High-level executives in the casino-technology sector gathered in Las Vegas at the TribaNet Conference & Tradeshow to talk about the future of gaming systems and dealing with cyberattacks.
Executives from Aristocrat, IGT, Light & Wonder, and CasinoTrac were on hand Monday to discuss the current and future technology surrounding core casino gaming systems as part of a panel discussion moderated by Patrick Tinklenberg, vice president of IT at Sycuan Casino, and Virgil Debrosse, IT senior account manager for the Chickasaw Nation.
“This is an exciting time in the industry to be in systems,” said Jon Wolfe, president of global systems and services of Light & Wonder. “The role of IT has changed dramatically. You’re a business driver now. You’re not a tech-support group. You’re understanding very complex business decisions and creating outcomes for people. That’s an exciting transformation for someone that’s been in the industry on all sides of IT for quite a few years. In the past few years, especially post-COVID, IT is becoming an enabler of business outcomes and achievements. The whole landscape has changed. While the support staff is fantastic, the role IT is playing is bigger than that and helping us do a better job of exploring this journey.”
Chad Hoehne, CEO and president of CasinoTrac, said there’s a focus on curating the player experience by using the systems to help identify data points and what should be acted on. That will render it easy for operators to make decisions in real time for customers.
Ramya Pulipati, senior director of product management/global casino systems for IGT, said the major trends that they’re seeing are the digital transformation and modernization across the industry, including artificial intelligence.
“Data is the key, as we’ve all heard in multiple cases, and it’s real-time, conceptual, and actionable data that’s easy to use,” Pullpati said. “We’re seeing emerging technologies that utilize data to take the step and help with decision making.”
Wolfe said there are “tremendous things going on in data,” as systems have evolved from being transactional to being business drivers. The role of what they’re building is dramatically changing, as are the people who use it.
“It brings a whole different audience to the table as you’re developing it,” Wolfe said. “You have customers engaged in conversations that are going in a lot of interesting directions with data and artificial intelligence. The other interesting thing is the convergence of all of these platforms. You have igaming, social gaming, and sports betting, and customers have kept them as their own individual business verticals, and now they’re bringing them together as a coherent customer journey. It’s really exciting to have one contiguous customer experience across all of those platforms and opportunities and there’s a much more robust understanding about the role of the customer, who they are, how they spend, and what they’re interested in. Before (the industry) thought igaming and social gaming were cannibalizing land-based gaming, only to find out there’s a tremendous amount of overlap and they’re feeding each other. Customers are demanding that free-flow experience between all of those platforms. That’s an exciting frontier that we delved into and a great spot for innovation as well.”
Ted Keenan, vice president of gaming systems and product management with Aristocrat, cited mobile devices as a key to how to better engage players. Those who have a mobile device at their side at all times provide a chance to communicate with them, both when they’re at the game and when they’re away from the property, he noted. “That’s going to enable that convergence. That’s the excitement we’re looking forward to.”
Pulipati said there’s also a push to make it easier for players to enroll in cashless, move funds around, and make it available in all aspects of the casino.
On the casino floor, Wolfe said they’re offering more cardless-connect types of opportunities and near-field communications at the slots and tables. They’re driving a lot of the cashless solutions and cashless without a wallet.
“People are trying to figure out how to get people into the wallet. We’re trying to make the wallet not even a byproduct of cashless and make it more like your everyday experience,” Wolfe said. “These are great forefronts we’re trying to invest and innovate in and these technologies moving really fast. You don’t have to wait a long time to see a lot of transformation there.”
Cybersecurity was also on the mind of the panel, as tribal properties and Las Vegas casinos have been impacted by cyberattacks. Something urgent in the industry is building systems that can continue to operate in environments that have been “invaded with nasty things like ransomware,” Hoehne said.
“It’s critical for us to find a way to continue to operate that gaming floor when that virus is inside the network,” Hoehne said. “I think we’ve proven that keeping it outside of the network is a failed approach. So thinking about how we can build our systems so it can withstand and continue to operate on the gaming floor during that period of time when systems are failing around it, is something that we’re focused on with our systems to be able to make that a reality for our customers.”
