Fantini's Gaming Report June 2009

The report that IGT has placed electronic table games at Four Winds Casino in Michigan may be a signal that war is about to break out over this small, but fast-growing segment of the casino business.

To date, e-tables in North America have been dominated by Shuffle Master, which got a head start when it purchased the business from Sega some years ago, then added to its advantage by buying StarGames.

That advantage has stayed even though IGT moved into the business several years ago and displays upgraded machines at every G2E.

As late as the opening of Sands Bethlehem in Pennsylvania on May 22, all 16 electronic tables were SHFL’s Table Master games because that is the only e-table yet approved in the Keystone State. And StarGames’ Rapid Roulette maintains its near monopoly of multi-player electronic roulette. But that could be changing. Consider:

• IGT appears to be moving assertively in this area as evidenced by the Four Winds placements.

• Electroncek is now licensed in Nevada. The company is 50 percent owned by Aristocrat meaning it has a big and motivated distributor in the US. Electroncek has a strong presence internationally.

• TableMAX, once a little side business for a basically uninterested distributor in defunct Progressive Gaming, is revived and focused as a public company under ambitious CEO Steve Crystal.

At present, it is difficult to tell which company has an advantage in products, each making claims for itself while rapping the competitors.

An example is Indiana. Shuffle Master and IGT e-tables compete in the Indianapolis racinos. Each company says it is out-doing the other.

IGT says players prefer its live dealer DigiDeal-based games. SHFL says its all-electronic Table Masters are holding up just fine, and without the cost of a dealer.

We asked our Midwest Correspondent Randy Bowman to scope them out. Here are some of his observations at Indiana Live and Hoosier Park:

“At all times I was at Indiana Live, the IGT-DigiDeal units were outplaying the Table Master units by about 2 to 1 in number of players. Observations by number of players: 3/6, 2/7, 3/5, 4/9, 5/10, 4/10, 4/8 with DigiDeal always having more players.

“There were two DigiDeal tables open when I arrived and three were open after 5 p.m. Most bets on both systems were in the low $5/$10 range, although there was one $25 player on the DigiDeal tables. “Hoosier Park players also appear to prefer the games with live dealers.

“They started out with six Table Masters and four IGT DigiDeals but have since expanded to 10 DigiDeals in their own pit.

“I think SHFL has lost their advantage with the old Table Master technology. The animation on the screen has not been improved and needs to be more interactive, in my opinion.

"TableMaster has an advantage of being able to run 24/7 without a live dealer. But the players seem to like the live dealer and the DigiDeal units that look more like a real table game.”

Admittedly, those are observations of a single individual, but they do suggest that future competition for placements may be closer than when SHFL owned a monopoly.

Of course, SHFL is improving its games. It has developed an electronic craps game, is tweaking Table Master, and is developing a common platform for the scalable StarGames and for Table Master. One question is how big will the e-table market be.

At present, it’s a niche. Machines are steadily making their way into VLT markets like Pennsylvania where live table games aren’t allowed.

Table Master, without a dealer, fits perfectly in those markets, and also in small casinos that can’t afford 24/7 live dealers. The same is true of TableMAX, which has been placing games in Indian Country.

Even large casinos seeking to cut costs can load in a few Table Masters or TableMAX games for slot players wanting to cross over, or to offer blackjack and other games in the wee hours when live pits might not be financially justified.

In most cases, bigger companies have the advantages of scale over smaller companies, which should bode well for IGT. SHFL, however, notes that it owns proprietary games so it can go beyond blackjack and baccarat to games like Three Card Poker and Let It Ride ...