Server-based slots a bonanza

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Updated: January 23, 2012 3:37AM

Server-based slot machines have been in the works for most of the last decade, with technology evolving and systems making their way through gaming labs and state gaming boards for approval and licensing.

It’s reached Indiana with the arrival of 40 International Game Technology sb (“server-based”) slots at Majestic Star Casino in Gary. And the prospect of being able to bring new games to players much more quickly, and to adapt rapidly to changing needs, has casino execs excited.

“Our focus is on getting slot themes quicker to our guests. It offers us much more flexibility,” said Scott Hendrickson, the casino’s vice president of slot operations.

Hendrickson, senior vice president and general manager Larry Buck and director of marketing Tyler Conover invited me to come take a look and talk about what the casino can — and can’t — do with server-based games.

What it can do is load games onto machines very quickly. And flexibility comes from being able to change a game players shun without the expense of buying a new game. If a game theme proves unpopular, it can be replaced with something from a library of games on a server, including new games from discs IGT will provide each month.

When a casino purchases a traditional slot machine, it can take two weeks to a month to talk to the manufacturer’s sales rep, place the order, have the machine built, delivered and installed.

On its sb machines, Majestic Star can speed around the process, bringing games to players weeks before its competitors could bring the same game to their casinos on traditional video slots.

Down the road, there’s even the possibility of doing special-themed events that involve server-based games.

“Maybe on the Fourth of July, you could do something with all Red, White and Blue slots,” Hendrickson said. “Try doing that with all the labor in changing regular slots. Or maybe you could do something at Halloween, with all Halloween-type themes and colors.”

That doesn’t mean the casino will — or could — change games or payback percentages behind unwary players’ backs. Casinos are not allowed to change games while someone is playing.

There remain plenty of checks. Each disc of new games will be delivered to the gaming commission, not to casino operators. It’s up to the commission to approve the disc and load it onto the server. From there, it takes IGC agent approval to port the games to individual machines. The computer in the server room has a double-lock system, and if the agent is not logged in, the game’s not going anywhere. And once the game has been sent to the machine, the agent must go to the casino floor for one final check before the game is available to the public.

It’s a necessarily complex process to protect player and state interests, but it’s still much faster and easier than the usual ways of changing a game. And once IGC approval has been given and games are on the server, several games or a whole bank of games can be changed at the same time, in minutes.

The casino can react quickly to add more of a game players like, or to remove games they don’t.

“It enables guests to tell us what they want,” Conover said, “instead of us telling them what they can have.”

John Grochowski is a local free-lance writer. His “Casino Answer Man” tips air at
5:18 p.m. Tuesday-Friday on WLS-AM (890).