{"id":7387,"date":"2014-05-12T15:17:40","date_gmt":"2014-05-12T15:17:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/2014\/05\/12\/gaming-innovation-course-helps-students-create-new-ways-to-throw-the-bones\/"},"modified":"2014-05-12T15:17:40","modified_gmt":"2014-05-12T15:17:40","slug":"gaming-innovation-course-helps-students-create-new-ways-to-throw-the-bones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/2014\/05\/12\/gaming-innovation-course-helps-students-create-new-ways-to-throw-the-bones\/","title":{"rendered":"Gaming innovation course helps students create new ways to throw the bones"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"\"
\n\tUNLV Gaming Innovation students, from left, Hien Nguyen, He Lin, and Aron Kock pose for a portrait in the Konami Gaming Lab in the Stan Fulton Building on the UNLV campus in Las Vegas on Friday, May 9, 2014. (Jason Bean\/Las Vegas Review-Journal)<\/span><\/p>\n

\tBy KRISTY TOTTEN
\n\tLAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
\n\tGaming designers aren\u2019t born, they\u2019re made.<\/p>\n

\tNo one grows up dreaming of inventing the next hot casino game, says UNLV professor Mark Yoseloff, and in that way, all adults are new to the business.<\/p>\n

\tYoseloff, former CEO of SHFL Entertainment Inc., is the mind behind UNLV\u2019s Gaming Innovation course, geared toward helping students develop and patent casino games with the goal of selling them to major companies.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cMost major companies are now closed to new inventors,\u201d Yoseloff said last week. \u201cIf someone has a good idea, they have nowhere to take it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tYoseloff wants to change that.<\/p>\n

\tThe class was first offered in spring and students produced 12 patents.<\/p>\n

\tThe most successful, Dragon Domino video wagering game, is in negotiations to be sold, although Yoseloff wouldn\u2019t say to whom because the deal has not yet closed.<\/p>\n

\tRecently the course became the Gaming Innovation Center, with help from a $500,000 grant from the Governor\u2019s Office of Economic Development\u2019s Knowledge Fund, which gives grants to the state\u2019s universities to promote research and commercialization in areas targeted for economic growth.<\/p>\n

\tInitially it was funded by $250,000 from the Yoseloff Family Charitable Foundation.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cI want to produce a small army of creators,\u201d Yoseloff said.<\/p>\n

\tThe course covers math, intellectual property and business law, patents and the psychology and sociology behind gaming, an ancient form of entertainment.<\/p>\n

\tThe first forms of gambling used animal bones as dice.<\/p>\n

\tStudents will start the course by making a brief one- or two-sentence pitch.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cAny good idea is simple,\u201d Yoseloff said.<\/p>\n

\tIn Yoseloff\u2019s initial class, 17 students presented and polished their ideas. Twelve provisional patents were filed. To put that into perspective, outside of the class, 18 patents were filed university wide. The top six ideas were presented to a panel of professionals who chose the winner.<\/p>\n

\tHien Nguyen partnered with Yoseloff to create the Chinese Domino Video Wagering Game, which won $3,500 for first prize.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cI hadn\u2019t imagined I would win a prize,\u201d said Nguyen, who is now in talks to sell the game she co-created with Yoseloff. Hien, 20, isn\u2019t even old enough to gamble in a casino.<\/p>\n

\tOther standouts included 888 Baccarat, by hotel college student He Lin, which incorporates elements of Chinese culture into baccarat, and Flip Card Blackjack by student Aron Kock.<\/p>\n

\tYoseloff used his connections to arrange meetings with major companies for his top students. Though the meetings were agreed to out of courtesy, gaming executives often found themselves interested.<\/p>\n

\tUNLV President Don Snyder, a former gaming executive, lauded the program for reinforcing Las Vegas\u2019 position as the intellectual capital of global gaming.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cI\u2019m not teaching people to be creative,\u201d Yoseloff said.<\/p>\n

\tInstead, he\u2019s teaching creative people to strengthen and sell their ideas.<\/p>\n

\n

Replies:<\/h3>\n

No replies were posted for this topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UNLV Gaming Innovation students, from left, Hien Nguyen, He Lin, and Aron Kock pose for a portrait in the Konami Gaming Lab in the Stan Fulton Building on the UNLV campus in Las Vegas on Friday, May 9, 2014. (Jason…<\/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-7387","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\/7387","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=7387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}