G2E roll call

Who’s going?

Galaxy (and probably most big booth exhibitors) has free expo tickets until 8/31.
https://www.galaxygaming.com/g2e

There's a 0% chance I can miss G2E. I'm really excited to meet more people in the industry and especially see the new table games (shout out Angel Espino and his new game Poker-Jack).

If anyone in this forum identifies as a "degenerate gambler", I would like to accompany you on a gambling session in Vegas if you wouldn't mind. I am really interested in understanding the experience from a sociological and psychological perspective.

It’s not my place to announce or invite people, but there’s a meetup being planned on LinkedIn for one evening during G2E. It’s a casual, pay your own tab sort of thing, but there may be limited seating. If interested, DM me and I’ll let the organizer know.

Quote: harris

… If anyone in this forum identifies as a "degenerate gambler" …
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The meetup will probably be followed by group gambling. That might or may not be what Harris is looking for, since WoV tends to attract Advantage Players, not degens. But it’s fun, nonetheless.

20% chance of me going. Only if I'm in town anyway, which I don't plan to be.

Quote: Wizard

20% chance of me going. Only if I'm in town anyway, which I don't plan to be.
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Wow. I guess you really have retired.

Well, hope you’re in town.

Best wishes if not.

I'm so excited for G2E - I have my flights and hotel now. I keep having dreams about missing flights for some reason, hope this does not happen!

Concerned that there will not be many new table games at G2E though :( Hope I'm wrong - the only ones I'm sure will be there are Mini UTH, Breakout Blackjack, and Poker-Jack.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Well, hope you’re in town.

Best wishes if not.
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Thanks. I have no plans to go this year. First year I've missed (not counting Covid years) since 99 I have missed it.

Quote: harris

Concerned that there will not be many new table games at G2E though :( Hope I'm wrong - the only ones I'm sure will be there are Mini UTH, Breakout Blackjack, and Poker-Jack.
link to original post

You won't be wrong. The only booth you'll likely see anything new is Light & Wonder. There is little incentive to innovate in table games any longer since they pretty much can't be patented.

The show, frankly, is not very fun anymore in general. I'd go just for the entertainment value if there were any. Then again, I'm old and jaded. I do wish you a good time and think you'll find it despite this crusty old timer's opinion.

I gotta agree with Mike. G2E is not as exciting as it used to be, and game patents are nearly impossible to obtain, and even harder to enforce. Personally, if I hadn’t gotten my flights back in February before the war caused jet fuel prices to wise and airfare to go nuts, I wouldn’t be going this year. Next year is questionable.

Anyway, G2E generally doesn’t have a lot of new table games on display. They WILL have some. There will be plenty of new slot machines, as well as plenty of companies showcasing all sorts of other gaming related items. (I.E. Cool new video buttons to go into slot machines, new TITO technology, playing card suppliers, uniform vendors, all sorts of stuff.)

Most notably, Angel Espino will have a booth with new games, and will be attending the dinner I mentioned in the second post above, probably with his staff. Angel’s company, Casino Gaming Development, is I think the biggest of the little game developer / distributor companies.

I’m sure all of the big game distributors will be at G2E, probably with some new games, but they generally do not attend the dinners which are more independent developer & player focused - they’re too busy entertaining their customers.

Quote: Wiz

You won't be wrong. The only booth you'll likely see anything new is Light & Wonder. There is little incentive to innovate in table games any longer since they pretty much can't be patented.

I think the fact that there is now a Table Games Inventor conference might have taken away some casino game inventors from this conference. From what I understand this conference is really expensive to have booths at.

Galaxy will probably show High Roller Hold'Em and 3 Dice Yahtzee - their CEO seems to be really dedicated to the revival of table games which is great! I imagine AGS, Masque, and TCSHuxley will have some table games to show just like last time.

Quote: Wiz

The show, frankly, is not very fun anymore in general. I'd go just for the entertainment value if there were any. Then again, I'm old and jaded. I do wish you a good time and think you'll find it despite this crusty old timer's opinion.

Too bad, I should have gone when I was 14 years old before the patent situation :( I will probably try to have less fun than last time for the sake of my health and survival ;)

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Anyway, G2E generally doesn’t have a lot of new table games on display. They WILL have some.
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Yay :) I am also interested in learning about slot machines while I am there since that's a huge part of my job.

I don't think that the patent situation will spell the end of the table games industry since there seems to be a continuous appetite for new blackjack varieties from the players....but I think the end of new table games on Wizard of Odds could really hurt the table games industry :( Blackjack players are strategy-conscious and if they're left in the dark or don't understand the game, they won't play or they'll play really badly and quit. This isn't just about blackjack games.

While Mr. Shackleford enjoys his retirement I'll do my best to find the strategies and house edges of various games and post them in this forum and on my website - which I hope will aid the situation. All games that I see at G2E will be immediately known in this forum on September 29th after I arrive :)

I'll be showing my new table game at the show, booth #4647 (I'm sharing space with Angel)

Feel free to sign up for a demo time at / or just click the link to see an image of the table. I'll also be at the dinner.

As far as the patent situation around the Bilski and Alice rulings, you can't patent the table game but you can patent the ETG and iGaming elements. For the table aspect, you have to rely on trademark and copyright and build brand awareness and preference. However, it's a highly regulated industry and expensive for independents to break in but this also creates some bit of moat. You don't expect to be copied by small guys due to the expense and the big guys who will absolutely copy you won't bother until you've actually proven your game will succeed - so you get a head start and a window to establish yourself and create something that players want and operators will pay for. If your game is distinct enough, I also think it's also a bit harder to clone than if it's just a variant or a side bet. The copy cats usually want to be able to tweak something and in some cases the tweaks can radically affect feel. The real problem isn't so much even cloning per se but rather the questionable practice of selling as site licenses for a portfolio of games and then pricing that to monopolize a floor and under pricing to gain leverage for their slots offering for instance. That changes the economics of the pit in a way that makes it much harder for indies. I wish I had better answers but it's definitely a challenging space to navigate. For our part, we can really only take it one step at a time - at the moment, we're seeking our first Nevada trial.

Anyway, hope to see you at the show - please stop by and introduce yourself.

Great, what is your game?

I don't think copycatting is as bad of an issue as people say it is. As far as I can tell, none of the big three companies are pushing a clone of some smaller inventor's game. I think the big three companies just mainly copy each other.

Oh, I guess I haven't posted enough to include links. Didn't realize the url was stripped out earlier. Anyway, you'll find a picture of the game at playparlaypoker dot com

interesting game. Vaguely reminds me of Po-Kar-Dette

Understandable but a very different game. Their field bets are just the sum of their hand which is very confusing for a player as the odds of different sums vary wildly. And then they also offer long odds on various rare outcomes like flushes.

We built prop betting around poker outcomes in a way that lets us offer tiered and escalating payouts, multiple winning positions, and a wealth of betting possibilities in a more intuitive arrangement. Definitely come by and discover the game

will definitely come check it out, I like how using 3 cards opens up betting possibilities, curious to see how it works.

I saw ten completely new games at G2E as well as over a dozen new-ish games. I’ll detail them later

Quote: Scrimshaw

I'll be showing my new table game at the show, booth #4647 (I'm sharing space with Angel)

Feel free to sign up for a demo time at / or just click the link to see an image of the table. I'll also be at the dinner.

As far as the patent situation around the Bilski and Alice rulings, you can't patent the table game but you can patent the ETG and iGaming elements. For the table aspect, you have to rely on trademark and copyright and build brand awareness and preference. However, it's a highly regulated industry and expensive for independents to break in but this also creates some bit of moat. You don't expect to be copied by small guys due to the expense and the big guys who will absolutely copy you won't bother until you've actually proven your game will succeed - so you get a head start and a window to establish yourself and create something that players want and operators will pay for. If your game is distinct enough, I also think it's also a bit harder to clone than if it's just a variant or a side bet. The copy cats usually want to be able to tweak something and in some cases the tweaks can radically affect feel. The real problem isn't so much even cloning per se but rather the questionable practice of selling as site licenses for a portfolio of games and then pricing that to monopolize a floor and under pricing to gain leverage for their slots offering for instance. That changes the economics of the pit in a way that makes it much harder for indies. I wish I had better answers but it's definitely a challenging space to navigate. For our part, we can really only take it one step at a time - at the moment, we're seeking our first Nevada trial.

Anyway, hope to see you at the show - please stop by and introduce yourself.
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That is exactly why I always told people to create an electronic version of their table games. Patent it and protect everything in the claims. The claims to the electronic version usually will apply to the table game.

The Wizard was not there this time which many companies said was sad (well, I imagine he is having a lot of fun and it's not sad for him)...but a large portion of the conference knows that I will continue what he started.

I have cosmically large shoes to fill :) And I'm not just talking about my size 14 feet, being the foremost expert on table games will be a massive responsibility that I will have to carry until I retire (or more likely, die).

If I said that I wanted to become the "new Wizard" last year, everyone in the forum would have laughed at me, but in five years and certainly in fifty, everyone will perceive it.

harris,

For your "new Wizard" title, how about "Guru of Games", abbreviated GoG? Or, if you want to emphasize tables, perhaps "The Guru of Table Games", abbreviated TGoTG?

Dog Hand

Wizard has created several online calculators for players to use for decades. The ones I use frequently are these three:

Blackjack,
Ultimate Texas Hold’em,
Pai Gow Tiles.

He also initiated the “Easy math puzzles” thread in this forum. To become a new Wizard, you need to create at least a cellular App for this community.

Quote: aceside

Wizard has created several online calculators for players to use for decades. The ones I use frequently are these three:

Blackjack,
Ultimate Texas Hold’em,
Pai Gow Tiles.

He also initiated the “Easy math puzzles” thread in this forum. To become a new Wizard, you need to create at least a cellular App for this community.
link to original post

I'm not ever creating a cell-phone app. Websites already work on phones I don't need to deal with new programming languages, new devices, paying company's app stores, or dealing with constantly-changing terms of service.

I already have my online casino which tells you how to play and deal 90+ games and helps train you on the strategy for an increasing number of games. Additionally I made a Baccarat and Blackjack side bet counting website. Finally I have a website that tells you the expected house edge for a variety of games like Three Card Poker, Crazy 4 Poker, etc., which is not a very good website but it helped me find the strategy for some games. Oh yeah and I forgot about my video poker site.

I've only been here over a year - I'm sure over the course of decades I will accomplish a lot more.

Quote: DogHand

harris,

For your "new Wizard" title, how about "Guru of Games", abbreviated GoG? Or, if you want to emphasize tables, perhaps "The Guru of Table Games", abbreviated TGoTG?

Dog Hand
link to original post

I like Game Guru, that sounds good.

I think Arithmancer would be cool but maybe hard to spell