Summary

In this episode, ReelMetrics CEO, Nick Hogan, and VP of Professional Services, Don Retzlaff, discuss Jackpot Liabilities and High-Denom Links.

Transcript

Nick:

Good Morning, Don. How are things today in Rome of the West?

Don:

Good morning, Nick. I’m fine. And that’s a new one.

Nick:

Oh, you haven’t heard that one?

Don:

I have not.

Nick:

Okay, so it caught me a little off guard as well. So the story there is that when the St. Louis diocese was established. And this is all the way back in 1826, it included the state of Missouri, the western half of Illinois, and all American territory west of the Mississippi River and north of Louisiana. And it was the largest American diocese, equaling in extent all of the other nine American dioceses. And then in 1847, Pope Pius IX designated St. Louis an archdiocese, and due to its strong Catholic identity and its role as the mother diocese of so many other dioceses, it was nicknamed Rome of the West. Yeah. So also one of the things you mentioned is the archdiocese and cathedral there, so the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis. Do you know that place?

Don:

Yes.

Nick:

Okay. So among other things, it contains the largest collection of mosaics on earth. So, I have to visit.

Don:

It does. It’s absolutely gorgeous.

Nick:

Okay, well I’ll tell you, I’m increasingly eager to spend some tourist time in St. Louis, I have to say after all of these episodes here. So anyway… Go ahead Don. Sorry.

Don:

I remember, this probably is now over 20 years ago when Pope John Paul II actually visited St. Louis. And the Popemobile driving down the streets of St. Louis, and he actually held a mass at the football stadium, and it was sold out, like 80,000 people attended the mass.

Nick:

Okay. Wow.

Don:

I want to say it was like 1999 or 2000, so it’s probably 20 years ago, but it was a neat event.

Nick:

Okay, cool. Yeah, I think it’s just a natural bias. I just always assume that the Protestant churches were much stronger in the Midwest, et cetera, but I was just absolutely astonished to read this stuff. Totally, totally interesting. Okay, so we’re recording on a national holiday here in Holland, King’s Day. It’s King Willem-Alexander’s birthday. So the whole country shuts down so that people can dress in orange and get absolutely hammered. So it’s a big boozy and gross affair. So I’m happy to be stuffed in a sound booth today. And let’s see, we’re one month out since our last podcast, and there are a few things shaking. So we did the IGA show in San Diego, which was lovely. I did a little speaking gig there and spent several days catching up with industry folks and checking out some new product reviews, et cetera. Then did a bit of a whistle-stop big boy tour across America, checking in with a few of our enterprise subscribers.

Then, let’s see, next week it’s off to Mexico City to speak at AGS’s GameON Mexico. Then I’ll do AGS’s GameON event in Reno in June, then Ravings casino and technology and marketing conference in Reno in July. Then a bit of a repeat, then it’s back to the silver state for G2E. So lots of travel coming up and really looking forward to all these events. And incidentally, while I’m on it, if you’re in casino ops and have the opportunity to attend one of these AGS GameON events, I honestly cannot recommend it strongly enough. I’ve been going to industry events for 30 years and I’ve yet to attend any customer event that comes even remotely close to it. So it’s just incredibly well conceived and executed. The speakers are great, the events are genuinely fun, and the interaction with other attendees is just off the charts.

Uniquely, AGS forbids its staff from selling during those events. So all that pressure is just gone and you can stay focused on everything that’s being presented. And discuss it often in incredible depth with various attendees. So again, I can’t recommend those events strongly enough, and thanks to AGS for including us in that, we’re really honored to support these events, and really looking forward to them. So, then Don here we are, we have our third episode of the second season, and today we’ll be tackling the topic of jackpot liabilities, which was a topic that was recommended to us by a listener. And as a reminder to everyone, we’d love to tackle any questions that anybody can have. So if you have a question about what we’re presenting or something you’d like us to present, please drop us an email at ReelCast@ReelMetrics.com. Again, that’s R-E-E-L-C-A-S-T at ReelMetrics.com.

Our policy is to keep all questions anonymous, so please speak directly and don’t worry about us revealing your identity. We don’t do that. Now as a refresher to listeners, we received an email a couple of months back from a Biz Dev executive on the supply side. And he explained that increasingly operators are pushing back against high denom links due to the sizable jackpot liabilities. And as you know, Don, some of these links require a six digit jackpot seed, some even higher, and that combined with the progressive values is apparently giving some operators the jitters. So, excuse me, this gent asked us if we’d mind tackling this topic during a podcast. We said yes. And then incidentally, while we were at NIGA, Tim and I had two other vendors approach us on the same topic. So it appears that it that this is a bit of a thing.

So for our example, Don’s going to discuss them generally, and then we’re going to use a specific example of…