{"id":6615,"date":"2013-12-04T17:00:15","date_gmt":"2013-12-04T17:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/2013\/12\/04\/igt-exec-on-the-future-of-gaming\/"},"modified":"2013-12-04T17:00:15","modified_gmt":"2013-12-04T17:00:15","slug":"igt-exec-on-the-future-of-gaming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/2013\/12\/04\/igt-exec-on-the-future-of-gaming\/","title":{"rendered":"IGT exec on the future of gaming"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nIGT exec on the future of gaming:
\n\tInterchangeable titles for social media,
\n\tonline real-money play and brick-and-mortar casinos<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\tBy Richard N. Velotta Las Vegas Inc.
\n\tQuick: Where is corporate headquarters for IGT, the world\u2019s leading slot machine manufacturer?<\/p>\n

\tIf you guessed Reno, you’d be wrong.<\/p>\n

\tDespite the fact that the company is Reno’s fourth-largest employer, IGT\u2019s corporate home is in Las Vegas. Both CEO Patti Hart and Chief Financial Officer John Vandemore live in Southern Nevada, which has become IGT’s base of operations.<\/p>\n

\tVandemore recently talked to VEGAS INC about the company.<\/p>\n

\tMost people consider IGT a Reno company. Is that wrong?<\/p>\n

\tI have to admit, I\u2019m personally saddened to hear that. I live here, and I run the financial end of things here. I guess I need to make more noise.<\/p>\n

\tActually, I understand the perspective, given the company\u2019s history in Reno. I think we now have equal parts of the footprint there as we do here. But this is the nerve center of the organization. This is where the executive team sits, day in and day out.<\/p>\n

\tWhat role does Reno play?<\/p>\n

\tReno is the heartbeat of the organization because it\u2019s where we design and manufacture games. If Las Vegas is the brain, Reno is the heart, and you can\u2019t separate the two. Otherwise, you wouldn\u2019t have a thriving organization.<\/p>\n

\tIf you fly Southwest between Reno and Las Vegas any day of the week and you don\u2019t have at least five or six IGT people on the flight, you\u2019d be lucky. They\u2019re always collaborating with their colleagues. I guess the best way to state it is that we\u2019re a Nevada company.<\/p>\n

\tThis is an incredibly global business. To give you an example, my morning began with a conversation with a company in Spain that has operations in Mexico and Argentina.<\/p>\n

\tAre there advantages to being based in Las Vegas?<\/p>\n

\tIt\u2019s a perfect place to have your corporate headquarters because it has a good talent base and you can get almost any place from here. There hasn\u2019t been a month yet when I haven\u2019t had to fly to either Reno or Seattle, San Francisco, London or Macau. It is a tremendous asset in terms of getting to customers and key markets easily.<\/p>\n

\tHow many employees does IGT have in each city?<\/p>\n

\tIt fluctuates a little bit because we\u2019re always hiring and looking for talent. But in Las Vegas, we have 934, and in Reno, it\u2019s about 2,040. Together, that\u2019s about 60 to 70 percent of our overall workforce.<\/p>\n

\tWe also have a development base in San Francisco, and our interactive and social business is in Seattle.<\/p>\n

\tHow is the slot machine manufacturing division doing?<\/p>\n

\tWe\u2019re incredibly pleased by our land-based business and product sales. It has done phenomenally well. It grew revenue at 12 percent this year, which is fantastic. It\u2019s the foundation of the company, and it bleeds into our interactive business.<\/p>\n

\tHow does IGT make money from social media?<\/p>\n

\tWe offer a free-to-play service where you can effectively play almost any game we have on a living casino floor in a virtual sense. Every day, we give people an opportunity to win chips that they can use to play slots, blackjack or roulette. They\u2019re free, and they can never be withdrawn for value, so they stay in the game. What we also do is offer the opportunity to buy more virtual chips.<\/p>\n

\tIf you went on to Double Down Casino, you could spend $99 and probably walk out with $100 million in chips that you could then use to play slot machines and table games, purely for enjoyment. There\u2019s no ultimate reward allowed. The interest of the game draws people in and encourages them to buy additional chips that ultimately drops through and generates operating income for us. It\u2019s people paying to be entertained.<\/p>\n

\tWill people be able to play online for real money like they can Internet poker?<\/p>\n

\tThere\u2019s a line of demarcation. Our social gaming actually spans the globe today, and we will keep it separate. It\u2019s an unregulated business that leverages the same content. Because it\u2019s not regulated and it\u2019s not gambling, it\u2019s something that can be played anywhere. That provides us with an opportunity above and apart from online poker.<\/p>\n

\tBut IGTI offers real-money online wagering. We have games today, predominantly in Europe but coming to New Jersey and Delaware soon, that allow you to play the same game you would on the casino floor in an online environment for money.<\/p>\n

\tNevada has opted not to include casino-style games in its online regulations, but New Jersey and Delaware have allowed that. Our expectation is that New Jersey will go live online, and when it does, we expect our games to be available in the marketplace.<\/p>\n

\tOnline gaming also familiarizes players with your land-based games, right?<\/p>\n

\tAbsolutely. What we\u2019ve seen in markets where there is land-based and online casino-style gaming allowed is that it\u2019s reinforcing play. If people like to play a game on land, they like to play it online. And if they like to play it online, they like it on land. The ability to play it both ways increases play noticeably.<\/p>\n

\tThat, I think, is really the future of gaming \u2014 the ability to generate a piece of content and use it in the social media, use it in online real-money wagering and use it in the land-based environment, as well.<\/p>\n

\tWhat\u2019s on the horizon for IGT? Any expansions planned?<\/p>\n

\tI don\u2019t know that you\u2019d see a physical expansion. But we\u2019re always looking to see that we have the right talent in place to drive the business.<\/p>\n

\tSome roles are agnostic as to whether they\u2019re in San Francisco, Las Vegas or Seattle, while others are really important to have in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

\tI wouldn\u2019t suggest that we\u2019re going to have a marked change in Las Vegas, but I would say that Las Vegas will continue to be that nerve center of the organization. We\u2019ll have to make sure people understand that better and that people know we live and breathe here.<\/p>\n

\tOriginal story from Vegas Inc. http:\/\/www.vegasinc.com\/business\/gaming\/2013\/dec\/04\/igt-exec-future-gaming-interchangeable-titles-soci\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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IGT exec on the future of gaming: Interchangeable titles for social media, online real-money play and brick-and-mortar casinos By Richard N. Velotta Las Vegas Inc. Quick: Where is corporate headquarters for IGT, the world\u2019s leading slot machine manufacturer? If you…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}