Table game management systems, once an esoteric technology for most casinos, are slowly but surely becoming an indispensable service for the increasingly wired gaming floor. These devices are now accepted to the point that two of the largest casino systems providers — Bally Technologies and International Game Technology — offer table game management tools as an integral part of their product portfolios, showing it’s a technology the properly-operating modern casino shouldn’t be without, and that some gaming properties are listening.

But it has taken quite a while for the gaming industry to finally embrace management systems for the table games area. “When the Table Manager project first came out and I tried selling it to casinos, I was essentially a 30-year-old kid pitching the system to 60-year-old floor supervisors,” said Eric Lancaster, product marketing manager of table games systems for IGT. “They would look at me and say, ‘I have been doing this job for 30 years, kid, and now you’re telling me what to do?’

“What finally flipped the switch for us was when a computer was mounted on a table game and everyone accepted it. Now, it is the table game managers who are pressing us to push the technology envelope.”

The desire to take table game management to the next level was one of the primary reasons IGT forged a partnership with Shuffle Master and Progressive Gaming International Corporation (PGIC) to create Table iD. The companies teamed to provide a system that combines the best technologies of all three manufacturers to create an integrated one-source solution. Table iD is comprised of Table Manager, an IGT product that automates many of the traditional and manual tasks assigned to floor supervisors, such as player ratings, cash drop, head counts, markers, comp issuance and table accounting transactions (openers, closers, fills and credits).

“It is designed to aid in the operations of table games,” Lancaster said. “It streamlines operation so that player ratings and table management happen in real-time. Essentially, it replaces the paper in the pit.”

The other Table iD components include PGIC’s Chip Manager, which uses radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to track, identify and record bets made by players, ensuring the systems provides operators with accurate table game handle and patron wagering statistics. Card/Game Manager, provided by Shuffle Master and PGIC, uses an embedded camera in a self-contained card shoe coupled with sophisticated back-end software to capture detailed player and game analysis metrics such as player skill, player counting flags, player win/loss, dealer mistakes and payback.

The product also comes with a Table Bonusing package that lets operators develop unique, automated table rewards programs that add excitement and drive play to table games.

The main selling point to Table iD, by Lancaster’s estimation, is its ability through the use of RFID technology to create exact customer ratings. “So instead of managing your tables based on human estimates, and rewarding your players based on human estimates, you are getting actual data. You are getting coin-in on table games.

“Players want to be rated and they want to be rated accurately,” Lancaster added. “[This] is the tool that allows the operator to do that consistently to all their players.”

Add-on sales

While IGT and partners forge ahead with Table iD, Bally Technologies continues to refine and market TableView, its automated tracking and rating system for table games. Using a touchscreen monitor, real-time entries can be made for player ratings and requests for chip fills and credits. TableView can also enter table closers and issue customer comps and markers. Information and transactions recorded at individual tables will be seamlessly integrated into a casino’s existing Bally Casino Management System, and provide casino personnel with secure and instant access to table ratings and financial accounting data.

“You see this in busier environments where they do really heavy table game play as it necessitates having a terminal on every table,” said Derik Mooberry, Bally’s vice president of systems sales for western North America, last fall prior to Global Gaming Expo. “The casinos that are a little less busy tend to have a terminal shared between a couple of tables, and those that are fairly small may just have one touch screen in the pit maybe at the podium. It varies based on the level of play that they might have in their particular casino.”

Bally has found success marketing TableView as part of its Networked Floor of the Future suite of casino systems. For example, when Birmingham, England-based Casino Fiveways decided to install Bally’s full slot management solution in April, the property also decided to replace its manual table game ratings process with TableView, because it would allow them to track, rate and reward their table-game players the same way they do slot players.

“We’re excited to install these products as part of our customer rewards program for players,” said Ian Burke, CEO of the Rank Group Plc., owners of the Fiveways casino. “The Bally [systems] should enable us to offer the most cutting-edge promotions which will provide additional benefits to our most loyal customers and will help us to gain a greater understanding of customer preferences and playing patterns.”

Fantasy Springs Casino, Indio, Calif., followed a similar approach, deciding to install TableView to fully automate its 40 table games in addition to utilizing Bally’s iVIEW slot bonusing system.

“When all of this advanced technology is rolled out, Fantasy Springs will have one of the most technologically advanced casino floors in the country,” general manager of Fantasy Springs Paul Ryan said last September.

Additional players

Of course, Bally and IGT are not the only two companies offering some form of table game management systems. The Trident Table Safe System with Intelligent Cash Box (ICB), provided by Las Vegas-based JCM American, wing-mounts under table games to provide increased cash acceptance security and accountability.

Table game dealers slip banknotes provided by players in a slot on the table that sends it through the ICB’s bill validator. When verified as legitimate, the dealer issues the player gaming chips in the amount provided, and the money is deposited in the ICB lock box. This eliminates losses caused by counterfeit currency and theft, as once in the box, currency cannot be removed until opened in the counting room.

Each transaction at the table is recorded and data is relayed in real time to the table game pit using an Ethernet network to the casino’s central office. This provides a running account of the revenue generated by each table in real time to management; instead of waiting up to three days, the take of the day can be manually counted.

JCM also offers versions of Trident for card, dice and roulette tables.

At Genesis Gaming Solutions, President Randy Knust said his pit and poker room player tracking system is designed to track every bet a player wages with chips placed in a predetermined area on the table. It identifies the player, assigns the wager to his or her record, and collects other data such as average bet, number of hands played, high bet, low bet, time at table and daily win/loss.

“The beauty of this system is that it allows pit personnel to spend more time with the customer and provide greater personal service,” said Knust. “In the meantime, the dealer and player are oblivious to the tracking system so the game experience remains enjoyable.”

RFID chips are also helping casinos take table game tracking and management to a new level. Gaming Partners International and its product line of low- and high-frequency RFID chips, jetons and plaques, as well as low-frequency RFID readers, has fared well in this area. The company has recently showcased live presentations of RFID readers and front end/back end operational applications, with a new range of operating software (or CIDs) and new applications such as the RFID Poker Table and the ECS system.

“We have had customers telling us that they were extremely impressed by the progress made by our technology over the last 12 months, particularly on the reading speed and the operating software now available,” said GPI International Sales & Marketing Manager Christophe Leparoux, at last November’s Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas.

The ECS system, aimed at protecting the casino against employee theft, shown for the first time at G2E, and the new RFID Poker Table particularly gathered huge interest from the crowd.

With its poker pot chip reader, the design and performance of GPI RFID Poker Table make it the perfect tool for the efficient verification of the total amount of the pot value and the rake at all poker tables.

Shortly after G2E, Gaming Partners International and Progressive Gaming announced they had received a major order for RFID chips and reading technology from Foxwoods Resort Casino in Ledyard, Conn.

TableMAX to enter WAP arena

TableMAX, a leading developer of electronic table games, and Australia-based eBet, a producer and marketer of software and systems designed to facilitate the management of slot machine networks, have signed a partnership agreement. Under terms of the deal, eBet will monitor and operate wide area progressives on all TableMAX game content, including Progressive Blackjack, Caribbean Stud poker, Caribbean Draw poker, Texas Hold’ Em Bonus Poker and Bonus Blackjack.

“This is very noteworthy news for TableMAX,” said CEO Stephen Crystal. “We have a unique product that is already in high demand across the continent. Now we have a partnership that will expand our exciting progressive beyond a standalone game situation to a full wide area progressive. This is a major step forward in our business plan.”

TableMAX product offerings are unique in the electronic table game marketplace because of the company’s exclusive rights to operate and manage wide area progressives on the game type. Now eBet brings the expertise and technology to successfully implement and operate the TableMAX WAP on the Casino Link system.

Currently, a TableMAX game’s progressive is tied to one five-station game. Now, the progressive could be casino-wide, multi-property, multi-city within a state and even multi-state.

The partnership is a three-year agreement encompasses North America. The new eBet-driven WAP is expected to go live in April 2008 in Oklahoma.

Additional reporting and writing for this piece was provided by Andy Holtmann and Jack Bulavsky.