Maximising the number of hands or ‘decisions’ per hour for all types of table games – in line with whatever local regulations apply – is the goal of all casino operators. In that regard, Bally Technologies Inc’s SHFL entertainment Inc subsidiary is already a leading market player.
“Tables are about speed of game, so every time you can make a product that is: one, more secure and safe; and two, makes the players feel more comfortable; and three, makes the dealers’ job easier – that’s going to be welcomed,” stated Ken Jolly, vice president and managing director of Asia for the Bally-SHFL entities.
“At G2E Las Vegas, we will be launching a new eight-deck shuffler called Safe-Bacc, which delivers cards directly to the shoe, so there’s no human intervention between the shuffler and the shoe,” he explained.
“This product has card recognition, so that the card is recognised on the screen, so you can hook it up to your i-Score [SHFL baccarat score display – pictured] and the players can see what cards have been drawn. It also has on the [card] deck a small screen that allows the supervisor to check all wins as well.”
Mr Jolly added: “We’ve had it in test mode in a live casino environment, and the dealers are commenting on how much more secure they feel with this device because it has this upper tracking.”
He explained: “Casinos everywhere have issues with the quality of table dealers, and in Macau the number of dealers they can get, and they have issues with the payouts being correct. So if we can continue to innovate product – or to produce features that can be put onto product like proprietary table games with a live dealer, and/or multi-station terminal type products – that can only help.”
The executive said that is what the industry is looking for. “They want better security of the games; they want to keep the dealers happy. It seems a lot of dealers feel they are under stress. So if you put functionality in the table it helps the dealer as well,” Mr Jolly added.
