Casino industry changes – Post Covid-19 pandemic
There were some casino floors which gets 60- 70% occupancy on a Saturday night long back, way back in 2019. Not sure, if the industry is going towards that post Covid-19. Social distancing, avoiding contacts, frequent sanitization etc. will be prominent for some more time, until this gets settled as any other normal flu and successful vaccines being available.
- Some of the possible strategic/operational changes, which could come to the industry (at least in the immediate future for the next few quarters) –
- Huge demand for cashless gaming (Both at slots & tables)– There might be a flow of new entrants to capture this space and all the biggies will invest to have support for their existing solutions (from a solution provider stand point)
- Even for the cashless solution, the player cards may not be in picture (to avoid the contact) and it could be based on a wallet download using your mobile phone to the slot machine (Could be an NFC / Bluetooth/WiFi mode etc)
- Going cashless and no paper - may improve the operational efficiency and reduce the cost with a lot of existing operations at the casino
- Player Card insertion into the slot machines for the rating – Probably, there might be a change to go with Vision based technologies (Face Identification kind) or Mobile based (NFC/Bluetooth)
- PIN entry – In order to avoid the contact with a PIN Pad which is being used by other players, this could be based on vision based technologies/OTP coming to your mobile phones/Mobile app based communication
- Signatures given for the slips – Might be changed to a mobile app based communication
- Space between players will increase – Solutions finding the optimum allocation will evolve for Slots and Tables
- Target utilization for the tables will completely change
- Back Betting of the tables may be disallowed in the casinos to avoid the crowd
- Usage of chips (heart and soul of Table Games) may be changed to Mobile based play to avoid contact with the chips
- Jackpot processing might be completely remote and payment to players wallet
- Extension of the gambling space to other places within the casino or the integrated resort to help social distancing
- Huge spike in the demand for social/online gambling and increased usage of mobile apps
- Possibilities of VR/AR solutions to create the casino experience, even if the player is playing in silo (social/online)
Let’s hope there be some proper vaccines and herd immunity being achieved soon and the industry bounces back fast!!
Director Software Quality Assurance at Light & Wonder
4 年Good One Akhil!
Project Manager at HCL Technologies
4 年Great article Akhil Chandran. Will be interesting to see how casino employees(Technically challenged) can cope up with these smart innovations(if at all happens) and spinning the game after downloading funds will be another interesting challenge to address.
Creating powerful gaming experiences for our customers everywhere
4 年Interesting article Akhil. Great opportunity to bring up new tech that has been ignored/sidelined by regulators and old school operators for ages to capture new value that was considered out of the box not too long ago.
Senior Director, Technology | Strategic Vision, Global Product Management
4 年Great Summary Akhil. Just curiosity made me think what if we explore to plot customer journey maps - before & after(proposed) COVID 19 pandemic by taking all the existing touch points from entry to exit for casino. Moreover, need to eliminate all the possible touch points in case of post COVID 19 pandemic - great opportunity & challenge to innovate!