The Stinger Report

The Stinger Report

Games Vs. Gaming
Amusement industry members are beginning to wake up and smell the coffee. Surprise! For all these years, consumer video game consoles may not have been their real enemy after all. The casino / slot machine industry, flush with tens of billions in annual profits worldwide, has spent the last four years busily copying many video and redemption elements - from licensed themes, to elaborate video game-type cabinets, from video game-style entertainment sequences, to video, pinball and redemption patents and design talent, from merchandise prizes, to ticket payouts. In fact, the casinos are stealing it all as fast as they can. This trend was on full display at the 2004 Global Gaming Expo, a tradeshow for casinos and slot manufacturers. "G2E" took place in Las Vegas four days after AMOA Expo.

Chip and PIN Pricks Amusement!
Just as amusement operators come to grips with tournament gaming, Europe is being forced to implement a new credit card security standard. This development, against the backdrop of the PepperCoin technology in the USA, spotlights the looming possibility of a zero cashbox position for future amusement systems - not just in Europe, but worldwide. This, in turn, could totally restructure the entire industry, putting manufacturers (or worse yet, the government itself) into the operator's earnings stream as a collection "snoopervisor", a tax code enforcer and perhaps also as a revenue-sharing partner (regardless of whether operators want such a partner, or not). Or, "going cashless" could simply mean that manufacturers are moving closer to the day when they eliminate the "middleman" – that poor, benighted creature known as the operator.

The Stinger Report (in brief) is provided to Highwaygames by Kevin Williams, the publisher of "The Stinger Report". To read the full articles and information, please visit www.thestingerreport.com.