Machines & gaming: a new kind of game?
Spirit Group, the managed pub arm of Punch Taverns, is one operator eager for gaming innovations that might help turn the market around, and is already testing a video AWP with some success.
Bridget Bridgett, (pictured, right) director of machines, supplies and services, is concerned about the declining AWP and pool take in the company's Scottish pubs since the smoking ban.
"It might be that food sales are up and the offer is changing, but that does not explain where the regular player has gone," she says. "There is a theory that rather than breaking away from a group to play the machines and have a cigarette, the player now has to go outside for a cigarette and has therefore reduced or even given up playing machines. We are trying to understand more about what has happened with our machine-playing customers before the smoking ban comes into effect in England and Wales next year."
Spirit has also noticed increased competition for the machine pound from fixed odds betting terminals in betting offices and £500 jackpot machines in adult gaming centres, and Bridget is looking forward to the delayed triennial review of stakes and prizes to help pubs get on more level terms - but innovation is the key for the longer term.
"The pub industry does need help and an increase in stakes and prizes is certainly important," she says. "But we also have to look to manufacturers to come up with new, innovative games that encourage people to play. We cannot allow the current customer boredom factor to continue.
"We are testing an AWP video product and have had some very exciting results in some areas, particularly where the amusement and value has been put back into the game through design around a considerably higher percentage payment.
"In the future video will allow a great deal more flexibility with games and content with new and very different game structures. Like others we see the video AWP as the single most important initiative under development.
"It's all about exciting the customer and giving them what they want."
Meanwhile, in the tenanted sector, Admiral Taverns is reviewing the way it helps its licensees maximise revenue from gaming machines.
"The most important factor is the location of the machine," says Andrew Henson, who is advising the pubco's project. "The changes in regulations governing pub AWPs should have a positive impact on
revenues. Evidence shows that increasing jackpots - even slightly - leads to more players, and higher stakes allow greater flexibility for games designers to create more entertaining and attractive games.
"But even without this change there is probably more that licensees could do to increase the use of AWPs and SWPs in their pubs.
"All too often they are placed by the most convenient socket instead the spot where they will make most money. An initial outlay on an electrician can pay dividends."
