With New technology you can gamble as you like it

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A day is coming when gamblers will have the opportunity to walk up to a slot machine, put in their slot club cards and be presented with a list of their preferred games at the precise denominations they want to play.
And the machine may automatically print out a voucher for a free meal to be eaten at one of the casino's restaurants, if it's the player's birthday.
This is the world of server-based casino games. Experts say they have the possibility of being the next immense innovation in industry technology, an advance that could augment the appeal of slot machines the way ticket in, ticket out technology has.
At this year's Global Gaming Expo in September, industry professionals got their initial look at the technology. Regulators are gradually advancing the rules and technical standards to casino operators and equipment manufacturers so that field trials can commence next year.
Reno-based slot machine behemoth International Game Technology and Las Vegas rival Alliance Gaming, are the top Nevada players in server-based games. They are thrilled to pass the technology to the market, but aren't talking very much about how it will change the experience of slot player's. They don't want to tip their competitive hands.
In the initial stages, focus will be on how the technology can create greater profitably for slot floor operators.
IGT spokesman Ed Rogich says that if he has a slot floor with 2,000 machines and he wants to make changes, he would have to go to each one of them, open them up and modify the components. This he says, not only takes a lot of time but takes the machines down for some time.
This is particularly cumbersome for software changes involving currency modifications according to Rogich who said that this type of transformation requires that every machine be modified to recognize the new bills produced by the U.S. Treasury.
But every machine is electronically connected to a central computer file server with server-based games, and alterations can be made in the time it takes for a software download. Changes can be made almost instantaneously due to the large bandwidth most slot systems use.
Alliance Gaming's chief technology officer, Bob Luciano, demonstrated the ability of one of its system by altering games and denominations on 10 slots linked in a showroom. The modification took just seconds and only involved a few computer mouse clicks.
Luciano said that since the 1980s, some downloadable technology has been an aspect of the gaming industry, but it is only in the last four years that manufacturers have started solving applications problems along with security issues.
Nevada regulators have unfortunately moved rather slowly on the approval of standards for systems, completing a series of workshops only in 2005. Dennis Neilander, the State Gaming Control Board Chairman, said that regulators took a slow and purposeful pace to gather suggestions from all parts of the industry before establishing final approval.
When final approvals are finally adopted early this year, field trials on a limited number of games and systems will be carried out. Then the casino companies will be in a position to determine just how much money will be generated by the technological changes.
According to some analysts, the results could be huge. Floor managers, by having the opportunity to change games instantly, will be able to examine what games and denominations will be expected to perform best at any particular time of the day. They can also change hold percentages inside of regulatory parameters.
A floor manager, for example, could conclude that nighttime crowds lean toward reel games but that most video poker players are on the floor in the afternoons. A manager could than alter a machine, just a row of them, or even an entire floor in seconds.

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