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Global Gaming Business Magazine June 2024 •Vol. 23 •No. 6 •$10 Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers DEALING WITH DIVERSITY ONLINE IN ONTARIO EMBRACING AI The ETG Explosion and Koinare streamlining customer engagement Practical Payments SLOT Strategies Tailoring slot buys to differences in worldwide jurisdictions Global Gaming WomenVol. 23 • No. 6 COLUMNS CONTENTS 10 The Spring Outlook 12 Bad News, Good News 45 Embracing AI 4 6 8 13 32 42 43 44 46 50 53 54 DEPARTMENTS june 3 COVER STORY Global Gaming Business Magazine Making Its Mark After Gary Ellis, owner of the Ellis Island casino in Las Vegas, enlisted industry veteran Charlie Skinner to help develop Marker Trax, the first automated instant casino credit system, he created sister company Koin. The result is a revolutionary credit and payment ecosystem that ends the problem of unpaid markers causing cash to walk out of the casino’s doors. FEATURES 14 ETG History The electronic table game has evolved from furniture-like auto-roulette games in the early 2000s into a diverse product area that sees constant innovation. 24 Ontario iGaming Ontario’s nascent online gaming industry, now with 47 iGaming companies operating 77 platforms, serves as a model for internet gaming and sports betting in Canada. 28 Emerging Slot Floors The emergence of new integrated resorts in Asian and European markets comes with the challenge of creating slot floors and game mixes tailored to local markets. 34 The Power of Diversity The continuing growth of diversity in the gaming workplace, with more women and other traditionally underrepresented groups in senior roles, has proven its worth in bottom-line profits. 38 Joining the Club Effective data collection, artificial intelligence and improved marketing capabilities are propelling loyalty clubs into the future. JUNE 2024 www.ggbmagazine.com4 Vol. 23 • No. 6 • JUNE 2024 Roger Gros, Publisher | rgros@ggbmagazine.com X: @GlobalGamingBiz Frank Legato, Editor |flegato@ggbmagazine.com X: @FranklySpeakn Jess Marquez, Managing Editor jmarquez@ggbmagazine.com Monica Cooley, Art Director mcooley@ggbmagazine.com Terri Brady, Sales & Marketing Director tbrady@ggbmagazine.com Beck Kingman-Gros, Associate Publisher & COO bkingros@ggbmagazine.com Lisa Johnson, Communications Advisor lisa@lisajohnsoncommunications.com X: @LisaJohnsonPR Columnists Frank Fantini | Dave Forman | Adrian Jooste Contributing Editors Lauren Bates |Jill R. Dorson |Jeff Jordan Andrew Klebanow |Marjorie Preston |Cole Rush Bill Sokolic twitter: @downbeachfilm ______________ • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Official Publication W hen we first started Global Gaming Business magazine back in 2002, I wanted to make sure that we’d build a vehicle that addressed all the issues of the gaming industry at that time. So we put together an editorial advisory board that featured some of the people who believed in the concept—believed so much they invested their hard- earned money in the company—as well as many of the movers and shakers who were driving the indus- try in those days. Frank Fahrenkopf, then the president and CEO of the American Gaming Association, was very sup- portive and was at the top of the list of people I wanted to serve on the board, and he graciously accepted. So along with the other investors and experts, we were off and running. That board was very helpful over the years, which you can imagine massively changed not only the gaming industry but publishing as well. In the gaming industry, the birth of online gam- ing roughly coincided with the launch of GGB. I remember going to the ICE trade show and confer- ence in London each year. For the first couple of years, when the show was held at the old Earl’s Court convention center, it was 100 percent land-based gaming, like all traditional gaming tradeshows were in those days. Then iGaming began to creep in, first on a small upper floor of the center and later graduating to the lower floors. When it finally moved to the Excel Centre in London’s Docklands, it was an even split between land-based and online. Next year, when ICE debuts in Barcelona, it’s probably going to be 80 per- cent online. In publishing, the idea that you didn’t have to actually print a magazine was unthinkable back in 2002. Yet here we are in 2024, and GGBis the only gaming magazine in the world that still prints a monthly issue, along with our three annual edi- tions—Tribal Government Gaming, Casino Styleand Progressive Products Preview. Even with that, we are laser-focused on the online content, and that will become even more important now that GGBis owned by Clarion Gaming, a subsidiary of Clarion Events, the producer of ICE, and publishers of the influential iGaming Businessmagazine. So to ensure that we continue to serve the indus- try as we did in 2002, we’ve revamped our editorial advisory board. Lots of the members of the original board have retired and moved on, so we wanted to bring to bear another group of advisors who will serve us in the way the old board did. We’ve kept some members of the previous board because, frankly, they remain relevant in ways that we couldn’t have predicted when we first invited them to join us. And that’s to our benefit. But the new members of the board, which you can see at the right side of this column, are some of the most important members of the industry in 2024. And unlike the previous board, this is going to be an organic group. If you pay attention to that list of names over the months and years to come, you’ll see names added as we see the industry grow. Because as we’ve seen over the last 20 years, the gaming indus- try isn’t stagnant. If we could step back and examine what’s hap- pened in the last 20 years, you’ll see gaming expan- sion into regions that you couldn’t imagine, not only in the U.S. but around the world. Most governments realized that people wanted to bet, so why not allow them? Besides, those gaming taxes make a nice little nest egg for revenue-hungry jurisdictions. At the same time, the legalization of sports bet- ting in the U.S. and Canada has turned the gaming world upside down. The speed with which sports bet- ting spread across the land truly was breathtaking, and it’s provided lots of opportunities—and some challenges—for the traditional gaming industry. And when you compare the relative snail’s pace with which iGaming is being legalized, that’s very confus- ing—especially when you consider iGaming can pro- vide lots more revenue to jurisdictions than sports betting can. And when gambling expands so much, can repression be far behind? My friend I. Nelson Rose has documented how the growth of gaming over the years—centuries, actually—has always resulted in a pullback when the public becomes wary of it. Are we nearing that precipice? The people who have kindly accepted our invita- tion to join our revamped editorial advisory board have expertise in every area of gaming, from iGaming to sports betting, from responsible gaming to compli- ance, from casino design to diversity. I’m confident that the GGBcontent going forward under the Clarion Gaming banner will be as persuasive and informative as ever and will remain the only publica- tion/content producer you need to read every day to stay current with the rapidly change gaming industry. New Day, New Blood BY ROGER GROS, PUBLISHER Global Gaming Business JUNE 2024 GGB THEAGENDA Our name should tell you enough When your agency has vast gaming industry knowledge and the deepest bench of talent in the business, but acts like a pack of hungry animals hellbent on proving it, well, we’re what you get. And that’s a pretty good bet. Drop us a note at hi@goodgiant.com6 Global Gaming Business JUNE 2024 a Tale of Two Verticals A t this juncture, the New Jersey gam- ing market represents an interesting case study with regard to the future of gaming, given that it is heavily involved in both land-based and online casinos. The debate as to how and if those two verticals can coexist peacefully is still ongoing, but analysts at Deutsche Bank (DB) have as- serted that the state’s iGaming revenue will soon overtake its brick-and-mortar counterparts. A chart showcasing the two verticals’ month-by-month revenue totals over the last year was reported by Earnings + More, and it shows that the gap has been de- creasing steadily since last spring. In April, May and June of 2023, the land-based sector outperformed iGaming by $73 million, $66 million and $93 million, respectively. But in Jan- uary, February and March of 2024, those leads had been cut to $22 million, $20 million and $43 million. BYTHENUMBERS A recent study from international data and analytics research firm YouGov featured participants from 16 countries around the world responding to the question of how they view people who work in or have connection to the gaming industry. They were given four options: net positive or negative, neutral or don’t know. Unfortunately for gamers, a high percentage of the responses were negative—for 11 of the 16 demographics, the “net negative” segment was at least 50 percent, with the overall average being 54 percent. Indonesia (86 percent) was far and away the most nega- tive market, followed by Britain (63 percent) and Italy (62). On the “net positive” side, India (21 percent) led the way, followed by Mexico (20 percent) and Hong Kong (16 percent). Hong Kong was the leader in neutral respondents at 46 percent and Sweden was the leader in “don’t know” at 11 percent. According to YouGov, the study was conducted virtually in January 2024. All respondents were 18-plus, and the size of the demographics ranged from 500 to 2,040. By market, whether people have a positive or negative view of those working in gambling NJ iCasino vs. B&M Gaming lTM ($m) Overall, DB is projecting that the gross gaming revenue for New Jersey iGaming will surpass $2 billion in 2024, following 2023’s mark of $1.92 billion. These totals become even more impressive when considering that the market was just $299 million in 2018.©2024 IGT. Collective performance across all reporting properties, May 2024. BRAGGING. RIGHTS. EARNED. PeakCurve ™ 49 With dozens of proven titles and more in the pipeline, IGT for-sale products give you more ways to win with exceptional floor performance you can – and should – own. Ready to increase your ROI? Contact your Account Manager today. in 2024 35+ Games8 Global Gaming Business JUNE 2024 CALENDAR “TheyIt” 5QUESTIONS P enn Entertainment is one of the largest casino companies in the industry, with 43 casinos across the U.S. Jay Snowden has been CEO since 2017, and has led the Penn charge into the online sports betting and iGaming space. After a first misfire arrangement with Barstool Sports, Penn recently partnered with ESPN, and their ESPN BET has quickly become one of the leading online sportsbooks in the nation. He spoke with GGB Publisher Roger Gros at the East Coast Gaming Congress in April. To see and hear a full version of this interview as a GGB Podcast, visit GGBMagazine.com. GGB: Do you consider any one of your 43 casinos as your flagship? Snowden: It’s an interesting question. I think for a lot of companies, our competitors, the an- swer’s more obvious. Caesars Palace for Caesars, and Bellagio or MGM for MGM Resorts. For us, we don’t have that prime Las Vegas Strip asset, but we’ve got all of these amazing properties across the country. The only one we have in Las Vegas is a beautiful property, M Resort, where we just broke ground on another 400-room hotel. But I don’t know if I would say we have a flagship. Let’s talk about Louisiana. You’ve got beautiful properties in that state. How are those properties performing? Louisiana has been a stellar market for us. We have some premier assets in Lake Charles and Baton Rouge. The other one in that market that is a great asset is the Margaritaville property in Bossier City, which we ac- quired. Two of those were built ground-up, and one was done through acquisition. And all three of those are best in market, best in class. You’ve got a property in Illinois, where they also have the video gaming terminals. How did that impact the slot drop at Penn casinos there? This is a really, really interesting topic. In Illinois, the games that you see at bars and taverns are regulated and the entities that run those operations are licensed. There’s a regulatory system in place. They make more money on VGTs now than we do in the casinos, which is pretty amazing. So there has been an impact. We decided pretty early on to get involved in the route operation business, because it’s legal, because it’s regulated, and it was impacting our casinos’ double-digit percentages. So if it’s going to impact your casino revenue, we wanted to at least try to protect them, so we got involved in the route operation. We bought a company called Prairie State Gaming, and we have a really good team that’s running that for us now. It’s in growth mode—we’re in the top five in terms of operations in the state of Illinois. In your home state of Pennsylvania, they just had a court decision which held skill games are legal. What are you looking for the state to do now? We think that was a bad interpretation. Obviously, if you sit down at one of these machines and you play them, you realize it’s a slot machine. So you can defend them all day calling them skill and showing how it’s skill. But if it’s not something that you feel when you’re sitting there, I think that has to be something that is considered, but it wasn’t. So we’ll continue to fight it legally. Tell us how the ESPN sports betting deal came together. It’s very interesting. I think ESPN really was looking for a while at how they wanted to get in- volved or engage with online sports betting. And I think that it took them a while to come to the conclu- sion that they wanted to actually jump in. ESPN did a lot of research, now that it’s legal in so many states, and concluded that betting on sports is just part of the entertainment experience for a sports fan. It’s fun, it’s exciting. And so they got to a point where they had come to the conclusion that they were ready to lead with their brands. Then it was, “Who do we want partner with?” They went through a process. They really liked our team. They liked our technology stack, they liked that we owned it all. We controlled that roadmap. And so we struck a deal; we announced that in August. We went live in November. It’s early days. 1 2 3 4 5 July 16-19: iGB L!VE 2024 , RAI Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Produced by Clarion Gaming. For more information, visit igblive.com. July 17-20: National Council of Legislators from Gaming States Summer Meeting, Rivers Casino, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Produced by Spectrum Gaming Group. For more informa- tion, visit nclgs.org. August 12-14: Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association (OIGA) Conference and Tradeshow , Oklahoma City Convention Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Produced by OIGA. For more information, visit oiga.org. August 13-15: Australasian Gaming Expo , ICC Sydney, Sydney, Australia. Produced by the Gaming Technologies Association. For more information, visit austgamingexpo.com. September 16-19: TribalNet Conference & Tradeshow, Westgate Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada. Produced by TribalHub. For more information, visit tribalnetconference.com. September 24-26: SBC Summit, Feira Internacional De Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal. Produced by SBC Events. For more information, visit sbcevents.com/sbc-summit. October 7-10: Global Gaming Expo (G2E) , The Venetian Expo, Las Vegas, Nevada. Produced by Reed Exhibitions. For more information, visit globalgamingexpo.com. November 27-28: Eastern European Gaming Summit , Inter Expo Center, Sofia, Bulgaria. Produced by the Association of Gaming Industry in Bulgaria. 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