As a Taiwan-based business with a Chinese cultural heritage, and products and customers spread worldwide, casino equipment supplier Jumbo Technology Co Ltd says it is well placed to understand what motivates and excites contemporary consumers in the slots and electronic table games segments.
Tourists visiting modern integrated resorts – with plenty of non-gaming as well as gaming attractions – “will not sit on a slot machine for a long time, to wait for the free game to come up,” said Jerry Hu (pictured), regional business development manager for land-based gaming at Jumbo.
As a result, equipment makers have to focus on products capable of “gathering people in, and getting their attention,” he added.
An example of this, stated Mr Hu is the firm’s “Long Yi Fa” progressive link slot machine (also pictured), on the company’s D27 cabinet, denoting dual 27-inch screens.
Although the slot product name doesn’t have a direct translation in English, it conjures the concept of ‘Dragon Fortune’.
The return to player (RTP) of the product – the percentage of money staked that is returned as prizes to the public – remains in the hands of the casino operators and-or the local regulator, but Jumbo says it has tweaked the distribution of RTP within the product.
“What we did was take some percentage of the RTP from the free game, and put into the base game,” explained Mr Hu.
“When people go to a casino, is not just about gambling, but also about having an experience,” he stated. “Table games are very quick…. You can bet more, and you can win big. With slot machines it takes time to experience the game.”
“This is why we want to do something different on top of the base game. So when you’re playing the game, you can see some feature that makes you love the game,” the Jumbo manager said in an interview with GGRAsia.
Long Yi Fa is already available in Asian markets, including an installation done last year by Asia Pioneer Entertainment Ltd, a Macau-based distribution, sales and servicing business.
Mr Hu said that within the region, the Philippines market is “growing very fast” and “the strongest market right now”.
Jumbo also displayed at the recent Global Gaming Expo (G2E) Asia 2023 Special Edition: Singapore, the latest offers via its electronic table games terminal, the S27 – a 27-inch touchscreen product able to offer in multi-game format, baccarat, sic bo and roulette.
“All of the games have a feature called the ‘Random Pay’, stated Jumbo’s Mr Hu. “It gives an extra bonus for the player to win.”
In the case of baccarat games, “if you bet on the ‘pair’, usually it is 11-1” in terms of payout, stated the manager. “But because you have the random pay feature, it can be 12-1, it can be 14-1. It’s all random.”
For the slot and electronic table game products, the maker says it spends “lots of time” on elements including the graphics and the maths. “We want the [casino’s] customer to have an engagement with the game, not just coming for gambling,” noted Mr Hu.
