Hightower says. “We're looking to make a transfo

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Hightower says. “We're looking to make a transformative kind of event where people think differently of gambling.”

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May 17, 2015 Advantage-play pinball aims to change casino gambling

Aaron Hightower envisions a new frontier for casino gambling. He aims to provide a dramatically different machine game that appeals not only to casual gamblers looking for fun and a chance at a jackpot but also to advantage players who rely on skill to win consistently over the long run.

His game would be a huge step beyond slot machines that carry a fixed payout percentage and involve nothing more than luck. They also could help attract players bored by standard slots.

“Gambling should be something where you have a fair chance to win,” says Hightower, vice president of gaming technology for NanoTech Gaming in Las Vegas.

“We also believe that if you want the skill to make a difference, you should be allowed to have that privilege. … Our game is designed in such a way that a top player on a given machine can be making more than the casino on that machine, and it's not an expression of something going wrong.”

NanoTech's creation is Vegas 2047, an electronic pinball machine that lets players choose the degree of luck and the degree of skill that figure into the potential payout. The company exhibited it at the 2014 Global Gaming Expo and hopes to have it in casinos by the end of the year. David G. Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, writes in Vegas Seven magazine that the game is an example of an attempt to change how machines and players interact.

The name Vegas 2047 pays homage to San Francisco Rush 2049, a driving-and-racing arcade game released in 1999 and set 50 years in the future. Hightower and other members of his NanoTech team worked on the Atari game.

Vegas 2047 is far more sophisticated than Rush.

Some components took a decade to develop, he says. The 3-D display includes working flippers, bumpers and balls. While a typical video-pinball game refreshes input 100 times a second, he says, Vegas 2047 refreshes 3 billion times a second. Pushes on the flipper buttons are measured in nanoseconds, making the game a true measure of pinball skill, which Hightower says is essential with money at stake.

Before playing, a player selects the size of the bet, the potential win amount and how much the pinball score should factor into the outcome. A green-and-red wheel shows the chance of winning the bet: the more green showing, the better. Betting $100 to win $5 will be successful 20 times out of 21, Hightower says. With the skill factor dialed up, a higher-than-average score increases the chance of winning.

As in a slot machine, a random generator determines the outcome. A high score does not guarantee a payout, and a player can win despite a low score.

Hightower says a handful of skilled bettors with large bankrolls could gain a long-term advantage on the game, but the casino never loses its mathematical edge . He compares it to poker, where some players consistently win at the expense of less-skilled opponents. Regardless, the casino gets its cut.

“We explicitly aim to provide an environment where the advantage player doesn't get shown the door,” Hightower says. “My view is the advantage-play market is under-served.”

The company suggests a minimum bet of $100 with a 1 percent house edge, although casinos could set either figure differently.

Hightower blames the proliferation of penny slots for creating an impression that players can't win unless they hit a life-changing jackpot.

“We're stepping outside the cultural norm,” he says. “We're fighting the mindset that's trained players that: A, you're not going to win; B, you're not going to bet enough to have that chance to win; and C, just forget about winning and have fun.”

The NanoTech approach could be applied to other games, whether newly devised ones or classics such as Donkey Kong or Pac-Man, he says. The only requirements are that the game be fair, that scores reflect the degree of skill — no secret-code shortcuts — and that games last no more than three minutes.

“It's not (our) goal to have a successful game or two or take a slice of the pie,” Hightower says. “We're looking to make a transformative kind of event where people think differently of gambling.”

http://triblive.com/aande/gambling/8279731-74...z3aT2lu82s