Summary

In this episode, Nick & Don welcome Mike Fields, Executive Vice President at video poker powerhouse, Action Gaming. In this discussion, Fields covers the latest trends in video poker, as well as general operational tips for transforming aging, long-neglected poker portfolios into differentiating, high-yield sources of competitive advantage.

Transcript

Intro:

At ReelMetrics we collect and analyze a ton of slot data and we’re hit up frequently for insights, tips, and tricks. So we decided to do a webcast in which we present, discuss and otherwise nerd out on our work. Coming to you from our offices in lovely Leiden, The Netherlands, welcome to ReelCast.

Nick Hogan:

Good morning, Don. How are things with you today?

Don Retzlaff:

Good morning, Nick. I’m fine. How are you?

Nick Hogan:

Not too shabby, thanks. As you know, I just returned from a couple of weeks in the US. We attended and presented at AGS GameON Customer Summit, which was, once again, absolutely fantastic. So this year was a Reno Tahoe gathering complete with a lakeside golf tournament, a Stanley Cup party. There were lots of Las Vegas there of course, and then a yacht rock cover band known as Yächtley Crëw, which was a great band, by the way, although I did have Toto’s Hold The Line stuck in my head for close to a week, which I’m pretty sure violates the Geneva Convention. So that was the only [inaudible 00:01:31].

Don Retzlaff:

I’m not sure Mötley Crüe would be considered a yacht rock band though.

Nick Hogan:

Yächtley Crëw.

Don Retzlaff:

Like a hair band from the ’80s.

Nick Hogan:

Actually, it’s Yächtley Crëw with umlaut dots above the A in Yächtley and the E in Crëw, so it’s really solid. Anyway, some great talks there this year. There was a heavy emphasis on AI, some great stuff on game design and cybersecurity, and we covered our Cupid Initiative and presented some results from the validation testing that we conducted last year. So everything was very well received, the attendees super-engaged, and we had three solid days there of really elevated industrial debate, so it was really good.

Don Retzlaff:

[inaudible 00:02:14].

Nick Hogan:

Incidentally, Don, I had close to a dozen separate attendees, all heavy hitters, take me aside at one point during the summit to tell me that they’re huge ReelCast fans and they listen to every single episode.

Don Retzlaff:

People need hobbies.

Nick Hogan:

I just assumed they were being nice, but then they started asking me detailed questions about things we discussed. Anyway, it was incredibly gratifying, and huge thanks to those who [inaudible 00:02:45].

Don Retzlaff:

That’s wonderful. I still get notes every week from people that listen and ask questions. It’s kind of neat. One thing about your trip to Reno, they had a really nice write-up article about your speech and your presentation and everything else, but there was one big typo in that article. I don’t know if you saw it.

Nick Hogan:

Uh-uh.

Don Retzlaff:

When we were talking about the under-45 people playing, and it had instead of 80% slot play from women under the age of 45, it had 8%.

Nick Hogan:

Oops. Yeah, yeah. That is a big miss. Yeah, so-

Don Retzlaff:

A little bit. So I was reading that, I said, “Well, they’re close, but they just missed a zero.”

Nick Hogan:

Yeah. Just to clarify on that, so one of the things that we did find in that age bracket was an assumption that was the majority of play was going toward tables. What we found is that it was only 40% for males and just 20% going to tables for females. So indeed, yeah, that was a typo to be sure.

Don Retzlaff:

It’s an interesting topic. I know it’s one we’ve talked about in the past, but there’s just so much that we’re getting out of this Cupid data, so many insights from player behaviors that were counterintuitive for things that I was doing wrong for years in the casino, and people are still continuing to do wrong. So I know we’ll dive back into that in future episodes.

Nick Hogan:

Absolutely. Yeah, all the counterintuitive insights, no doubt about it. Okay, so anyway, on that, thank you to all the people who’ve reached out and said nice things. We really appreciate it. And speaking of reaching out, we received a fair number of listener questions this month, Don. So as a reminder to listeners … Whoops. I had a microphone malfunction there. Sorry about that, guys. As a reminder to our listeners, we’d love to tackle any questions that anybody listening may 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@reelmetrics.com. Our policy is to keep all questions anonymous, so please speak directly and don’t worry about us revealing your identity. We do not do that.

Now, interestingly, two unrelated listeners submitted roughly the same question relating to persistence games and advantage players or, as they’re known colloquially within the industry, the fleas. So the question reads, “Over the past couple of years, vendors have been selling us machines without clearly indicating on the par sheets when they’re true persistence games. As a result, we’ve bought several that have attracted advantage players/fleas to the casino. The fleas wait until the games have been put into an advantageous state by other players, then they swoop. When they find an available true persistence machine, they check through all the denoms and bet combinations. When they find a ripe machine, they clean out the bonus rounds on that game, then move on to the next true persistence machine.”

“After all the bonus rounds have been cleaned out, they leave the casino with their profits. To make things worse, some are also rated and receive comps from us as well. The money the fleas walk out of the casino would’ve otherwise been won by genuine gamblers. It’s true that in the long run, the game will hold the same percentage regardless of who is playing, but the whole percentage is different from bottom line dollars, and this is frustrating some of our best players. I’m hoping to see an industry trend away from true persistence toward