These are really good questions, and thanks for asking.

We don't see this as an obstacle, but as part of the intended design. This is not a slot machine. It is a table game. And like any other table game, if there is nobody there to help you, the game is closed. One employee can service multiple of these machines in a single room, but the design of the game was specifically to match the design of specific high limit rooms we found during the research phase of the project here in Las Vegas.

Said another way, like other table games, you are, by design, dealing with a casino employee in order to play the game and have the game explained to you. This was intentional and it was done for a reason, and it's part of the reason why $100 is a small minimum bet for this game.



The above is the original artist's concept that led to the cabinet and game's steampunk theme and design. The attendant's job is to take your chips or your cash, and they create a player card for you with your identity on it. When you want to cash out, you press the cash out button, and the attendant takes your card and anything else necessary to know with certainty that you are the person associated with the card, and they give you chips or pay off your marker, and you're ready for whatever is next.

It's a common reaction that people see this and that it has a screen and visual graphics that you interact with and just then assume that this is a slot machine. But it's a pinball table game for the high limit table room, and it was specifically designed to be a high limit AP table game.

We currently have no plans to put bill acceptors, ticket printers, flashing LED lights, metal cabinets, or any other stuff that belongs on a slot machine that is unattended and has a bunch of money inside.

For similar reasons (this is not a slot) this has a leather lock-down bar, leather front, and leather in other places just like other table games. And the woods are designed to complement the woods found in the high limit table rooms.

Our goal is to create each cabinet as its own work of art. Not just specific to the casino where it is to go on location, but to the specific room in the casino where it will be placed.

Just my opinion, but the step of having to fund a card in order to play the game is a bit of a deterrent. I think this is something that hurt electronic poker tables.

Folks don't want to stand in line to buy the card. They want to walk up and play. Even worse is to stand in line to refill a card once you lost it all. The ease of rebuying at a live poker table, vs getting up after a loss to go to the cage and refill their card is where the e-poker rooms lost a lot of customers.

Whatever the process is, it needs to be fast, easy, and if the customer wants it, anonymous.

You don't fund the card. The card is your identity not your funds. If you lose everything and want to add funds, you hand cash to the attendant, and the funds appear very nearly as instantly as the funds can be counted. It's no different than any other table game. They might choose to ask you how much is there and fund you before counting the cash even.

Just like any other table game, though, the game does not take your chips and/or money. A person does.

The main difference in how money is handled with this and a normal table game is that there is no opportunity for dealer errors in resolving bets during the actual play of the game. Only when counting money.

Also, you're not standing in line and you're not buying a card. If you are diligent, you only ever need to get a single card. From there on out, you swipe your card that you brought with you on the machine and give cash to the attendant at the same time.

Also, the "id" is just a unique id, and there is no requirement for any actual real information. It can be an empty name, but every card has a unique id. You can also change your name on the same "id" if you want at any time.

We used a MacBook Pro and a generic card writer at the show. The card was written with player name and unique id (no info for funds). No data changes on the card at all after the card is written. All money was added through wireless technology using the MacBook Pro Retina at the show. You can use other wireless technology besides a laptop of course to add funds, so an attendant might have a cell-phone-style app that communicates securely with the server that puts funds into the system after receiving cash.

you seem pretty adamant about having players identified every step of the way with their player's card. is this by request of your casino constituency or by your own design? or maybe i'm missing the point somewhere. can someone without a players card stroll up and stick cash in the machine and have a go?

This is cashless gaming. It's not the player who is needed to be id'd. The card has a unique id. The id I speak of in this context is a computer id, not an id like a driver's license or a tax id. Each card for each anonymous player who wants to play the game that is created is assigned a unique id from a random number generator when that person walks up.

I apologize if it seemed that I am insisting that the IRS wants to know your lifetime wins. We do plenty of stuff to make this thing work for players; and frankly I am angry at myself for not explaining this in a way to make that more obvious.

The card only identifies your bucket of money and your player preferences, and so on. There is a name in there, but it can even be blank if you wish, or "player."

Player accounting and preferences and how the game remembers your preferred method of betting so you can focus on pinball instead of fooling around with how you want to gamble is the big reason why we have player accounting. It's not about the player's legal identification or tax id, it's about making the game easy to play when you come back it knows what you like.

Really hope this is a typo. This thing won't get off the ground if there's a $100 minimum bet. Might be fun as hell but the universe of people who will stick in a hundred just to try it out is vanishingly small. Pinball in general is a downmarket game that's supposed to cost 50 cents. You need to let people in the door for like $5.

I guess I'm just confused then. Are we talking about the standard player's card/slot club card issued by the casino to patrons? Or a different card that's specific to this game

The game requires a card for you to play.

The "id" is generated by creating a 64-bit checksum of all of the data on the card.

If the card has been funded by the attendant, the card can be used. Below is what the cards looked like that we created for folks at the G2E show. We used a card writer to take the name from the G2E badge using a QRcode app, and create a card with the player's name on it for them to play the game at the show.



You can use literally any existing magstripe card you want as the casino, it's up to the casino and/or the employee funding accounts associated with each cards unique checksum-id to only fund cards that you want the player to use.

But you can literally fund any mag-strip card without writing to the card at all.

You want to play using a card from a _different_ casino without the casino writing to the card? No problem. As long as the casino says they will fund that card for you, you're all set.

The only thing is that if you want a name on it, you need a card with a name on it. But the card is just a unique 64-bit id to the game, and if that unique 64-bit id has been funded by the attendant, you're ready to play.

Game doesn't care what's on the card. It tries to get your name off the card the same way a name is stored on a credit card or bank card, and if it's there it will use it.

Then the game uses the 64-bit checksum to look up into the database to see how much money you have to play with, and there ya go.

I hope this answers all of the questions. These are good questions, and frankly, it's a little disappointing that we don't already have a system like this in the casino.

If this helps people understand how we do cashless gaming, it's worth it to explain all of this stuff. GLI has some standard documents on cashless gaming you might want to look at if you are still having issues understanding how cashless gaming works.

http://www.gaminglabs.com/downloads/...20Standard.pdf

But we're already getting into details that are beyond the scope of what I think most people would be interested in here, and our system is bound to evolve over time too, so it's not like I'm trying to go into all the detail how it works right now. We could change over to something else, but it will continue to be a cashless table game (IE: no money inside).

The incentive to use an actual id is actually if you lose the card, you can prove that the money associated with that card is yours if your information was on the card. Otherwise you lose the money. But there is NO REQUIREMENT that you give any identification to play the game. I would give my id just like I throw in my player card every time I play a table game. But that's just me.

Here's the latest artist concept image for how the game is designed to visually fit-in to a high limit table gaming area in an aesthetically pleasing way.

Ok, I see. Thanks for clearing that up

What is the point of any of this discussion? You seem to be nowhere near close to rolling out and likely have zero potential market.

Skill-based gaming at its core is a good concept. It appears you've taken that and pretty much cocked it up at every turn.

Hopefully you can enforce some patents and actually make a few nickels out of this mess once somebody does it right.

It takes quite a long time to jump through all the hoops necessary. We are very busy with much of this stuff, and it's just part of what everyone who wants to make casino products has to deal with. Each jurisdiction has its own peculiar things about it, and GLI helps a bunch to keep track of many of the differences.

There's no quick answer to this question, but there are resources online if you really want to dig in and find out what is involved. You basically have long forms where you have to detail your entire life and everything you've ever done.

Nope. No typo. Our game is not for math challenged. It's also not for the problem gambler. It's for the person who has the resources to indulge in the sport of winning money from being really good at something while gambling at the same time.

If I offered you a game where you could bet anything from $100 up to $50,000 to win anything from $10 up to $500,000 and the house edge is 1% per resolved bet and each bet was totally fun and lasted a minute versus a game that is $1.25 and the house edge is 14% and each bet lasts 3 seconds, which one would YOU play?

Many above average players will have positive EV. They aren't going to worry about their bets being too big. They're maybe going to worry about bad variance.

Not everyone will understand this game, and that's okay with us.

If I understand it right, this really can't work as designed.

First you need to consider the case of stored value slot machines or progressive slots that wander into significant +EV territory on a regular basis, and why they are bad for the casino and why nearly all slots like that, while popular, almost always end up off the floor once they become well known among AP slot fleas. Here, you have something that is designed to enter into +EV territory for a skilled player. Well, if I'm a skilled player, I'm just going to sit outside and wait for some mark to show up and then jump on right after him, obviously.

Then, you describe a game that requires an attendant and has high minimum bets. Have you spent a lot of time in the average casino? I'm sure you imagine these in the high limit salons at the big strip casinos having people wager $50,000 a game (lol), but you really need to cater to the mass market.

Finally, have you seen the kind of people who play $100+ a spin electronic games? Sounds like a terrible player experience for the vast amount of old people, never mind the fact that the complexity will scare them away.

I like the idea, but it just seems impossible to find any traction without some serious changes (unless I totally misunderstand the machine)

it seems like you can easily sandbag the game yourself, play 100 games terribly at $100 a pop then switch to a $10k wager and bury it

I'll explain it, but I can assure both of you that you don't understand it yet.

The player can select the amount that skill affects the EV. That selection and the bet amount are modulated to come up with a weight, Alpha Fish.

As far as going into +EV theoretical for the sum total of all bets made on a machine, that never happens. Not even for a penny. EV penalties are required before EV rewards can be made. It's very simple.

If only one person were to ever play a machine, that person would not be able to have positive EV for the sum total of all of their wagers made (IE: weighted by wager amount and effect of skill).

Advantage play is built on the notion that some players have better average EV results than other players.

I want to address your post in the whole: I have researched gamblers in Las Vegas for multiple hours per day on average for almost five years. I absolutely grok the full gamut of gamblers in Las Vegas and I have a very good mental concept of both where the money to be made is as well as what gamblers want.

The +EV jackpot systems don't reward skill. They reward trivial knowledge. That is their fatal flaw. Vulturing AP players are absolutely not desirable characters at all. Trust and know that I understand what you're talking about and it's apples and oranges with our game.

I spend a whole lot of time in every casino in Clark County and beyond. I absolutely see what's going on and have a very good big picture view. I appreciate what you're saying, and I absolutely believe that I know exactly the market that I am targeting and that this will work. It will work better than people think: those people who suggest that I need to service a market that is, in my view, already being fully serviced and then some are trend followers, not trend setters.

Oh, that's why they're having a 'player ID card.'

They want to prevent any one player from being able to sandbag and get +EV.

So it's just going to be exploitable in other ways. And that's why they want it attended.

It (the game and/or the casino running the game) won't be exploited, but you might.



Here's a sample of someone who can play. This guy operated our Rush 2049 Coin-op game 15 years ago. He has skill in pinball. He should definitely crank up the effect of skill on the EV.

Someone with no pinball skills should turn off the effect of pinball skill on EV and just enjoy having fun playing with no worries.

You can smoothly adjust the effect of skill to anything you want.

I enjoyed reading your WAG's on how it works. VERY entertaining. Keep 'em coming pro!

Let me start off by saying, I am your exact target audience. I go to a local pinball bar twice a month or so and I love the game. I'm also a fairly high-stakes advantage gambler. The overlap in that Venn diagram is pretty damn small.

Here's what I know about pinball: some games are great, some games are terrible. Some tables are designed so the ball drains through the middle all the time, or out the sides really easily. And even on a player-friendly table, I can have a bad ball and lose in 20 seconds.

Now let's say I see your table at a casino somewhere. I've never seen a for-money pinball machine before, and I've never played electronic pinball outside of Windows 95, so I'm already suspicious that it'll try to cheat me somehow. Whatever the attendant might explain about EV, I'd expect that the game was designed to give the player the illusion of control when really was would be quite difficult to actually get a +EV situation. Novelty games in casinos usually have a 20% house advantage. My assumption would be that I'd lose every penny I put in. I'd pay $5 to try it out; I wouldn't pay $100 to try it out.

That's actually a huge problem for you. As an advantage gambler, I want to compete against people who don't know what the **** EV is. If you're not attracting people who just want to play recreationally, there's no reason for the advantage players to play either.

I disagree. I appreciate your interest.

Not sure why you came and posted here. Not like you're actually listening to any of the feedback you're getting.

Hey parttimepro,

The goal for Aaron and I posting to forums like these is to generate interest in what we're doing. That means that we're listening to feedback, answering questions, and most importantly, dispelling assumptions.

Here's what I can state about "Vegas 2047" - it's not the greatest pinball table layout, nor is it terrible. What it does extremely well (possibly even better than a real physical pinball table) is gauge Player skill. It accomplishes this through three important pieces of patent-pending technology:
- a Physics simulation running at 1000Hz
- an interrupt-driven Input system with nanosecond latency
- an LCD display running at 120Hz with backlight strobing

We haven't fine-tuned the outlanes or center drain, but have modeled them after our favorite layouts. We've also played the hell out of "Vegas 2047" and completely stopped playing Stern's new "Star Trek" machine, so I feel like the layout is fair.

Furthermore, we have a tilt input controller so nudging the table is reflected realistically with nudges to the virtual playfield.

The only major difference between a traditional pinball game and ours is that ours is a 1-ball game, plus we give you a second 'add-a-ball' when the first one leaves the bumpers. It's not really 'cheating' the Player, in our opinion, but reducing the average game time to jibe with what the Casino is looking for.

There are no illusions in "Vegas 2047" - we're currently giving the Player ALL of the parameters and being transparent about the process every step of the way:
- your chosen Bet and Win amounts, combined with the House Edge (reflected in the Payback %) give you your Chance to Win, which is displayed on the Wheel before you start the game. The red and green sections of the Wheel change dynamically as you adjust your Bet and Win amounts.
- during the game, every point you score will increase your EV from 75% (for the worst game possible) to 99% for an average game (the Payback you start from) to over 100% and up to 123% with the settings I've described for achieving the highest score on the game.

The difficulty in achieving this situation is predicated on your skill at playing pinball, and the existence of enough -EV games from previous players to take from. As a note on this, during our three days at the G2E show, with two games, we only saw an expert Player's EV "clamp out" due to no more available EV to take only once. He did end up with +EV for that game, and afterwards, we never saw that phenomenon again.

20% House Edges are for chumps, and never displayed on the machine. You should feel comfortable risking $500 to win $50 on our game. With a House Edge of 1% you're only theoretically spending $5 and you have an 89% chance to win that Bet with an average score. You can easily ELIMINATE YOUR CHANCE TO LOSE that Bet with a good enough score.

I really appreciate everyone's responses and frankly I've heard more comments that make it obvious to me that most people have expectations and assumptions about how "Vegas 2047" works based on existing -EV Slot Machines, the Casino's aversion to Advantage Play, and 'what you need to do in order to make me want to play it'.

We're a long way off from seeing our game on the Casino floor, but we're working every day to make that a reality. When it does happen, I hope there are some 2+2 forum members who make a lot of money from "Vegas 2047".

With gratitude,

STV

--
Stephen Riesenberger
Creative Director - NanoTech Gaming Labs

Stephen,
Thanks for the in-depth response. What I was trying to communicate in my earlier post, and maybe I should have made it explicit, was that if I encountered the game on the casino floor and didn't have all the info laid out in this thread, I would be very suspicious of it.

Communicating what the game really is, as opposed to players' intuitions of what it would be, will be a major challenge.