Is new angle a game changer for gambling?
Vegas aims to add arcade-style games
LAS VEGAS — Bragging rights are usually the only reward at the end of a wellplayed video game. But what if high scores came with cash, too?
Nevada is on the cusp of what could be a casino revolution, drawing up plans for the introduction of arcade-style video games that would pay out winnings based on a gambler’s skill at, say, blasting aliens out of the sky, destroying enemy tanks or driving a virtual race car around a track.
The idea is aimed largely at attracting younger people who have been raised on Xbox, PlayStation and mobile game apps and don’t get much of a thrill out of sitting in front of slot machines.
“It’s certainly not your father’s one-armed bandit anymore,” said Marcus Prater, executive director of the Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers, which pushed for a Nevada law, passed unanimously this year, that directs regulators to craft rules for new kinds of skill-based games.
And what happens in Vegas is likely to influence Atlantic City, tribal casinos and other gambling spots around the country.
Video poker and blackjack, which have been around for decades across the U.S., involve at least some skill in putting together a winning hand from the cards you’re dealt. But Nevada’s 151,000 slot machines are, by law, purely games of chance, meaning everyone has the same chance of winning.
Game developers, slot machine manufacturers, lawmakers and regulators are betting new skill-based games could give a bottomline boost to Nevada’s casinos, which have seen gambling revenue slump from nearly $12.9 billion in 2007 to about $11 billion in 2014.
The drop-off is attributed mainly to the recession and a lack of interest among young people in slots, which have come to be regarded as entertainment for middle-aged women and retirees.
A Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority survey found that 63 percent of millennials born after 1980 gambled while visiting Vegas last year, compared with 87 percent of visitors 70 to 90 years old, 78 percent of baby boomers (ages 51 to 69), and 68 percent of Generation X members (ages 35 to 50).
“The next wave of people aren’t going to stand there and play slots,” said Greg Giuffria, who with his son is developing a line of what look like console video games with joysticks and controllers but allow betting.
Nevada’s gambling regulators hope to have the rules drafted and ready for the Nevada Gaming Commission to approve as early as October.