NEW PARADIGMS IN GAMING
Lima, Peru 2012
Peter DeRaedt - President
GAMING IN THE NEW ERA AND
THE IMPORTANCE OF GSA
PLATINUM MEMBERS
AGENDA
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GAMING STANDARDS ASSOCIATION (GSA)
THE WORLD IS CHANGING AROUND US
THE IMPACT ON THE GAMING INDUSTRY
EVOLVING BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS
EVOLUTION OF DATA COMMUNICATION IN GAMING
GSA’s STANDARDS TODAY
CERTIFICATION: WHY SHOULD I CARE?
THE CURRENT EGM VS SYSTEM PARADOX
WHAT IS THE PRICE OF YOUR FREEDOM?
GAMING STANDARDS ASSOCIATION
 GSA is an international trade association established in 1998.
 We facilitate the identification, definition, development, promotion, and
implementation of open standards to enable innovation, education, and
communication for the benefit of the entire industry.
 GSA is funded through membership dues.
 Currently, there are 60 members.
 29 Manufacturers, 17 Operators, 4 OEM’s, 10 Advisory, Affiliates/ITL’s.
 28 United States, 14 Canada, 10 Europe, 8 Asia/Australia.
 GSA is organized into committees.
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Technical Committees – establish GSA standards.
Operators Advisory Committee – provide requirements.
Board of Directors – overall direction and governance.
Board representatives from ALGC, Aristocrat, Bally, Ceasar’s, IGT, Isle
of Capris, Konami, Manitoba Lotteries, OLGC, Oregon Lotteries, Spielo,
WMS
GAMING STANDARDS ASSOCIATION
2012 Update
 Stabilized Our Standards
 Commissioned A Study On GSA’s Role In Online Gaming
 Held a Seminar on Industry Collaboration
 Retained Highly Respected Consulting Company To Facilitate
The Strategic Planning Process
 GSA Asia Finalizing MPI Gaming Knowledge Transfer
 MPI Offers BSc degree with specialization in Gaming Technology
 Degree accredited by Institute of Engineering & Technology, London
THE WORLD IS CHANGING AROUND US
 The Internet – its size doubles every 5.32 years
Speed of adoption is significantly faster as
population gets more tech savvy
Oct 2012: 620,480,777 domains
Total users: 2,267,233,000
Global penetration: 34%
Latin America growth: 1,310% (2000-2012) 43% pop
US growth: 153% (2000-2012) 79% pop
THE WORLD IS CHANGING AROUND US
 Online revolution has changed customer behavior
 Ebay is the world’s largest garage sale online
 Expedia the world’s largest travel agency online
 Amazon the world’s largest department store online
 Pokerstar the world’s largest poker room online
 Mobile devices: 49% of time spend on gaming applications and
30% on social networking applications
IMPACT ON THE GAMING INDUSTRY
 NVGCB now using Independent Testing Labs (ITL’s) for
certification
 Old technologies ‘crush’ the ability to drive business
 As the markets mature, operators that do not innovate will die
 Players want to be recognized, social gaming is important
 Gaming is moving to a personal device anywhere anytime
 Gaming is shifting from game centric to system centric to
player centric
 EGM are becoming more system centric and player centric
 Social gaming is driving revenue for land based casinos
EVOLVING BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS
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Lottery industry – distributed gaming (WAN)
Remote Download, Configuration, and Authentication
Central monitoring and control
Real time diagnostic & analytics to enable preventive
maintenance
 Advanced Progressives and Bonussing concepts
 Multi-game machines can be linked to multiple progressive controllers
 Remote printing from central system to game terminal
(promotions…)
 Enhanced Player Experience
 In game player tracking
 Player messaging through Player User Interface (PUI)
EVOLVING BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS
Player User Interface
PUI Window 1
PUI Window 2
EVOLVING BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS
Player User Interface
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Advertising.
Progressive and bonus jackpot values.
Player account balances.
Wagering account transfers.
Sports betting.
Self-service food and beverage.
Restaurant reservations.
Hotel reservations.
EVOLUTION OF DATA COMMUNICATION
 Multiple protocols in the market: SAS, SS, BESS, ASP, QCOM,
X-series, CC – talk, GDAP, SDT, GamPro, DXS, SuperSAS,
BOB, and many more…
 Our industry is plagued by too many proprietary protocols
 You are NOT in control of your business
 You are NOT able to innovate and differentiate your product
offering
 You will PAY more to maintain your current infrastructures
 You will LOOSE new players
EVOLUTION OF DATA COMMUNICATION
Let’s Talk SAS
 SAS was created by IGT early 1980 and for a long time IGT
enjoyed a significant market share in the US which lead to the
defacto standard
 Last functionality enabled by SAS was TITO announced in 1999
 GSA took control of SAS in 2004
 Helped the industry by ‘cleaning up’ this de-facto industry standard
 Developed SAS certification program and toolkit
 Industry embraced an ‘end of life’ strategy:
 GSA’s SAS version was handed back to IGT end of 2009
 Certification by GSA of SAS was terminated end of 2009
 Industry adopted G2S as replacement for SAS effective 2010
1982
SAS era
2008
GSA era
EVOLUTION OF DATA COMMUNICATION
The Cost Of A New Feature
Here’s why Innovation has been slow
Touchscreen
4
Proprietary
Proprietary
Proprietary
Protocol
Protocol
Protocol
1
EDW or
Marketing
System
Slot Floor
Management
System
2
Floor
Controller
3
Proprietary
Protocol
SAS
19.2 Kbps
SMIB
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5
EGM
GSA STANDARDS TODAY
 List of GSA protocols
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G2S – Game to System (released 2006)
S2S – System to System (released 2004)
GDS – Game Device Standard (released 2004)
GAT – Game Authentication
GSA STANDARDS TODAY
Industry Recognition
 JAN 05, 2007 – Global Gaming Business
 G2S: Top honors as Best Productivity- Enhancement Technology
 JAN 22, 2007 - IGWB
 G2S: one of the top 3 gaming products of the year
 APR 25, 2007 – Casino Enterprise Management
 G2S: Slot Floor Technology Award
 MAY 3, 2007 - UNLV
 The UNLV foundation honors Gaming Standards Association with
membership in The Benefactor Society of the University of Nevada, Las
Vegas.
 MAY 24, 2007 – Casino Journal
 G2S: Silver award in top 20 most innovative gaming products of the
year 2007
GSA STANDARDS TODAY
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Designed to operate in a multi-host environment
Subscription based communication model
TCP/IP network instead of proprietary network
Extensible Standard
GSA Standards Awareness
 Created industry awareness in Malta, Greece, South Africa, Canada,
Philippines
 Loto-Quebec operator developed their own bonussing
application
GSA STANDARDS TODAY
Adoption G2S
 Sweden: Nationwide G2S network.
 Italy: Some concessionaires using G2S networks and modified
S2S
 Canada: Multiple Provinces converting to G2S networks.
 Victoria, Australia: Using protocol convertors to link legacy
games to G2S networks.
 Austria: Central monitoring of concessionaires over G2S
networks.
 Casinos: 100s of locations using G2S download and
configuration worldwide.
 Las Vegas: Native G2S floors at Aria and Cosmopolitan.
 Class II gaming using S2S for player tracking, accounting and
TITO
CERTIFICATION: WHY SHOULD I CARE?
 GSA board Committed to the Creation of a Compliance
Verification Tool (CVT)
 Radical Blue Gaming, Reno, NV won the contract
 The impact of the Certification Verification Tool (CVT)
 Development cycle R&D/QA
 Reduce time to market
 Process for operators to purchase GSA certified Systems or
EGM’s
 Purchase GSA certified system
 Purchase GSA certified EGM
 Certification and the impact on Interoperability
 Product certification is THE first step
 The importance of the iterative process
 Impacts certification, CVT, standards and ITL’s
THE CURRENT EGM VS SYSTEM
PARADOX
 The realities of multi-vendor game and system integration
 EGM’s require regulatory approval, system has less stringent
requirements
 Each installation is ‘unique’
 Business impact and realities
 Operators wants stuff to work! BUT….
 Opening date has been set
 Operators witness multi-vendor interoperability issues
 Business realities are currently interfering with true interoperability as
commercial pressures force compromises > Chaotic Ecosystem
 Reduces speed of innovation and adoption
 As an industry we have embraced a strategy of Band-Aid
engineering
 Operator have the power to solve the paradox through business
methods forcing vendors to get GSA certified well before installing
 Do we want the government to dictate certification?
BUSINESS IMPACT AND REALITIES
 GSA standards are stable and matured
 GSA standards are being adopted but why has it taken so
long?
 What about certification, who is certified?
 Casinos, Lotteries and governments are embracing GSA open
standards
 Operators are recognizing the ability to innovate
What Is The Price Of Freedom?
As Nevada Gaming Commissioner Randolph Townsend stated:
“Its not about the green felt anymore, its not about dealing cards anymore, its not
even about slot machines anymore – its all about technology”
To interest the next generation of casino players, one has to be on the cutting edge of
technology.
LETS TALK ABOUT TODAY’S BUSINESS REALITY IN THE GAMING…
How Does It Feel To Be Trapped?
“Why can’t an operator install games made by independent third party content
providers into agnostic slot cabinets?”
How Does It Feel To Be Handcuffed To Your
Vendors?
CMO to CIO…
“This Is What I Need To Grow The Business!”
CIO to Vendor…
“When Can You Make This Happen?”
Vendor to CIO…
“These Are My Terms And Conditions.”
CIO to CMO…
“This Is The Best Our Vendor Can Do.”
Control your Own Destiny
Do You Want The Freedom To Drive Your
Business?
What Is The Price Of Your Freedom?
STANDARDS
CERTIFICATION
MEMBERSHIP
www.gamingstandards.com