I'm Steve bourie author of the American casino guide. For the past 25 years it's
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casinos plus tips for playing and free casino coupons. Hi I'm here with Marcus
Prater who is the executive director of the Association of gaming equipment
manufacturers which is also known as AGEM and Marcus has invited us here we're
at the Konami showroom we're gonna ask marcus some questions and the first is what
is AGEM and what does it do? AGEM is a non-profit trade organization that
represents all of the major slot machine companies, the systems companies, tables,
lotteries anything that a casino needs our members produce. So basically
all of the slot machine manufacturers, would you say every major slot
machine manufacturers a member of your organization? Every one. In the world.
Okay now they're here in nevada in las vegas there was Senate bill nine which
your organization was behind and could you explain what that is and why your
organization supported it? Well senate bill nine passed last year in the Nevada
legislative session and at the heart of it, it allows for variable pay back on
slot machines which has not been allowed or done anywhere in the world and by
allowing for variable pay back on slot machines it creates the opportunity for
manufacturers such as Konami, Bally, IGT, aristocrat all the big guys and the
smaller ones
to create new content that would bring skill based and arcade elements to
the casino floor for the first time.
ok now for the people who aren't familiar with how a slot machine works
can we give an explanation of how traditionally right up until this
point how a slot machine works if anyone walks up to the machine generally I
assume based on the research we've done and the videos and all the people
we've interviewed they all work basically the same. Casinos sent them by the
denomination so the higher the denomination the more the machine is set
to pay back so the penny machines around 88 to 90 percent quarter machines 90 to 92
dollar machines 92 to 94 5 dollar machines 95 to 96 so when someone walks up to the machine now
every time they push that button the payback percentage basically is
the same for everyone who plays that machine? That's correct in any machine
basically on the planet in a
legal regulated jurisdiction if you sat down and played a machine and you put in
your 20 bucks and then left and I came and put in mine we have to have the
exact same pay back odds percentage and that's how it's always
been done but under that scenario it sort of capped the ability of the
suppliers and the game developers to create exciting new content and that's
what Senate bill nine was meant to change and and we've done that and
now the control board and the Commission here in Nevada have approved
the regulations and the technical standards that will govern these new
kinds of slot machines. Okay so now when someone goes to a slot machine if it's skill
based their pay back might be based on their skill in playing a game. Now
at G2E this year we saw some of the major manufacturers I think it was Scientific games
which is bally had space invaders where if you got into a bonus
round and if you wanted, I think you had the choice to either have a skill
based version or just a random based version
and you could actually play space invaders. Now Konami had another game
which were we're standing at here now this is Frogger so for Konami they
want to possibly have a skill base version but again it's in the bonus
round
Well we we haven't seen the Konami skill based version so we're not quite sure
what it's going to look like but again for those of those players out
there that grew up in a certain generation like myself Frogger happened to
be one of my favorite arcade games growing up as a teenager and into
college and so forth and and and it's basically you know you use a joystick to
try to negotiate frog across a busy highway well under this new world order
you could put the skill-based element into that
joystick and so let's say everyone gets an 88 percent base pay no matter
how good or bad they are on getting the frog across the highway but if you're
particularly good at doing that you could you could theoretically boost your
pay to say 98% and so the idea is for the first time players will know that they
will have a material effect on the outcome of the game and a material
effect on how much money they can win. Ok but now this particular one again we're
going with sort of older traditional games that people are familiar with and
their bonus round or however whether the bonus round or the main game their
payback percentage would be affected by how well they played this game but there
are other manufacturers out there who are coming out with different kinds of
games there's one called Gamblit gaming which are much more they've I guess I
skew to a younger audience and then there's one called nanotech gaming where
you can play electronic pinball and how do you see those being different than
traditional slots
well it's that's the beauty of SB nine and variable payback percentages it
allows the game developers the operators, the suppliers to create variable
pay back based on a wide variety of identifiers meaning that you could have
a pure arcade-style game where you go into the bonus round and if you're good
at Frogger you win more money, you can have a Gamblit game which is more like
an Angry Birds, Words With Friends style game which is more of a something we're
used to with iPads and tablets and so forth
you can have a nanotech pinball type game, you can have tournaments,
you can change the percent based on if it's your birthday you put your card in
it says congratulations this base 90% game for you today is now 98%. The
operators can reward better players by giving them a higher payback that's the
beauty of SB9 it's not just skill based, it's giving
variable pay back to players based on a wide variety of identifiers. Alright now I
hate to point this out to you but
slot players are a very suspicious group, we have a website people come they post
things all the time they say well you know I go in the casino I was sitting at
that machine I was winning all this money and then I'm sure somebody in the
back room flipped the switch because I couldn't win anymore. So people are always
suspicious, so now do you know what kind of safeguards would be in
place for people who say well I was playing this machine and somebody did
something to change my outcomes? What kind of safeguards to do you foresee to
prevent stuff like? Well it's very simple the regulations as written don't allow
you to change the percentage within a game so it's not like you know
it says on the screen
and by the way the player will will be fully aware of everything it will say
I'm sorry that was one question I had when you come up let's say what the
payback percentages is? Because traditionally slot machines do not you have
no idea what they're set to pay back so with a system like this where it could
be variable will there be some way for the player to know what they're
getting? If it is a variable and again you know for those players who are
really slot machine aficionados I encourage you to go to the the Nevada Gaming
Control Board website which lists all the regulations that have been approved
but the answer is yes if there's a base game that's ninety and
you can win up to 98 the machine will tell you that. If it's
your birthday and you put your card in and it's a 90% game but you can get
98 during your birthday
it will say that, so for the first time players will know what the
percentage payback is and what it can be and that's again a dramatic shift
that's that's never been done before so I understand that the suspicions of the
players, but we pushed during the regulatory process for complete
disclosure and the control board will demand it and the players will know it
Now when do you think these machines will be in, actually in the casinos because now the
Gaming Commission is still looking at the technical standards well so the
technical standards will become final final on February 11th 2016 and that's
really the final bit of language that the suppliers, the game developers need
in order to make sure their games conform to the new rules. To answer your
question it's hard to say I would say by midyear we'll see the first of these
types of games in Nevada but overall this will be a very slow rollout I mean
there will be hits and misses
we don't know what the players will like it's a collaborative process with the
control board
and ultimately our goal is to take this beyond Nevada so that if a machine
company like Konami spends all this R&D time and money to get a game like
Frogger with a skill-based element out that it can be sold in markets other
than just Nevada and New Jersey, New Jersey
to give them credit as well they claim that they can do skill-based games today
and that the regulatory process is in place so they don't need to change the
state law in order do that but at the end of the day for players to really get
to experience this it needs to spread beyond Nevada and I do think that
if we have this conversation in five years time you will be amazed at what
will ultimately be on the casino floor. The reality is that the the slot machine
has not changed dramatically only because of the regulatory confines that
the manufacturers have been operating in, now that this variable pay back is out
there it opens up a flood of new creativity and it's just it's
it the logical next step as we as we try to attract the Millennials and
people who are used to gaming they're gaming on their phones or gaming on Xbox
they're gaming on tablets and and right now they don't show a real desire to go to
game in a casino environment and this is the the step that will
get us closer to that goal. Alright and if people want more information on AGEM or
perhaps the progress of the machines being approved where would they go to get
that information?
AGEM.org is our website with some background on this
effort and then I would encourage those folks to also go to the Nevada Gaming
Control Board website which lists all the language, the rules the players can
can see you know the rules that the machine companies will have to conform
to and it's great reading it's for those people who like to play slots
and are interested in
where all this this new creativity is going and that's a good resource as
well. Alright Marcus Prater, executive director of the Association of Gaming
Equipment Manufacturers thanks very much for spending time with us
Don't forget that you can see more of our educational gaming videos on our
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