^{Decision Time is Approaching for Pub Retailers and Venue Managers Around Digital Gaming - Make Sure you Have Thought it Through.}

 It is well documented in the annals of the Trade Press that the digital revolution is beginning to gain momentum in more & more quarters of the Gambling Industry, “at long last” many will say. And not a moment too soon, the appearance over the horizon of the Category C stake & prize review will only raise the momentum of the technology revolution even higher meaning retailers coming under increasing pressure to adopt one system or another in an attempt to get the maximum benefit from the £1 stake as early as possible. As you would expect, the traditional manufacturers and suppliers are keeping at least one step ahead of the revolution and are understandably keen to sign up as many customers as possible to their systems or platforms, for as long a term as they can. But hopefully, there is time for the retailers to ‘pause for thought’.The change from analogue technology to digital could transform the way in which retailers operate their businesses – if they want it to.

As an example, the pub operator should ask themselves the following questions;

·         Do I want a single report that tells me in real-time everything that is going on in my venue? If so, the chosen digital platform needs to integrate with the existing back office systems, which is a logical business requirement.

·         Do I want to offer the next ‘killer’ game in my venues, from whoever may have developed it? Then your chosen platform needs to be open with a development API (application protocol interface) made available to anyone you (the retailer) choose – again, a logical and very sensible business requirement.

·         Does your business require dynamic menus that could offer different game suites, and/or different stakes and prizes at different times of the day or days of the week? This is being done with digital technology and is another logical way to improve business performance.

·         How much control of the game menus and pricing in your venues do you want, versus how much your supplier has? You will need access to the functional tools to enable you to deliver what your business needs – a perfectly legitimate request.  

These are just a few of the questions that any business should be asking itself before committing to any particular vendor or technology. The answers to these questions will form the business requirements you have for digital technology and should be held up against potential vendors and platforms to ensure the alignment to your particular business.Deals that look good today may well end up costing revenue in the future if you can’t get access to the best performing games – after all, we know that content is the biggest performance differentiator of all from our analogue games.

HP&A will present the Irish Gaming Industry Update Seminar at AmEx 2009, the Irish Gaming Trade Exhibition. This will be a fact filled seminar that will update delegates on recent happenings in the Irish Gaming Industry.