"ICE 2018 was DRGT's best show ever"

How could you summarize DRGT's participation in ICE 2018?

DR Gaming Technology has been in existence since 2007, and notwithstanding our global expansion over the last decade, we maintain that ICE Totally Gaming: London, has evolved into the world’s premier gaming exhibition. As a result, we spend a significant amount of time working towards ICE as a deadline for many of our new developments and projects as it provides us the best possible opportunity to showcase new products and developments to the widest possible range of customers – at ICE 2018 we were proud to entertain customers from all 7 continents.

ICE also provides us the opportunity to engage directly with customers (both new and existing) and spend time building on new and our current relationships. In fact we have just celebrated a decade of operations in Switzerland, where we currently manage the casino and jackpot systems of 8 casinos, and are currently busy executing the installation of a further 2 within the next couple of months.

If your customers don’t like you, even if you have a great product, it does make growth extremely challenging. A healthy partnership ensures a commitment from both parties, and as long as both ‘partners’ contribute in the manner agreed, there are huge synergies to be leveraged for both operator and service provider.

What specific offering caught the operators' eye from DRGT's stand?

Our easy to use drPlayer Registration, which significantly reduces staffing requirements, and player registration time for draws and raffles, our drScreen Ultra (the widest player tracking interface in gaming today), along with our player friendly drScreen ‘on screen’ interface and our world leading slots and tables jackpot technology drew the most interest from a widely spread global range of operators.

Could you provide some insight on how you perceived the event, against previous years? 

As I noted earlier, ICE has just gotten bigger and bigger year-on-year, as has our involvment in the event, for good reason. I know it sounds cliche'd, but 2018 was truly our best show ever. I firmly believe that we put forward a product range and image that continues to lead the pack in terms of casino management and jackpot systems. Our flexibility, reliability, and inherent commitment to putting the player first continues to drive our existing product range, and all ongoing developments.

What technology has afforded us to be able to do is to continuously improve that experience. Touch screen technology, enhanced screen resolutions, quicker processors, NFC, and the like are all key in this process, however, the backbone of our business and our product offering has always been our team of really passionate and cutting-edge developers that continue to ensure that we are first to market with the very latest, most innovative and most user-friendly system reports, floor management tools, jackpot models and player interfaces in the market.

What trends and innovations stood out, in your opinion?

Player or rather customer data collection has always played a key role in not only casino management, but general retail or B2C management too. What has defined the success of really good casino and retail operators is what they do with that data.

As the general entertainment sector gets bigger and bigger, or rather wider and wider, operators all need to fight for their share of a players/customers time. They need to do this by understanding the player/customer better, and showing them that they do, by tailoring offers, events and products that they like, when they like. If they are not able to place the best offer possible in front of a player at a time that he/she can actually make use of that offer, it is of no value to them, and becomes a frustration to the player.

As a result, systems will become more and more integrated and have to become more automated and intuitive. As referred to above, the entertainment sector is getting wider by the day. One only has to look at how Netflix has disrupted the movie and more so the television sector, or Uber the taxi market, to understand that players/consumers are becoming more demanding of tailored offers and solutions ‘just for me, when I want it’. As systems service providers, we have to continue to provide operators with solutions that keep them at the forefront of meeting their players demands. As I have said before we need to put the player first, not players or operators, players - individuals, with individual wants and individual needs.

The future, as a result will be driven by the way operators migrate (or are forced to migrate by their players) to new technology, that offers the individual player what he wants when he wants it.

Could you comment on future events DRGT will be taking part of?

The key three global events for DRGT remain ICE, G2E Asia and G2E Las Vegas. That said, as we expand globally our presence at many other shows ensure that we afford ourselves every opportunity to showcase our product and engage with operators 'in their backyard'.
With offices now in South Africa (for Africa), Peru (for Latin America and the Caribbean), Belgium (for Europe, the UK and Ireland), as well as Mexico, our local offices will focus on attending and exhibiting at more localised events too.