Seen as a segment from a past era, some industry experts explain that slot machines already exhausted their diversity, and now they are even a burden to the casinos, wearing both regular and amateur players with being alike, despite all the efforts to be revitalized.
The year started with presenting the skill-based slot machines in front of the gaming industry. In a nutshell, these are games, which are testing the actual physical skills of the player, and thus the result is also dependent on the personal skills. Considered as innovative, many people believe that these slot machines will bring back the interest in the slot machines.
At a one-day conference, organized by The American Gaming Association (AGA) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the innovations and trends in the iGaming industry were discussed. The main spokesman of the meeting was Rob Tercek. He is a main strategy advisor of different industry-involved companies, who count on him for leading a successful business. Thus, it is said that Mr Tercek has a good industry insight on the future development of the casino market.
He expressed his opinion on the matter, stipulating that the mobile games seem to be way more entertaining to the players than the outdated slot machines, to be found in practically every casino. As a matter of fact, the slot machines are part of the gaming selection in every casino, regardless if it comes to a land-based or online one.
He backed up his position with the fact that the slot machines were a hit among the gambling society as far back as 1880. According to him, the slot machines have witnessed some progress in terms of change over the last years, but that is not enough. This means that the players need to meet one and the same gaming environment every time they enter the casino. This, on the other hand, is everything else, but attractive for the players.
Mr Tercek outlined that the main problem is that the slots are still reel-based and even if the themes and designs are changed, the whole structure of the game should be changed. Experts see this as a trick to “mask” the old well-known slot games.
On the other hand, it seems that the slot machines still have their fans, since casinos reported that a significant amount of the revenues (estimated roughly to be around 64%) comes namely from the slot machines. A survey also shows that the percentage of wins from slot machines did not change drastically over the last 30 years.
These figures are meaningful enough that casino operators will not break up with the tradition of slot machines, or at least not for now. The only thing, which may happen is to reduce their number. What is more, the casinos cannot afford to totally deprive their customers of the presence of the slot machines due to their simplicity, which is the perfect start for all the players, who are making their first steps in the “gambling world”, and not only.
