Bill provides for variable-payback slots
Nevada lawmakers have passed a bill allowing for skill-based games in casinos, with lawmakers in both chambers voting unanimously to pass Senate Bill 9, a bill providing variable payback percentages based on skill that was proposed by the Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers (AGEM). It was promptly signed by Governor Brian Sandoval.
The measure allows regulators to approve games in which the theoretical payback percentage is programmed at a minimum level based on pure chance, but rises with the level of player skill to a maximum return. AGEM proposed it as a way to capture younger players who are accustomed to video games in which hand-eye coordination and physical dexterity are essential to moving through various levels to beat a game.
However, it’s not just the millennials that stand to benefit from the new law. Baby-boomer pinball aficionados will finally be able to use the skills honed in adolescence on the casino floor, with a skill game highlighted in a report last week by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “Vegas 2047,” produced by Las Vegas-based NanoTech Gaming, allows the player to choose the degree of luck and the degree of skill to incorporate into the payback.
“Gambling should be something where you have a fair chance to win,” NanoTech Gaming Technology VP Aaron Hightower told the newspaper. “We also believe that if you want the skill to make a difference, you should be allowed to have that privilege. Our game is designed in such a way that a top player on a given machine can be making more than the casino on that machine, and it’s not an expression of something going wrong.”
Vegas 2047’s name is based on San Francisco Rush 2049, an arcade racing game released in 1999 that Hightower worked on for Atari. At the start of play, the customer selects how much the pinball score should factor into the outcome of the game.
SB 9 marked the first time AGEM has specifically initiated legislation in its 15-year history. To start the process, AGEM members, anchored by all of the world’s largest slot machine technology companies, were polled in early 2014 and asked to submit ideas on how to boost innovation that would require a change in Nevada law. The variable-payback concept was the overwhelming choice to be forwarded to the Nevada Committee To Conduct An Interim Study Concerning The Impact Of Technology Upon Gaming that met throughout 2014 and ultimately recommended that the AGEM concept advance to the legislative level.
When the legislature convened in February, SB 9 was initially assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which moved it to the full Senate that passed it by a 20-0 vote. Last week, the Nevada Assembly passed the measure on a 41-0 vote.
The Nevada Gaming Control Board and the Nevada Gaming Commission will now lead the process of writing and promulgating the regulations that will “guide this innovative new direction that AGEM believes will inject new life into the slot machine segment of the gaming industry and attract younger players that are accustomed to the arcade experience and different forms of non-gambling games in their daily lives,” according to an AGEM press release.
“AGEM is especially proud to be the initiator and one of the driving forces behind the milestone event,” said Thomas Jingoli, AGEM president and chief compliance officer of Konami Gaming. “We’d like to thank the Gaming Control Board and Chairman A.G. Burnett for supporting this initiative over the past year, and we are excited that Nevada will be the first in the world to offer the full extent of this innovative new form of gaming.”
The American Gaming Association also applauded the new law.
“We applaud Nevada’s leadership on this bill that will allow for innovation among gaming equipment manufacturers and suppliers and help gaming reach a key customer demographic,” said Geoff Freeman, president and CEO of the AGA. “We encourage states across the country to follow Nevada’s lead and support innovation that will help casinos thrive in all 40 gaming states.”
In an example of the law’s implementation offered by AGEM, payback percentages would, for example, give all players a base game with an 88 percent payback, but if you’re particularly skilled at shooting down enemy planes in the bonus round or outracing your friends in a road rally, you could boost your payback to 98 percent, with the blended overall payback selected by operators falling somewhere in the middle. “For the first time, players will know they can have a material financial impact on the outcome of the game,” said AGEM.
“I believe we will look back on the passage of SB 9 as a monumental moment for the gaming industry and its overall evolution,” said Marcus Prater, AGEM executive director. “The slot floor will not transform overnight, but this will allow our industry to capitalize on radical new gaming concepts and technologies and give AGEM members the ability to unleash a new level of creativity for their casino customers.”
