How do you think future technologies will affect the gaming industry and Las Vegas?
Im mostly talking about live gaming, and not things like “gambling on your microwave”.
One thing i’ve imagined is RFID in EVERYTHING.
Imagine a blackjack table and every card and chip has an RFID chip in it, the table reads everything that happens.
As the game is dealt the table could show the results with lights changing colour and what not.
Someone is dealt a blackjack, and the table knows they have bet $100, so it automatically turns the betting box green and displays “WIN : $150!” below the box.
It’s kind of like bringing comuters to gambling, rather than gambling to computers.
Personally, I expect that within the next 100 years we’ll all have HUD built right into our eyes and some sort of wifi connection to one another and the internet. That won’t be particular to gambling, but I’m sure they’d utilize it.
I know you excluded slots, but just to let you know, even slots are changing the face of gaming here.
Many video slots now have a feature that if you win a bit, a screen will pop up and you have an opportunity to touch the screen to win more (for instance, five boxes will show up, you touch the screen on one of the five boxes to open it and maybe get 1000 times your bet or 2 times your bet!)…after you make your selection, the screen shows you where the big and small prizes were - in other words, the choice wasn’t just a random spin of a wheel, the “big” prize was right there in front of you to select. You either selected correctly or not, but it was your choice. Yes, a case could be made that it was still a random selection, but still…unlike old slots that you had no idea if it was ever going to pay out, at least on some of these new games, you can at least see where you should have picked.
Regarding the chips at live tables, I believe I read they are already creating “smart” chips to ensure no counterfeits are being used. Not exactly sure what “smart” means, but I got the impression they do indeed have a micro chip in some of the chips. If that is the case, then I have to agree with you that it is only a matter of time until they start creating innovative new ways to use them.
That said, I think the actual play won’t vary much any time soon. The psychology of playing cards just like you do at home with friends is very powerful. They like to keep gamers happy and comfortable so they will remain seated and keep playing…and I think there might be a fine line between hi-tech whizzbang vs too many gizmos for some traditionalists.
Interesting idea, but I think those savvy MIT students would start showing up at blackjack tables again with their pocket RFID readers. Besides that there’s also the issue that casinos burn through a lot of decks. Any time a card gets scoffed, nicked, warped, greasy (from the sweat, oil, and grime on player’s hands) it needs to be tossed and a fresh deck brought in. I don’t know how expensive RFID chips are but Wiki suggests casinos use “many thousands of decks per day”. So if we say that means 10,000 decks we’re looking at 520,000 cards per day, or 189.8 million cards per casino per year that need to be outfitted with a chip.
I’d like to see technology somehow implemented to neutralize the nasty rank smell of smoke in all the casinos though.
I seriously doubt that we’ll see individually identifiable chips showing up in cards any time soon. Although, it would be possible to have some kind of software programmable id that could be reset as soon as it’s shuffled in the shoe and a database backend that knows which card is which, the downside of someone cracking such a system would be immense.
Besides, there’s already a system in existence that can do the same thing cheaper: cameras. The casino can already see the card face of any card that’s face-up in the game, so they can calculate wins for things like blackjack through the security camera. The only reason they’d need to chip the cards themselves is to guard against counterfeit/stolen cards. I imagine that the cameras do a really good job of catching that, too.
One thing I’ve noticed is that the slots all sound the same no matter what casino you are in. With all the effort to customize a casino to a particular theme, why are the sounds never changed?
While there is still the never ending “ding ding” of slots, there are a lot more varied sounds now. One popular machine here sounds like a European police siren, another has a jungle drum beat, Wheel of Fortune plays that theme song from the TV show, my cousin likes playing a penny slot with little pigs that Oink really loudly as you win. So yeah, there is still the clanging sound of “ding ding” always in the background, but if you are at a casino long enough, you hear lots of other sounds coming from the machines that turn heads and attract new players.
In Tunica, the cards are changed every so often regardless of whether they’ve been damaged or not. I’ll see that happen at least once in a 3-4 hour session at a table playing blackjack or three card poker.
I have heard of some casinos going to electronic “cards” even at traditional table games. Apparently each seat has a little screen that displays your hand, but there is still a “dealer” to collect bets and payout. I don’t think I’d play in a place like that. I like seeing the cards go into the shuffler and get dealt out. I also like being able to touch my cards in three card, or at a pitch blackjack game.
Do wish they’d speed up the drink service though. It’s getting to the point that I have to really work at it to get drunk while gambling. Drink girls don’t come around as often, and the drinks the brig are not particularly strong.
Which is simply a con to encourage players to think they are engaged in a game of skill, and if they just predict correctly next time, they can win a huge jackpot - whereas in fact the amount you win is predetermined just like any other slot machine.
That’s why I always drink beer in casinos, those are much harder to water down and not expect me to call bullshit and pull my chips off the tables. Still, some places will make you sit at a table for upwards of 30 minutes before the girl comes back because she “forgot” your order. Horsehockey. I do my drinking in casinos right at the bar with a $20 stuffed in the video poker that I might touch every 10 minutes or so.
I think you’ll see a lot more moving hologram technology showing up in slots. I also think you’ll find more group gambling type machines. That is, the ones where ten machines are all linked and at random points one of the players gets a big bonus game and one gets a smaller one. I agree that card games will remain largely the same because you want it to feel ‘familiar’, especially when a live person is involved.
I do, however think you’ll see some of the games evolve to have more levels of play (like Let It Ride) or even something like a more advanced version of craps. From what I have observed, gamblers like to bet more agressively when they are ahead because they are ‘playing with the casino’s money’. To me, that would lend itself to more situations where you take your existing winnings and do a series of follow up bets that are only available once the first set of payouts has successfully occured - odds of future winning are lower, but potential payouts are much larger.
I am regularly surprised given the adult nature of gambling that nudity does not factor into it more. While I realize that gambling is equally entertaining to men and women, why are the waitresses the only ones dressed in slutty outfits? I would argue having hot looking women balckjack dealers in bikinis would be a huge draw for men. Likewise, really hot guys wearing the classic Chippendale’s bowtie/no-shirt/tight pants would be a big draw for the ladies. As an added bonus, the casinos would have to worry less about the dealers hiding anything. I’m sure lots of men and women would feel less bad about losing money if it was to an attractive member of the opposite sex. Is there some law that prevents such a casino from opening? Surely I’m not the first person to think of this… I am, however, smart enough to not suggest full nudity since you neither want to turn off the prudish gamblers, nor get the gawkers who are just there to look and not actually gamble…
Personally, I rarely gamble but I do find the people watching/behavioral observation fascinating. I especially like the behavior of the guy who debates where to eat based on minor differences in price between the buffet and the coffee shop, but then spends hours at the $25/hand card table or the $10 minimum craps table.
These already exist for cards. And I’m pretty sure for chips too. Combine the two and have a laptop track correlation between bet size and deck composition and you’re count-proof. The part that scares me personally is using the same system for preferential shuffling against the player.
That’s not correct. In those cases where a slot machine offers a set of options and reveals what they were later, then that is what the player would have got had she chosen the correct option. Also slot cachines aren’t “predetemined” as such. Each spin is completetly independent and the machine doesn’t “know” whether it’s next spin will be a big jackpot or nothing until the punter presses the button.