Page 16 - January 2006 • Southern California Gaming Guide

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
2006 Happy New Year!
Aby Bill Burton
nother new year is upon us. It seems like only a few months ago we were ringing in 2005 and now we are ushering it out
making way for 2006. e decade that started with fears that the Y2K bug would a ect all computers is now half gone and instead of a technology meltdown we have seen more rapid technical advances in all aspects of our lives. Each year at this time I like to take a few moments to re ect on the past year and look ahead to the future. Since this year marks the halfway point of the decade, I started looking back at the last few years.
Every one of us has been touched by the rapid changes in this high tech world. Some of the changes we embraced immediately and wondered how we ever got along without them, while others make us long for the way it used to be. Wouldn’t you love to talk with a live person right away when you call customer support instead of having to punch 20 different options in the electronic menu?
A Look at the Past and the Future in Casinos
Cell phones that were once an expensive luxury item are now considered a vital necessity for many people. E-mail has taken over as one of the most popular forms of communication. DVDs have replaced video tapes, and digital cameras are making lm obsolete. And new technology has also enabled casinos to make changes to keep pace with our rapidly changing world.
Casino Technology Changes
e most widely accepted change to the casino industry has been the ticket-in ticket-out system that replaced the need for coins in slot machines. e change came
about faster than the replacement of vinyl records with tapes (and now CDs).
e casinos and players both immediately embraced the switch to coinless machines, and that change has made it possible for slot makers to o er new games that would not have been possible or practical if players had to use real coins in the machines. is led to one of the biggest changes in the denomination of slot machines on the casino oors. e big slot machine news in 2005— that will continue into 2006 and beyond—is the advent and popularity of penny slot machines.
A few years ago the idea of penny slots dominating casino oors would have been dismissed as a joke or pure ction, but sometimes truth is stranger than ction. New technology has allowed slot makers to add additional lines to slot games, along with adding the number of coins that could be played on each line. Many new games o er the option to play so many coins that it can be cost prohibitive for the average person to play maximum coins each spin of the wheel. e only way to accommodate all players was to lower the denomination of the machine.
New coinless slot machines also made it possible to play different denominations from the same
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January 2006