“The ICE show is an essential component for our market presence in EMEA”
(Exclusive interview).- Konrad Hechtbauer, Director Project & Application Development at Dallmeier, talked with Focus Gaming News before this year’s ICE London.
In order to kick off a new year in the best way possible, companies expect a successful performance at ICE London, which takes place next week at ExCel London. Konrad Hechtbauer, Director Project & Application Development at Dallmeier, talked with Focus Gaming News about the company’s plans for this year’s event and how its products improve the industry’s quality.
Dallmeier already shared a preview of its exhibition stand at ICE London 2019 by introducing its Smart Casino Solutions. What are your expectations for this year’s event?
The ICE show is an essential component for our market presence in EMEA. This year we are particularly interested in making our innovative technology for gaming operations known and show the visitors how casino operators can significantly improve gaming management with a combination of video technology and artificial intelligence. It is very exciting for us to be a leading innovator in this field and to expand our well established brand in classic casino surveillance into this new and exciting field, with a clear vision as a Casino “whole solution“ provider.
The company will be focused on three areas during ICE London. Can you tell us a little bit more about how casinos can improve these areas with your technology?
Our “Smart Casino Solutions” focus on the three essential casino areas Gaming, Surveillance and Marketing. The new Dallmeier surveillance solution requires significantly less screens so that Casinos can cover much larger areas with the same number of operators. This leads to a much better understanding of large spatial contexts and reduced Total Cost of Ownership. AI supported analytics semi-automate many surveillance functions such as tracking objects and also help reduce the number of false alarms.
This year we are particularly interested in making our innovative technology for gaming operations known.
For Casino marketing aspects, the intelligent combination of video technology-based data capture functions such as people counting or the data from Dallmeier Casino Automation Technology with other data sources allows casinos to make much more informed decisions based on the behavior and preferences of their visitors and players. Finally, for Gaming, Dallmeier’s Casino Automation Technology (CAT) provides casinos with a toolbox of AI-based techniques to automate and optimise many aspects of their gaming operations.
Within your “Smart Casino Solutions“ portfolio, there is a strong focus on Gaming optimisation. Which specific challenges of casino operations do your solutions address?
CAT is a modular system that uses intelligent technologies like Machine Learning and Artificial Neural Networks to analyse and automate gaming processes in casinos. Therefore, it enhances casino operators’ operational efficiency and enables actual table gaming automation – in real time. In fact, CAT is the first reliable, in operation gaming automation system on the casino market. The modular system gathers all sorts of data – for example the system recognises chips and cards, provides real-time information about bet position and bet value, game pace and float value to name just a few. This now allows for an accurate player rating, highly increased game pace and a much more effective protection from fraud.
We will continue being at the forefront developing solutions based on real customer issues and needs, and not ideas born in the lab, ensuring solutions that create real customer value.
What are the plans for the company in 2019?
Dallmeier already has a long established worldwide presence, with most major casinos using Dallmeier technology for surveillance. In 2019, our focus will continue to lie on developing more solutions within the Smart Casino Solutions portfolio, since this is where we see the greatest customer value. The opportunities to improve casino efficiency based on the emerging technologies mainly around AI are vast. And we will continue being at the forefront developing solutions based on real customer issues and needs, and not ideas born in the lab, ensuring solutions that create real customer value.
How do you assess the casino industry performance in 2018? What were the company’s highlights?
From a vendor’s perspective, we see a fundamental change in the industry: casino operators are more and more looking into advanced and innovative technologies that will help them improve their operations and reduce cost on a large scale. Reduce the impact of human error, and provide them with operational advantages in a more and more competitive environment. Having the first Artificial Intelligence-based gaming automation technology solution in the industry in operation was certainly a major breakthrough not only for us as a solution provide but for the industry as a whole.
