IT firms have solutions for casino industry
Apart from niche technology players that cater specifically to the global casino industry, conventional IT giants like IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Oracle, and Microsoft also have solutions tailored for the gaming industry.
Casino-specific tech solutions are offered by US-based companies with names like ShuffleMaster, InterAmerican Data Systems, Biometrica Systems, S-Five Consultants, Viisage, Chimera Technology, WMS Industries, International Game Technology, and Alliance Gaming Corp, among others.
'Casinos are quite advanced in terms of using technology to keep track of people's movements and behaviour, and utilising systems such as facial recognition, for example,' said Stanley Chew, managing director of Oracle Singapore. 'Data mining is another key area, where casinos are able to amalgamate and analyse the behaviour of patrons. Technologies to manage the large volumes of data that such systems will generate are necessary.'
IBM Corp said it has sold a slew of servers and specialised software with partners to casinos in Las Vegas. Its customers include Boyd Gaming, Turning Stone Casino Resort, Mohegan Sun and Harrah's Entertainment.
'The harrahs.com website is powered by an IBM RS/6000 supercomputer that can be readily expanded to meet Harrah's future business needs,' said Jeannie Ericson, project manager with IBM Global Services.
'The site also uses IBM's WebSphere software and application servers that provide a flexible structure to complement the supercomputer's power and scalability.'
HP said its solutions are deployed at the Station Casinos, the Aureole Restaurant in Las Vegas, the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp (OLGC), the Venetian Resort Hotel-Casino and in the Royal Caribbean Cruises.
'As a lottery and gaming company, the OLGC manages an incredible amount of information on a daily basis,' said Leong Say Haur, HP's general manager of its customer solutions group in Singapore. 'It is estimated that their data doubles every month. OLGC manages this challenge by implementing HP's server and storage consolidation and deploying a storage area network solution.'
2005-04-12
