American states see growing interest in new forms of tried and tested penny slots
Posted by Epiphany Solutions on 27 Apr 2009 at 14:04
American states see growing interest in new forms of tried and tested penny slots
While gaming fans everywhere might be tightening the purse strings thanks to the global recession, one form of a flutter is showing little sign of a popularity wane in parts of America.
The Associated Press reports penny slot machines produced about a quarter of all slot machine revenue in the state of Nevada in 2008. In places like Missouri, where gambling revenue actually went up last year, over 50 per cent of all casino revenue came from penny slots.
This form of gaming is now producing a reliable and increasing revenue during the global slowdown, according to the Associated Press article on the issue.
Bill Draper of the agency spoke to some penny slot fans and found players seem to like the format because they can get more playing time for the same amount of cash. Of course, casinos are fans of them because they are also capable of providing them a healthy profit.
A 72-year-old Kansas City resident, Cora Logan, told Draper that penny slot machines are "all just for recreation" while she enjoyed a machine at Isle of Capri, Kansas City.
Kansas City itself is home to four casinos, and tends to be mainly popular with local customers, as opposed to places like Las Vegas, Macau, China, and Atlantic city in New Jersey to a certain extent, where many gamers have travelled in from out of town in search of fortune. This means many casinos could rely on low stakes players who are regular customers.
Draper's article goes on to include the views of Frank Legato, who is an expert on slot machines and editor of Global Gaming Business magazine, which is based in Vegas. Quoted in the piece, he said: "Affordability is why people love them, casinos just love them because the average bets are the same as the quarter or dollar games, but their house edge is bigger on these games.
"People playing penny machines are not concerned about that. They just want to have fun and you simply play a long time with little money."
A penny slot machine can involve the colourful and ornate one-armed bandits styles, but can also include screens and graphics, and even elaborate story lines. To play, you can place bets in amounts of one or two cents electronically and you can pay anything from a penny all the way up to $10 (£6.70) or more for every spin you make.
Penny slot machines will take either cash or cards, and to get your winnings you have to take the paper ticket to the cash desk, or alternatively you can use this to place more bets.
Trends have come a long way from some of the traditional three-wheel styles, and you can even get ones which follow a recognised plot, perhaps from something like Star Wars. All of this has potentially opened up a penny slot game to a new audience and has tapped into the more social casino visitor.
Quoted by the Associated Press article, Stephanie Wright, a 41-year-old Kansas City resident said: "I'm just here to have fun, my boyfriend plays cards and I like to sit and play these while he does that." She tells Draper she used to play quarters on visits to Kansas City casinos but is now into penny slots.
"If you want to bet the max, you can, but I go low, sometimes I get excited and go big once in a while, but usually I don't bet that much."
In Missouri, there are 12 casinos with nearly 11,000 penny slots, which accounts for more than half of machines, according to Draper's article. He says that across the state penny slots accounted for $81.1 million (£55.7 million) in February, which is over half of the $146.6 million (£100.7 million) casinos won that month alone.
There are also other areas where gambling revenue was up last year, including Indiana, South Dakota, Pennsylvania and Iowa, even though across America gaming revenue was down overall.
Casino executives also think penny slots are on the rise because customers are showing an increasing demand for them. Bosses also think this won't stop, as new development and technology makes a no-coin version of gaming more attractive.
Quoted by the Associated Press piece, Darrell Pilant, vice president and assistant general manager at Harrah's in North Kansas City, said: "I can't say that in three years or five years every machine on the floor will be video, but certainly at some point there will be fewer and fewer traditional slot machines."
He also said three-reel slots will continue to be a big draw for more dedicated gamblers who play for big winnings, but they are becoming a rarer sight in casinos.
Although the familiar sound of the huge pile of nickels land-sliding into a shelf means a traditional victory for the casino player, it could also be a pain before digital paying technology started to arrive at the turn of the century. Sometimes machines would run out of coins halfway through cashing out the jackpot, meaning somebody had to refill it halfway through. A winner would also end up with a massive pocket full of grimy metal, which then had to be changed.
Other experts say that the new technology means coin denomination is no longer as important. The Associated Press piece also features comments from Bill Eadington, director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada-Reno, saying that the term 'penny slot' is odd as many spins do not actually cost a penny but much more, perhaps 30 cents to 50 cents depending on where it is.
Player behaviour is also a factor, and executives have compared someone losing $30 or $40 (£20.60 to £27.50) in the slot machine in an evening to somebody who might spend a similar amount going out for a meal or go into a bar. Penny slots tend to appeal to this theme of player, somebody who is keen to play for a period at a comfortably low a level, and to keep coming back to do so.
Pilant is quoted as saying "frequency" is the key, as somewhere like Las Vegas will see an individual outside visitor appear infrequently, whereas a residents of somewhere like Kansas City may travel to Nevada a few times a year but might go to the local casinos dozens of times. Of course, the players' decisions will be different in Kansas than in Vegas; says Pilant in the article - "At the end of the day you've got to make sure the customer who lives in your market is loyal to you."
And so for the time being at least, pennies hold the power in parts of the American casino market.
