The gaming world will descend upon Las Vegas in a couple of weeks in the latest edition of the industry’s most important trade show – Global Gaming Expo (G2E).
As befits such an annual gathering, every year seems to bring a new buzzword of a promised revolutionary development.
Often, the buzzword passes into history faster than its arrival was anticipated. Remember skill-based gaming? Even just a moment’s consideration would have brought the realization that the promise was vapor, not substantive. After all, skill-based is a contradiction in terms for a game in which the gambler plays against the house; unless the house chooses to lose based on skill, which fits into the no-chance category. But that didn’t stop companies from touting their iterations. Nor did it stop skill-based from disappearing from the salesman’s lexicon faster than a snowball in the Las Vegas summer of 2023.
More recently, the buzzword was cashless gaming. And, while there is a certain inevitability about casinos going cashless, the adoption so far has proven more evolution than revolution.
This year, it looked like the buzzword would be artificial intelligence (AI). After all, one can’t pick up a magazine or open a website without reading about how a company was riding the crest of this innovation. And, just like every company wants to be known as a technology company to goose up enthusiasm and investor interest, every company today seemingly wants to be known for its world-changing artificial intelligence.
(For the record, we’re skeptical about the benefits of AI in regulated gaming as, beyond a certain point, one knows so much about a customer that acting on that information can cross the line from marketing to manipulation.)
But there’s a late starter that might push AI into the “oh, yeah. And by the way…” category. That late starter is cybersecurity.
Thanks to clever criminals hacking into the computer systems of Caesars and MGM Resorts, not to mention non-gaming blue chips like Clorox, cybersecurity is a front-and-center issue.
That major gaming companies are vulnerable to cyberattacks should not be a surprise. Recent history has shown that no one is really secure. U.K. website ITGovernance reported 767 publicly announced major hacks through August that compromised more than 692 million records. The list was led by X (formerly Twitter) with 200 million accounts compromised; and that compilation doesn’t yet include MGM and Caesars.
The questions now, of course, are what is being done and what can be done to prevent or minimize future attacks?
And what better place to raise such questions – and tout one’s cyber defense services than G2E?
One apparent lesson has little to do with technology. Based on reports that the MGM breach resulted from humans lowering defenses, one solution is the adoption of old-fashioned security procedures, including authentication. In that case, hiring a few retired military security experts can probably provide more protection than a spiffy new software program.
But technology solutions there will be and G2E will be a place to learn about some of them.
And who knows, maybe one answer will be artificial intelligence.
