By Damian Martinez, journalist at G&M News.
In January 2023, you were appointed as the new Executive Director of the International Gaming Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. What assessment do you make of the first year in the role and what are your objectives for 2024 in the position?
I have had such a good time over the last 16 months, in the sense that is absolutely fascinating to see just how much the International Gaming Institute (IGI) does. Prior to taking this role, I was the Director of Research at IGI, so I was very familiar with what the research arm of institute was doing, and I was certainly aware of everything else that institute was carrying out, but the depth and dedication of the staff to these various projects is amazing. What was interesting and was definitely a leadership challenge for me through the first year was that we had tons of people doing a lot of different things and we all kind of sort of spread out without necessarily communicating with one another. One of the things that I’ve worked on through 2023 and now into the beginning of 2024 has been bringing it all together and finding the different areas where these diverse projects overlap so that we could make sure that people work together. Everything that we do at the International Gaming Institute is related to whatever subject might be underneath the umbrella of gambling and risk-taking. This includes things like the Nevada Problem Gambling Project, a big research project we do with the state of Nevada. We’ve had it since 2006 and it involves topics like financial announcements operations, socioeconomic impacts studies and all sorts of different areas that relate to the gambling fields. We also have a big interest in innovation and education. So those three areas: research, innovation and education are really these three pillars within which our work falls.
With almost 20 years in research positions in the UNLV and the University of California, Los Angeles, what have been the most interesting findings that you made regarding the gaming industry?
One of the things that’s always been quite interesting to me is the disconnect between the research world and the gaming industry itself. We hold a conference every three years (the last one was in 2023 and the next one will be in 2026). This is the International Conference on Gambling and Risk Taking. One of its major goals is to bridge that gap between the research space and the industry, governments, clinical workers and public health to make sure that the research that’s being done is not just being carried out for the sake of getting more publications and generating more articles, but to make sure that it’s actually being used. On the other hand, one of the most interesting findings in my work has been how quickly innovation moves in the sector and how often the groups that either support or frame the industry don’t keep up. This includes our research field. We’re not always keeping up. We try very hard, but we don’t innovate quite as quickly. Governments and regulatory agencies don’t usually innovate as quickly as the games they’re regulating and so that’s also been something that’s really stood out to me. Some of this is just testing times, others turnaround times for different regulatory agencies, but it’s something that is certainly of concern when the concept of stifling innovation is always present.
How could the interaction between consumers and companies be improved regarding responsible gaming?
The way that we interact with consumers in businesses has evolved substantially, just in the last few years. When it comes to policy on this front, usually, we’re very behind, and as a result, we’re starting to see this kind of disconnect between what can be done and what should be done. There’s a lot of stuff we don’t know yet about how to properly interact and communicate regarding responsible gambling tools and practices. However, we’re not even necessarily seeing that kind of experimentation so there’s a tie into the potential innovation that we could be doing in this space that’s not moving as quickly as it could. Sometimes, that’s due to policy, other times that’s just due to disinterest or maybe it’s not of the highest business interest to certain groups, but it is an area that certainly can evolve and needs to evolve. This is an area where action is necessary, so I’m excited to see where some of that same innovation, that’s happening in things like game development, might take place in responsible gaming development.
What are the latest trends and main changes that you’ve seen in casino floors in North America?
The biggest change that I’ve seen is a shift from near complete reliance on slot machines to a bigger gaming mix on casino floors. Casino games have long been incredibly popular. When I first started working in this space, the estimate was that slot revenues were about 60 to 80% of the casino floor revenues and in some countries higher than that. There has been this shift in how people consume media. The slot machines are still very much incredibly popular, but they don’t necessarily reign supreme in the same way that they did many years ago. Some companies, not just casino organizations, but also game development companies, have started to innovate what these slot games look like. You’ll start to see innovations that come out in terms of what a progressive slot might look like or what some of the bonus rounds might look like. We are no longer seeing the same exact pattern of taking the same game and just putting a new skin on it every single year. Some of that is still around because a few of those games are still very popular, but we’re starting to witness more integration of the theme itself into the slot. We’ve seen a bit of a resurgence of table games that, for a while, we were starting to consider that they were going to be drop off completely. At the same time, we have checked that there are a lot more games where social interaction is incredibly important, so you’re not always getting that necessarily with slot floors. That’s also something that’s contributing nicely to some of the innovation in what we see.
You are a founding director of the Nevada Esports Alliance. What do you think is the potential for the combination of gambling and the electronic sports segment?
Different casino floors intended to integrate Esports in various ways. Some of them have tried to bring in, for example, straight up video games to their casino floors and that hasn’t necessarily been quite the same effect. The video game experience can be quite different from a gambling experience, so it hasn’t necessarily integrated perfectly. We’ve seen different elements from games being brought to gambling and vice versa. One of the bigger combinations of gambling and the Esports sector is this concept of just betting on electronic sports. What’s been really interesting in that area is understanding how a lot of the traditional ways of acquiring and retaining customers by doing loyalty programs don’t work as well with people who are either major gamers or major Esports fans. The two are not mutually exclusive, but they’re not an exact overlap either. Companies that have been particularly successful in this space are the ones that are recognizing games communities and gamer groups and building products around what’s attractive to those communities. It’s been interesting to see how this potential is coming together. I think there’s a lot of opportunities for this. Right now, the major growth spaces are going to be where organizations really think very clearly about who their target audience is and catering to that target audience in terms of product development.