It’s probably safe to say that when most of us think about ways to improve slot profitability, changing a machine’s internal settings is definitely not top of mind. However, a G2E session on the topic says we are probably overlooking a great opportunity.
Jordan Whitten, executive director of slot strategy for MGM Resorts International, showed the importance of simple changes in the setup of video poker machines that are seldom considered. “I think video poker gets the least amount of attention when it comes to configurations. But there’re actually some really creative ways to distinguish your poker games and set them apart in different areas of different groups of players.”
He went on to describe a number of important options, from attract screens, color of logos, speed of game play, and sound. “There can be opportunities to either disable the sound or maybe go ‘player selectable’ and take it to the low end of this volume, so there’s still a little sound. They still get the button clicks, but it’s not as loud. It’s not as overwhelming as allowing a player to turn it all the way up potentially.”
Steve Schweigert, the director of sales enablement at Konami Gaming, joined with Whitten about the importance of color and intensity of today’s games. “If you’ve got a dimly lit bar, our LED is even adjustable by zone, or maybe you want the topper to be bright, to be seen from a longer distance, but also so it doesn’t hurt the player’s eyes.”
On multi-game platforms, like Konami’s Selexion, he mentioned the ability to display different games in different ways on the attract or main screen. He stressed that a default setting displays all the available games in the same-size icons. However, he noted that a far greater opportunity is to choose the options to enlarge and highlight the most popular game or games. The other games are still shown, but in much smaller formats.
John Connelly, global CEO of Interblock, a leader in electronic table games (ETGs), described a different, yet similar, approach to his products. He began by noting that the lower hold percentages of table game-like products forced his company to study and explore new options. He found that the parallel world of online table-game applications offered a trove of data.
One of their studies showed that the optimal number of players at a blackjack table is 3.2 to optimize performance. “We didn’t know that and originally created a five-seat electronic blackjack table, because that’s what everybody else did. I found out that it’s not too smart for optimization. So we created a three-seat blackjack table, because we started studying data and not just following the status quo.”
Another very surprising, but somewhat simple, discovery was that varying the denomination of “chips” offered to players could be a game changer. Instead of just going from $1 to $5 and then $25 chips, they started to offer more alternatives in between. “Why don’t we try to start to find a way to go from $1 to maybe $2 or, $3, then $5 to maybe $10. We did and found tremendous efficiencies in handle and increased time-on-device. It also increased the number of people that were able to go up as they were winning and to better gauge their entertainment value.”
He also talked about the surprising research they did that found that many times, lowering minimum bets often resulted in higher overall revenues.
Panel moderator Tashina Lazcano, senior director of marketing & communications at Konami Gaming, kept the discussion moving amongthe three panelist.
After the session ended, several in the audience remarked that the discussion awakened them to some simple changes they could make with no additional investment in hardware or software that could make them more profitable.
That was exactly what the panel hoped would happen.
