Game launched as first variable-payback game
Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian joined executives of Caesars Entertainment and New York-based startup slot manufacturer GameCo, Inc. at Harrah’s Atlantic City last week to cut the ribbon on GameCo’s Danger Arena, the first slot machine in a U.S. casino on which the return-to-player (RTP) is variable based on the skill of the player.
Danger Arena is on GameCo’s patented Video Game Gambling Machine, or VGM, which looks more like an arcade game than a slot machine. It is a first-person shooter game, played with an Xbox-style controller attached to the front. The object is to use the controller to shoot robots, or “bots,” in a video environment much like that seen in Xbox or arcade shooter games. Killing six bots earns the player money. Shooting all 10 bots on a screen with a max bet of $20 yields 25 times the bet—the top $500 win.
GameCo’s VGM won the Silver Medal in the Global Gaming Business Gaming & Technology Awards, presented at the Global Gaming Expo. Caesars Entertainment properties have the exclusive on the first games in the series, with games at Harrah’s, Caesars and Bally’s Wild Wild West. Several more games will be launched in the coming months.
Each VGM features a single-player game, generally 60-90 seconds to play, adapted from top console, PC and mobile developers. The patented VGM gambling platform allows a player’s skill in popular video games to determine the payout and winnings, while maintaining the same casino economics as slot machines.
At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Guardian thanked GameCo co-founder and CEO Blaine Graboyes for choosing Atlantic City for the launch. “We know that skill-based gaming is the future,” he said. “We know you could have been in Macau; you could have been in Las Vegas. You picked the beautiful Caesars properties here in Atlantic City to launch the product.”
Graboyes said he picked Atlantic City for the launch for several reasons, not the least of which was nostalgia. “I grew up playing video games on the Boardwalk at PlayCade,” he told GGB News. On a more practical level, he said, “New Jersey is known as a very well-regulated jurisdiction, and we wanted to prove that we could do it here. It opens up the door for us to move into other jurisdictions now, around the country and around the world.” He added that logistics were much easier for an Atlantic City launch, the company being based in New York.
“These are the first-ever skill-based video-game gambling machines anywhere in the country,” Graboyes said at the ribbon-cutting. “We chose to bring them to Atlantic City. We really have a strong vision for the future of the city, and for casinos in general. There’s a massive opportunity to bring new customers and a new generation of gamers to casinos, and we’re really focused on how we can do that in partnership with the casinos and the city.”
Danger Arena is the first skill game to reach casinos since calls went out nearly two years ago from regulators in New Jersey and Nevada for manufacturers to produce new types of slot games, including skill games that will appeal to the millennial and Gen-X customer that is the future of the industry. The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement gave its final approval last month.
“We believe this will definitely appeal to the millennial and Generation X customer who has grown up with Xbox,” Rick Mazer, president of Harrah’s Resort, said at the ceremony. “We believe this is the future unfolding before us.”
Both Mazer and Kevin Ortzman, president of Caesars and Bally’s, thanked the DGE and its director, David Rebuck, for the prompt approval of the VGM product.
Graboyes, who is a co-author of the VGM patent, says he worked with a slot mathematician to come up with a formula that would account for skill while maintaining normal minimum and maximum RTP levels, by adding two random elements to a game that is otherwise purely skill-based. This was achieved by creating “maps”—video sequences of varying difficulty in which the player battles robots of varying skills—and using a random number generator to choose one of the maps for each play session.
“This game has 10,000 maps in it, and the only random element of the game is which map the player is going to be assigned,” Graboyes told GGB News. “After that, it’s completely up to the player’s skill to get the highest score and payout possible.”
He added that under New Jersey rules, GameCo created a second random element called “Power Uprises, “built in to support sub-optimal play.” Random awards pay up to $5,500 on a $20 bet, which accounts for unskilled players in assuring that the overall RTP reaches the minimum requirement—83 percent in New Jersey.
As for the other end, the programming of the maps provides a hedge against advantage play by professional-level gamers (two of which were on hand at the ribbon-cutting). “It’s part of the math model,” Graboyes explained. “There is a mix of robots on each map. Some have a higher level of difficulty. Some robots are invincible.” He likens the formula to blackjack, in which even the best players encounter hands they cannot win, and unskilled players more than make up for expert players.
“Caesars is excited to celebrate the launch of the world’s first skill-based video-game gaming machines at Caesars, Harrah’s Resort and Bally’s Atlantic City,” said Mazer and Ortzman in a joint statement. “The debut of these innovative machines, exclusively at Caesars resorts in Atlantic City, further positions us as a destination of choice for both loyal customers, and the next generation of customers alike.”?
