Younger casino patrons are more accepting of the technological advances
The older the generation is, the harder it is to welcome new technologies, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be done. Rebecca Liggero Fontana of Calvinayre.com spoke to Robert Rippee, Director of the Hospitality Lab at the International Gaming Institute of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, recently, discussing how the future of gambling in the modern world is transitioning to the new generation. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning seem to be presenting themselves as the next big thing when it comes to gambling, and younger generations are more willing to accept the changes, while some of the older casino patrons are hesitant.
The first thing that needs to be considered is the likes and needs of a new generation, and this means taking risks of doing things differently. Explains Rippee in the interview, “[In] machine learning, artificial intelligence, I think if I were to predict a world for now, so in 20 years from now, you have to assume that things like integrated circuits are everywhere, right? They’re on the wall, they’re on the floor, they’re in your microphone. And the amount of data that’s flowing through is so massive that it takes machine learning to process. What that means is that there are new opportunities for smart machines. So some of the burdens that we take in our own brains are offloaded to machines and we spend more time on creative things like virtual reality being in different worlds, or augmented reality, of changing the world we currently live in.”
Rippee mentioned GameCo as a company that is already making the shift to the future, changing old machine games for machines that are affected by the outcome of the game and learn. “I think that’s a great learning tool, it’s a great step to understand is that the type of gameplay that casino operators are going to find effective and economically feasible for them in the future,” said Rippee.
Creating the AI solutions is not that easy, as there are many factors that need to be considered. Rippee points out that a great amount of insight is needed without the introduction of assumptions. Interacting with and researching the different age groups is the basis of the new developments, as is asking questions. To find this out, Rippee says that it’s important to “see through the lens of their eye” and ask, “Why is our music festival so powerful with young people? What is the attraction of it? What do they get out of it in terms of hedonic benefits, or economic benefits that appeal to them that keep them coming back over and over again. Or the paradigm of esports; why is this such a big phenomenon?”