Pokies and Slot Machine Information

Would you buy a steak for $420?

Gaming venues often subsidise meals and other activities in order to entice you through their doors. In venues offering only slot machines as a form of gaming, you’ll very often find cheap meals as standard. Drinks are usually not subsidised.

But just how cheap are subsidised meals? One of the folk here, we’ll call him Mr Pokies, recently went out for a night on the town in Cairns, Australia. Unluckily for him, his wallet went too. One of the motivations for frequenting the particular venue he did was the knowledge that they served delicious meals at wallet-pleasing rates.

Mr Pokies duly forked out his $10 for a great dinner, and a little more for some drinks to round things out. At the end of the night when he arrived back at his hotel, he noticed the night out had cost $420. In between eating and socialising, Mr Pokies had played the pokies…to the tune of a loss of nearly $400.

And thats the rub. Where do meal subsidies come from? In most cases, its you, the gaming player. Those dollars you put through the pokies are coming right back your way, but usually you receive considerably less in subsidy benefits than you lose by gambling.

If you visit venues with cheap meals and other low priced attractions, you’ll almost certainly be better off if you avoid the gaming machines. You probably won’t have as much fun, but your wallet might weigh more at the end of the visit.

Look at the reason the subsidies are on offer - its to benefit the venue, not you. Don’t play their game and you might just be a winner after all.

Aristocrat keeps eye on US slot machine market

Australian slot manufacturer Aristocrat Technologies is doing well in the USA, and has plans to do even better.

Yahoo News

The Australian pokies market is saturated. The main opportunities for growth are in the areas of machine replacement and even they are limited. Many Australian venues, especially pubs and clubs, are yet to implement ticket only payout machines and this presents possibly the area of largest upgrade potential.

When your home market is dominated and saturated, you head for overseas markets:

“The 53-year-old company, which has been taking U.S. market share from industry leader International Game Technology (IGT)…Industry projections suggest North America’s 750,000 slot machine market will grow to one million by 2010″

The Aussie slots player tends to seek sophistication in gaming products. Video style slots are, according to the article, 100% of the installed base of slots in that country. Looking around casinos here in Australia, this would tend to be a slight overestimation, but not by much. In comparison, the USA market has a reported base of only 40% video slots - the remainder being the old style mechanical reel devices.

As the US market and players mature, they’ll come to expect what Aussies now take for granted - top class video slot machines. This may lead to a large scale replacement program in the US, and provide more fodder for the expansion of Aristocrat, Australias largest gaming icon.

Massachusetts votes down slots

Bucking the recent US trend toward introducing slot machines to help increase State tax revenues, the lower house in the US State of Massachusetts has voted down the introduction of slot machines:

“They soundly rejected a bill that would have allowed for 2,000 slot machines at the state’s four racetracks… Backers of the measure warned the 100-to-55 vote could sound the death knell for some of the tracks already struggling with falling business”

Boston Channel Article

While this won’t be good news for the venues with plans to introduce gaming for their patrons, the article also mentions that the State Governor would have vetoed the bill, and therefore the introduction of the slot machines, in any case.

Pennsylvania slots not without controversy

The introduction of slot machines into the US State of Pennslyvania is being performed with an extra step. Instead of gaming venues purchasing slots directly from manufacturers, the State has created “Middleware” vendors to buy the machines from manufacturers and resell to gaming venues:

“They are people here in the state who will buy the machines, mark them up five percent, and then sell them to the casinos…The Legislature added the distributors because they say it will create Pennsylvania jobs — but critics charge that it will just make a certain few people rich for very little work”

KDKA Article

Adding costs will not inconvenience gaming operators too much - ultimately the patrons will be paying the bills. It does set an odd precedent for other States in the USA intending to introduce legalised slot gambling.

Florida says no to Las Vegas-style slot machines

Indian casinos in the US state of Florida will not be able to install Las Vegas-style slot machines - at least not yet. In other states Indian casinos have thousands of video slots churning out large piles of profit.

” The state has ended discussions with the Seminole Tribe of Florida on an agreement that would have allowed Las Vegas-style slot machines at five tribal casinos in Florida.”

Miami Herald Article

Florida would stand to gain from video slot activity by way of taxation on turnover or profits - perhaps explaining why the door has been left open for future negotiations.

Indian casinos in US states are permitted to install video slot machines only when the state in which the casino is located permits the operation of those machines. The process usually involves negotiating with the host state to find an agreeable level of revenue sharing.