Tim McGraw, Gene Simmons and other wild and wonderful stories from G2E

At the Global Gaming Expo, there are always stories. You can find them in the hallways, in the conference rooms, and on the exhibition hall floor.

They are personal, introspective, and reflective. And often, weird and somewhat wonderful.

Here are a few of them:

Kelly Trask, Slot Studios vice president and general manager

Sometimes, seeing is not believing. That was the case in 2016 when country music super star appeared at G2E.

“Aristocrat filled the show floor with Tim McGraw lookalikes before the real Tim unexpectedly descended from the ceiling on a platform to unveil his branded slot machine,” Trask says. “Because he looked much smaller in person — and everyone had already seen so many impersonators — people didn’t realize it was actually him. Some even started booing because they thought he was another fake!”

 

 

 

Gene Johnson, Victor-Strategies executive vice president

Gene Johnson was there the night the mass shooting occurred at Mandalay Bay in 2017. He also moderated a panel at G2E in 2016 that the late Indian Gaming Association Chairman Ernie Stevens dominated.

But his weirdest memory is the Vampire Party of 2024.

“The Vampire Party happened on the evening after the controversial panel discussion on sweepstakes casinos … that was moderated by Howard Glaser of Light & Wonder,” Johnson says. “That much talked-about session was described as ‘contentious’ by more than one attendee but it succeeded in creating industry awareness regarding a quasi-gaming vertical that had been flying under the radar for years.

“The party itself was a reception I had attended before hosted by some of the most reputable figures in gaming. However, many of the attendees, particularly those involved in interactive wagering, could not stop talking about sweepstakes, one describing this questionable practice as ‘the entry point for igaming in the U.S. in every state’.”

“My plus one at the event was my business partner, Victor Rocha, and after entertaining at least a dozen pitches for promoting sweeps he turned to me and said, ‘These guys are vampires! They are sucking the blood out of the legal gaming industry.’ The reception crystallized for us the true scope of sweepstakes casinos, which utilize a dual currency scheme to allow real money gambling on what purports to be an innocuous social casino site, and the magnitude of the threat that they posed to both land-based casinos and tribal sovereignty.

“Upon leaving the party, Victor headed home and embarked upon a crusade with the IGA, the AGA, and gaming industry supporters that has largely crippled the largest sweepstakes operators nationwide. And it was a fortunate because the sweeps fight prepared the gaming industry for opposing the next existential threat that arose only a year later – prediction markets. Who knew vampires could be so helpful?”

Keith Whyte, Safer Gambling Strategies president

KISS was promoting its slot machine in 2012, and Gene Simmons appeared at the opening reception. But that’s about all he did.

“He very slowly proceeded around the room, dark sunglasses on and seemingly dazed,” Whyte says. “Anytime anyone tried to talk to him he’d turn away slightly and keep going past them. He never stopped moving, never engaged in a conversation, just circulated through the room blank-faced in slow motion as people took pictures, the flashes reflecting in his pitch-black lenses. One of the weirdest celebrity appearances I’ve ever seen.”

 

 

 

Melissa Aarskaug, DruvStar executive vice president of strategy and growth 

The strangest thing that’s happened to me at G2E wasn’t planned. It happened mid-sentence, during a meeting with a casino general manager about cybersecurity.

They were talking about how easy it is for bad actors to access information most people assume is private.

“Rather than just explain it, I decided to show him,” Aarskaug says. “I pulled up AirDrop on my phone and, without saying a word, sent myself his contact card. His name, number, and contact photo popped up on my screen, pulled straight from his phone, before he even realized what had happened.

“Here’s the part that really landed: I never touched his device.”

His phone was simply nearby, unlocked, with AirDrop set to “Everyone” instead of “Contacts Only,” which is often the setting most people never think to change.

“That single setting meant any iPhone in range could see his device and initiate a share,” Aarskaug said. “No password, no click, no permission granted in the moment. Just proximity and a setting know was open.

Aarkaug says the general manager was shocked, stopping in mid-sentence, “staring at his phone like it had betrayed him. Wait, you already had my phone number?” I hadn’t.”

He watched it happen in real time and still assumed there was a simpler explanation, because the alternative, that Aarkaug just pulled it from his device in front of him, was harder to believe than the idea that she already knew it.

“That moment did more in 10 seconds than any slide deck could have. It wasn’t a hack in the traditional sense. It was proof, live and in real time, that the biggest vulnerability in most rooms isn’t the network, the firewall, or the casino floor’s surveillance system. It’s the assumption that we’re protected because nothing bad has happened yet, paired with default settings nobody audits until someone shows them what’s possible.”

Jonathan Michaels, Michaels Strategies principal

During G2E 2015, Jonathan Michaels was attending during his second year with the American Gaming Association. There was a new area, the “Integrated Resort Experience,” the first time the AGA tried to move any and all non-gaming vendors into a separate area located in one of the ballrooms at the Sands Convention Center.

“As virtually every casino has a center bar as a main feature on its floor, we decided to have our own version of the center bar on the floor,” Michael says.  “One of the primary features we were most excited about in the center bar area was a rounded screen that could show AGA member logos exhibiting that looked like a giant beer can. For months prior to the show, we hounded exhibitors to get us their logos so we could prominently display them on the “beer can” above the center bar.

“We get on site the first day as they are hanging up the beer can and something is incredibly wrong. What we thought would be a large screen turned out to be the size of a thimble. You not only couldn’t see any of the logos, but you could barely see the screen itself. It was simply comical how bad the activation looked.

“For the next several hours, we had to go to around the floor to all the exhibitors we hounded for logos apologizing for the mix up. One of the booths we went to had a celebrity activation in their booth with former NFL and MLB star Bo Jackson. So, we explained the problem to the exhibitor with Bo present. Bo goes, ‘yeah, that screen does look really small. You should probably fix that.’

“So, the moral of the story is ‘Bo Knows.’”