Issue #275
GIGSE 2006 Montreal Special Edition
Dear Reader,
Well here it is finally - the Global Interactive Gaming Summit & Expo 2006 report. Cool encounters, suck-ass parties, scandalous activites (me not included).
So....grab yo'self a hot cup o' java, and read on...
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A blur of suits...
Every year that I travel to the GIGSE, whether it is in Toronto or Montreal, I've been harassed at the Canadian immigration booth. It wasn't until last year that I discovered why. There is an American Brian C. Bailey who was wanted for auto theft (or something of that nature). And this is just one of the reasons I'm a stickler on why people need to spell my name first name correctly - with a Y instead of an i. Well, I guess they caught the guy because for the first time in years, I slid right on by.Or maybe the immigration officer (it was a young lady) was impressed by the way I articulately and flawlessly replied when she asked me what my business was in Montreal. I meticulously stated, "I'm a gaming consultant, and I've been invited to speak at the Global Interactive Gaming Summit and Exposition." Oh, that must have sounded much better when an officer (a guy) asked me the same question a few years ago, and I replied - "I, uh, operate websites." (You can read about that conversation here. That reply got me sent to the room full of turbans. But then, I was perhaps an auto thief - well, according to them.
I breezed my way into the country this time, grabbed a cab, and found my hotel: the Hotel XIXe Siecle which was right around the corner from the conference center. A wonderful boutique hotel (it used to be a bank years ago), the only thing wrong was that I didn't know how to pronounce its name. Was it "Hotel Ex - Eye - Ex Siecle", "Hotel 19th Siecle?" and was I supposed to say this in English or French? I always made sure I had the hotel's name written down on a piece of paper to give to a cabbie. Language in Montreal can be pretty funkified
My mission at the GIGSE:
I was hoping to meet up with anyone from the Kahnawake gaming commission. If you can recall, my dear ${token2}, there have been a number of awkward silent moments from the gaming commission concerning Golden Palace marketing exploits, and a couple of other things. Kahnawake is next to Montreal, so I was hoping for some luck. I also was included in a panel discussion that dealt with marketing concerns. And I was also slated to give my own presentation: Online Casino Management 101. And the usual hope of meeting a operators who could solve some ongoing problems. I was also scheduled to take on Michael Casselli in a Velcro drag race. Beating him would be my redemption for his underhanded victory two years ago. This trip turned out to be a success.
But before the conference was to start, I had a couple of days to catch up with myself and with some friends as well. Most of you know that one of my main functions at these conferences is to catch a flick or two during my free time - or what's left of it.
I had no idea on what to see. I have been waiting patiently for a few films to be released - one is the new Jack Black film Nacho Libre, but it hasn't come out yet. I was at the Paramount Theater on Rue Ste-Catherine - starring at the movie schedule wondering what to see. Nothing. Maybe Mission Impossible III, but I had heard it was dreadful. To me, MI2 was absolutely excruciating - why would I want to waste my money on the third piece? I had heard that United 98 was a very realistic and heavy film. I wasn't to sure if I was ready to see this yet, especially alone. I'm a big softie sometimes, and sitting alone in a theater dabbing my eyes with a hankie didn't really seem like fun to me. But it was the only film that had any potential to be interesting. I bought a ticket an hour before showtime and took a walk around the underground mall.
Note of Interest:
While walking the mall, the mall's muzak speakers were playing REM's "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" How surreal.
So, this gave me something to dwell on through the night - meeting friends and discussing how I felt about it.
Day one of the GIGSE was a blur; mostly a blur of suits. Last year it was noteworthy that many more "suits" were showing up - investors and other interested parties getting involved in the industry. The industry is no longer dominated by the casually dressed casino operator and software developer, it has definitely moved into the mainstream where wearing a suit is the uniform of the day. Me? I'm a casual kind of guy, and I hung my uniform up years ago. No suit for me - thanks!
That afternoon, I was a member of a panel discussion that covered marketing: past, present and future. Hosted by Debbee Silverman, who is by far one of the leading experts in the field, the panel included me, IGaming Business Magazine's Michael Casselli, David Hallonquist - Spotted Dog Media, Michele Oster of the Trident Group, and David Wang, WPT Enterprises. It was really quite a good panel discussion since we come from differing positions in the field. One thing that makes Casinomeister unique is that it's a perfect example on how viral marketing works. Obviously it's a popular site - or you wouldn't be reading this newsletter, would you? I get a decent amount of traffic and I spend zilch on marketing. When Goto.com was a reasonable option for a webmaster to get his site out there (before it was Overture.com), I had a budget of $25 a month. When the pay-per-click ads got too whacked out price-wise, I said the hell with it. Thus I do that no more.
I consider myself lucky, there aren't too many sites like mine that can rely solely on viral marketing - at least for now that is.
As the discussion closed, I chimed in on how there needs to be a certain level of responsibility towards public opinion when marketing one's casino. If a casino is out there doing something stupid (I used Golden Palace's Olympic intrusions as an example), it affects everyone in the business since we all get painted with the same brush. This is extremely important especially with the Bible thumpers thumping away in the States.
And it looks as if my words are being taken in consideration by the people who count. As I left the stage, I was met by the commissioners of the Kahnawake Gaming Commission. You may recall some of the frustrating experiences I've had trying to get answers from the commission. Well, here they were in the flesh - and they weren't there to jump me. They wanted to reassure me that they were willing to hear me out and open a channel of discussion. This was great. They also wanted to let me know that all references to streaking, naming babies, and the Olympic intrusions have been removed from the Golden Palace website. How about 'dem apples? That was a high-point of the day.
That evening was the GIGSE cocktail party that was a who's who of online gaming. I briefly met a number of operators and casino representatives many of whom thanked me for allowing them a spot in Casinomeister's forum where they have direct contact with players. Sometimes casino support doesn't fulfill it's intended obligations and a communication conduit is needed which can be found here:
http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/showgroups.php
And if you are a casino operator or rep and you're not listed here, c'mon - what are you waiting for? 100 operators and their representatives can't be wrong.
I ran into Andrew Beveridge from eCOGRA who filled me in on the latest eCOGRA news - of course interesting and we both hope that what's developing will materialize. Of course it's too early to discus now, but things are really looking good for this organization.
Question from Andrew: When do you think Grand Privé will be removed from the "rogue" list.
My answer: I don't know. That's a toughie.
We also talked about 888.com and the blog spamming problem. There was a rumour that eight or nine 888 affiliates were fired. But that's not the real problem. The real problem is that Casava is behind this blog spamming, not just the affiliates (they were doing most of the site scrapping I believe), and I illustrated this here. I saw John Anderson from a distance, but he disappeared by the time I got to where he was standing. There were hundreds of people in the room.
I met the operator from Black Widow casino, and we talked. And he was wearing a suit.
Day Two kicked off for me in the exhibition hall. I was due to give a presentation "Online Casino Management 101: Letters from the Trenches. It was well attended - and yes, I had a lot to say. Most of the material I used was actually from this newsletter (aren't you glad you subscribed?). Issues #263, 264, and 265. I covered "gaining player trust", "maintaining player trust", and wait to do (or what not to do) when you screw up. Using real live issues and correspondences from casinos and players, it went over rather well. Ted Loh was there, and he was wearing a suit. He's finally been assimilated.
Ted was slotted for a panel discussion about on self regulation moderated by eCOGRA's Michael Hirst, and included Card Player Magazine's Roy Cooke, and Andrew Beveridge. One thing that I found interesting is the amount of distrust poker players have towards online poker rooms. Roy Cooke mentioned that only around 5-10% of the poker players he knows from the card rooms in Vegas ever venture online. They fear other cheating players and obviously, this is a major hurdle poker rooms need to eliminate. Obviously there is a lot of room to work in this arena - player trust and following through on that trust is what it's all about. Why this industry lets us down in this realm almost on a daily basis is beyond me. Ted brought up the issue that licensing agencies are failing players because they (in most cases) are non-responsive to player issues. If a licensing agency chooses not to police their licensees, why should players be concerned whether a casino is licensed or not?
After their informative rap session, I wandered over to Playtech's both to grab a free beer (a positive note for Playtech), and while the barkeep poured the beer, a guy who was sitting at the bar looked up at me and congratulated me on a presentation well done. He then introduced himself as the marketing director for Indio Casino. I couldn't help but laugh (excuse me) - astonished I was since it was Indio Casino that I used as an example of bad casino policy in my presentation. It sort of blew me away, but he said he didn't realize that the email example (it's on their rogue page as well) came from their casino. How strange.
Nevertheless, we chatted for a few minutes, and I explained where I was coming from and how I disagreed on their policies and why. And we've renewed direct communications again. If players are having difficulties with these casinos (Indio, African Palace) please let me know and maybe I can assist.
That evening brought on the Bodog Media Mixer where a number of press, or press-like people were invited to speak with Calvin Ayre and get the scoop on what's new in the Bodog scene. It was nice seeing some old faces again, and there were quite a number of people I didn't know. In fact I sort of felt out of place since they all seemed to know one another, and a number of them were all hyped up for some reason. Perhaps the raw oysters and shrimps were having an effect, or that there were cameras all over the place.
Calvin gave everyone a briefing on some of his plans, and they sound exciting - particularly the "Battle of the Bands" he'll be sponsoring. The best band wins $1 million USD. Bodog is going mainstream and that's a good thing.
Calvin Ayre to the meister: your site is sort of like Sting's. You both kinda do the same thing.
I met Michael Casselli, and we sat down for the buffet dinner. He looked a little nervous since he was slotted to race against "the meister" in a race for a charity run the following day. I told him not to worry, I wouldn't beat him too badly - didn't want to embarrass the guy to much in front of the ladies.From this party we moved on to the Golden Palace sponsored event at some club which was a total waste of time. It was overpacked - surprised that the fire department didn't show up to shut the place down. In order to get drinks, one had to tolerate being mashed up against horde of people hoping to slide in up to the sticky wet bar. Sign language was in effect since there was no way to speak over the dude blowin' away on his harmonica to the tune of some prerecorded rap music. What the hell? And there was a constant stream of Playboy bunnies coming in through the door and heading into the cloakroom and then disappearing downstairs into some cellar. It seemed that there was a planned bikini contest, and that they were to be paraded in front of the captive audience. Whoop-dee-friggin'-doo. I might have been impressed if I was 18 and hadn't been laid for about a month. But this was plain stupid. I stood there and thought to myself "I could be answering emails," and at that point I knew it was time to leave. Which I did. I met a couple of guys from Bodog who were leaving as well. We trekked on back towards the hotel, and my evening ended watching the Conan O'brien show.
Day Three: Beside my anticipated glory over Michael Casselli in the velcro drag race, one thing I was looking forward to was the meeting between me, Ted Loh, and the operators of English Harbour. But first, there was a panel discussion The Impact of I-Gaming: What Have We Done? that I really wanted to attend. Moderated by Sue Schneider, it included Calvin Ayre from BoDog.com, Michele Oster, Trident Group, and Detlef Train from Intertops Sportwetten GmbH. Calvin brought up some interesting issues: There is a lot of money in Costa Rica from the sportsbooks and online casinos, but the non-English speakers are not feeling the benefit of this and it's actually having a negative effect by inflating the cost of real estate, etc. Casinos need to have some sort of social conscience since economic growth can have a negative impact. He also felt that casinos need to offer entertainment but something beyond casino games. He considers his competitors to be companies such as Paramount and Sony, but he still feels that online casinos are light years from the main stream. He also stated that he felt that most online casinos couldn't survive if it's legalized in the states - it's too competitive. In essence, he feels that the biggest challenge to online gaming is growth.
Detlef from Intertops said dryly that he has no fear - that he's seen it all. The online gaming environment is so dynamic that it can withstand most any blow. But everyone, he warned, needs to pay attention to what is happening in the States.
And when the questions went to the audience, some guy stood up and accused everyone at the conference of trying to fool people by wearing suits. He kept saying "You need to dress like Americans. And if you want to impress Americans, you have to dress like one." Eh? I didn't get it. Besides, we were in Canada - and there are very few Americans involved in this business. But here we go with the suits again.
From there we moved on to lunch with English Harbour. If you're living in a cave, and your computer hasn't been turned on for the past few weeks, there is a hotly debated issue in our forum concerning an incident where a script was uploaded and caused the Video Poker to malfunction in the casino's favor. Not good.
Ted Loh is experienced in programming and has taken it on his own to try to find out what happened and how it happened. I already mentioned in our forum about how I feel about the whole mess - I'm not going to regurgitate it here - except briefly: I have no reason to believe that it was not an honest mistake - a seriously bad bad mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. So far Ted has been receiving an incredible amount of flack in the fora for his participation in trying to find the root cause of this, which is totally uncalled for. We anticipate his findings, and hopefully a couple of others, within the next day or two. Opinion follows: in my opinion, they are guilty of implementing the wrong code, of not ensuring safeguards were emplaced, and of not handling this very well publicly.
Question from Ted: Do you want some of my fries?
Me: Don't mind if I do...
But a necessary thrashing was about to commence...
To be continued...
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Casselli takes a fall...
The pinnacle of day three's events was of course the charity race. And I was pumped ready to go. Never forgetting how he beat me by a point during the Sumo Wrestling match in 2004, this was payback time. We wore ski boots outfitted with a large plywood bottom which had velcro affixed to the sole. The track had a velcro strip that was completely stripped out. But nonetheless, it was like trying to run wearing snowshoes.And I beat the guy. So there.
That evening it was good to catch up with friends, Ted, Debbee, and Brian Cullingworth. We had dinner in the old part of town at Gibby's. And then it was over.
Before I knew it I was checking out of my hotel - the week was nothing but a blur - my head swimming in meetings, discussions, faces and business cards. Plus emails from you my dear ${token2} were probably awaiting my answer. Sorry if I haven't gotten to them already.
And even though I'm just catching my breath, I'm heading out this week for the states to celebrate my grandma's 100th birthday. Vortran is at the controls so stay tuned for our Bierfest announcement, and other cool things he has in store.
And finally, thank you River City Group for another outstanding event that brings us all together.
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Peace
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