Aristocrat Technologies will have a replica of a vehicle from the 2015 movie Mad Max: Fury Road in the company’s booth at this year’s Global Gaming Expo. The idea is to celebrate Aristocrat’s new slot machine based on the film, which depicts the world as a desert wasteland following Armageddon and the collapse of civilization.
We’re not trying to draw comparisons to the gaming industry.
That might have been the case in 2013, when the industry, still in recovery following the Great Recession, found Aristocrat’s booth flooded with zombies to celebrate the company’s Walking Dead slot machine.
Today, the industry is healthy and growing, and the Sands Expo and Convention Center in Las Vegas will once again be the center of the gaming industry universe. G2E kicks off next week in earnest on Tuesday, and the activity in the building is far from apocalyptic.
The overwhelming issue for this year, unsurprisingly, is sports betting.
The activity was legalized nationally following May’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allowed other states to join Nevada in regulating sports gambling operations. Four states have since jumped into the game by opening sports books inside casinos and racetracks. Others are quickly following.
G2E, which is co-produced by the American Gaming Association and Reed Exhibitions, is offering a sports betting symposium that covers eight sessions, including a keynote address Wednesday morning by ESPN sports personality Scott Van Pelt. The SportsCenter anchor and radio host will also moderate a panel on the business of sports betting that will include Kenny Gersh, Major League Baseball’s executive vice president of gaming and new business ventures.
“As states and sovereign tribal nations consider whether or not to enact legalized sports betting, the Sports Betting Symposium at G2E will offer the world’s foremost experts, business leaders and operational solutions to build a thriving legal market in the United States,” said Sara Slane, senior vice president of public affairs for the AGA.
Some of the booths in the more than 400,000 square feet of exhibit space will look like mini-sports betting operations. JCM Global will display various ultra-high-definition viewing screens, while Gary Platt Manufacturing will display a new line of sportsbook seating.
Macquarie Securities gaming analyst Chad Beynon said most of the major gaming equipment suppliers – IGT and Scientific Games, in particular – have already announced partnerships with sportsbook operators in many of the new sports betting states and are expected to display those products and systems at G2E.
“While the G2E itself is focused on the suppliers, gaming companies will be attending, including regional operators, Las Vegas operators and iGaming (providers),” Beynon told investors.
The other theme for this year seems to be skill-based gaming opportunities.
At G2E a few years ago, every gaming equipment manufacturer seemed to offer a skill-based gaming product or prototype. The idea blended skill-based video games, like Space Invaders or Centipede, or a variation of gambling games, such as poker, into a slot machine-type product.
At G2E 2018, expect to find new skill-based products from skill-based developers Gameco, Gamblit, Next Gaming and Synergy Blue, along with IGT, Scientific Games and Aristocrat.
During a conference in Atlantic City in June, several developers of skill-based slot machines said that the games had been attracting a younger customer crowd to casino floors in New Jersey, Connecticut and Nevada.
They also said it would still be a climb to profitability.
Representatives of skill-based gaming companies said G2E will include a new wave of game design and product development, with an eye on gaining space on the casino floor alongside traditional slot products.
In an interview this summer, Synergy Blue CEO Georg Washington said his company, and their competition, are all getting much more strategic in their game development. Washington said the companies are all watching what each other is doing.
“We’re competitors, but we also know if one has success, others can follow,” Washington said.
Howard Stutz is the executive editor of CDC Gaming. He can be reached at hstutz@cdcgamingreports.com. Follow @howardstutz on Twitter.
