Casino ‘smart tables’ are “not really smart till you decide what you’re going do with that data” they are capable of gathering, says Maulin Gandhi (pictured), a founder and president of Tangam Systems, in comments to GGRAsia. His firm specialises in what the company defines as “prescriptive analytics” for the casino gaming industry.
The firm’s work involves “recommendation-driven analytics,” he added. It’s “where we come in as a company. We are the layer of intelligence on top of all that smart table data… to then figure out how do we actually monetise this data for the operator and do something useful and valuable with it.”
Mr Gandhi observed: “What operators are actually seeking is not more data or more charts. What they want is the answers. What action, what decision, should I take right now based on the data in order to improve my performance?”
He added: “One of our early investors in the company over 15 years ago, told me one thing which still resonates today. [Casino] operators don’t want to learn how to fish [for insights]. They just want the fish.”
The ‘fish’ casino businesses are seeking can include whether to increase table bet limits; whether demand exceeds current ‘table-open’ hours; whether to allocate more dealers; and the optimal table game mix on the floor.
“It comes down to what decision you need to make in order ultimately to make sure that your table open hours, pricing, and game mix is in alignment with demand: current, real-time [demand] and based on historical demand,” stated Mr Gandhi.
He was speaking to GGRAsia on the sidelines of the recent Global Gaming Expo (G2E) Asia casino industry trade show and conference held in Macau.
As the casino industry generates “better quality data”, that also “improves the quality of the recommendations that come out” via the analysis process, said the data scientist.
The industry-standard way of handling data until recently, has been to enter it manually, noted the Tangam Systems president. Via that route, software-based analysis is still highly beneficial.
“But as you improve the accuracy of that data, what happens is the recommendations” made via analysis “become more actionable,” he noted.
Operator reaction time
“Typically right now, we expect about a 60 percent to 70 percent ‘applied rate’.” This means “we expect 70 percent” or so of recommendations made to managers “will actually get acted on”.
But “now that we have better data coming in, it means that you’re able to capture more opportunity” for optimisation.
In that context, “duration” of time from the point of recommendation via analysis, “to action” by the operator “is really important,” said Mr Gandhi.
“We can track whether you [the operator] acted on that recommendation or not. We are collecting the data every 15 to 20 minutes… if we asked for two more games at HKD1,000 dollars, did we see new data coming in at 1,000 [denomination]? And if we didn’t, then the recommendation – even though the [floor] supervisor accepted it – did not get actioned or applied,” stated the executive.
“So then we can aggregate all those statistics” and create “accountability for operations” within the casino, he added.
Tangam Systems’ newest software product is for slot operations optimisation. A key difference between prescriptive analysis of live table games versus for slots and electronic table games was, said Mr Gandhi, that the latter categories involved not so much real-time decisions, but “decisions based on performance of products on the floor”.
“It’s making sure you’ve got the right machine, in the right location, at the right setting, on the floor. And for us, it was about not just looking at financial performance, it was combining financial performance with customer behaviour,” explained the Tangam Systems executive.
If a machine is performing two times the floor average, then an operator’s anticipated response will be to add more of that product, said Mr Gandhi.
He added: ‘The real question that we want operators to look at is, not just what the machine is performing, but who are the customers playing that machine? What other machines, games, do they play?”
The aim is to “maximise the experience of a guest when they come onto the floor,” says the Tangam Systems founder.
