
GLI can be involved 12 to 18 months before a complex new product reaches the market, giving Haugh and the engineers at GLI visibility into what suppliers are developing, where innovation is running into regulation and how the technology architecture of the casino is evolving.
So what should operators be looking for at G2E?
Haugh’s answer starts well before the show floor.
Start with what can actually get to market
“In the past, people largely viewed the work of independent test labs as something that happened at the end of development,” Haugh said.
That model has changed considerably. Haugh remembers when much more of G2E functioned as a proving ground for concepts.
“Operators would see what suppliers were showing and they’d say, ‘Hey, we really like this. We really want this,’” he said. “Then time to certification might have been too long, or products on display might not even have been certifiable.”
Today, GLI begins working with suppliers at the white-paper or concept stage, identifying regulatory obstacles before significant time and money have been committed to development.
“The earlier we get involved, we’re able to make observations,” Haugh said. “We’ll say things like, ‘This is going to require regulatory interaction,’ or ‘Others have tried this feature; it’s against these requirements here.’”
For Haugh, early involvement is fundamentally about reducing risk.
“Nobody wants to invest that amount of time and then have a product not be certifiable or have to re-engineer it at the zero hour,” he said. “When GLI is involved early in the development process, that ultimately speeds time to market and saves the supplier considerable time and money, and also results in products on display at shows like G2E that are certified and available for purchase right there.”
For operators evaluating something new at G2E, Haugh’s point provides a useful place to start: Understand not only what the product promises, but how far along it is on the path to becoming something a property can deploy.
Don’t evaluate technology in isolation
Haugh’s view of the next several years goes beyond individual products.
“There is a lot of old tech debt in our industry,” he said. “There’s this system that does this. There’s this process that does this.”
That fragmentation is increasingly at odds with the way consumers experience technology everywhere else.
Haugh uses the simple example of moving a call from a computer to a phone to a car without thinking about the systems making that possible. Consumers increasingly expect technology to work together without requiring them to understand what is happening behind it.
Gaming, he believes, is heading in the same direction.
“The future is all about integration,” Haugh said. “It’s about that seamless flow of plug-and-play products.”
That is why his advice to operators is to talk with suppliers about what they are demonstrating today, as well as what comes next.
“What do they see as the three-to-five-year roadmap?” Haugh said. “Have they just done this product and then they’re ready to sell and that’s it, or do they have a three-to-five-year plan, a 10-year plan?”
For Haugh, understanding that roadmap is part of understanding the investment.
“As an operator, I want that confidence,” he said. “I want to know that people are relentlessly innovating still, even after I decide I want product X or Y or Z.”
Watch what consumers are teaching gaming
Haugh also sees an important clue to the future of the casino floor outside the casino industry.
“Our technological society drives gaming first. It drives what customers want,” he said.
As consumer technology becomes increasingly connected and personalized, those expectations don’t disappear when someone walks into a casino.
Haugh is already seeing suppliers respond.
“The boundaries between gaming segments are slowly disappearing,” he said. “It used to be it was either land-based or online, and now the move is to say it’s both, that the industry is converging.”
The evolution goes beyond channel.
“Before it was, ‘Let’s make a game that’s engaging,’” Haugh said. “Now it’s, how do I allow deeper personalization of that game? How do I allow loyalty integration with that? How do I allow some level of AI with that?”
For Haugh, the direction is toward a much broader definition of the product.
“People are innovating outside of a math model of a game or a graphics display on a game,” he said. “It is that experience.”
Start with your property, not the show floor
Despite having an unusually broad view of what suppliers are developing, Haugh doesn’t think operators should arrive at G2E looking for one universal version of what’s next.
His advice starts with knowing the property and the customer.
“What’s the vision they have for their property or properties in the next three to five years?” Haugh said. “What’s working well today and why? And also, what do they see as challenges for themselves?”
That knowledge, he argues, is the operator’s biggest advantage.
“They know their customer base better than anyone,” Haugh said. “They’re in the driver’s seat. They’ve always been in the driver’s seat. They always will be in the driver’s seat.”
The right technology therefore depends on the market, customer and strategy it is being asked to serve.
“What happens in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is very different than in Las Vegas is very different than in California, which is very different than in France,” Haugh said.
Hundreds of products will compete for attention at G2E. Haugh’s advice for sorting through them may be considerably simpler than the technology itself.
“Ask for products that are GLI Certified. That way you know they are floor-ready.”
