Developed from the Ground Up

UM News
Posted 6 months ago

00:00

Portugal’s Casino Lisboa has gone live with Novomatic’s casino management system NovoVision, with its sister venue, Casino Estoril, to follow in the first quarter of 2025. Jens Einhaus, Head of Sales & Product Marketing NBS at NOVOMATIC AG, explains how the system architecture has been designed to handle high-volume transactions.

Jens, what are the biggest casino management challenges and problems operators need addressing in 2025?

I would say the challenges will be pretty much the same as in these past couple of years. Land-based operators are under the constant strain of competition with online offers, in an increasingly scrutinising regulatory environment and under the same prevailing economic pressure as other leisure and entertainment businesses. The best approach they can take is investing in their operational efficiency as well as in excellent customer service and loyalty programmes and guaranteed regulatory compliance. That means investing in a powerful CMS that will easily tackle these aspects and more.

A good CMS collects and has access to data in abundance, it will automise processes, allow staff to shift their focus towards customer satisfaction, deliver excellent reporting and analyses and provide comprehensive loyalty solutions. The NOVOVISION CMS has been designed with an additional focus on powerful player loyalty functionalities and technologically advanced security and player protection features that are in full compliance with even the strictest Responsible Gaming requirements. With our patented biometric player recognition technologies, we have developed a self-contained system that encompasses the most secure identification, access, payment, loyalty and player protection solution. All these functionalities enhance the land-based player experience, increase security and can make gaming at the venue much more personalised and even more enjoyable.

At the end of the day, for every operator it does boil down to player loyalty and player protection, namely the two questions: one, how can I create the most rewarding offer for my players and, two, how can I create a safe environment and protect them from any harmful deviation in their behaviour.

Where has NOVOVISION recently been installed? Do you have a particular market focus?

We have a specific market focus on markets with a clear regulatory framework for legal land-based gaming. That means, we are offering our solutions to the international gaming industry, be it state-run or private gaming corporations in all regulated markets. NOVOVISION is particularly well established in the EMEA region, with the most recent installations – which we are particularly proud of – in the UK with the Dusk Till Dawn Poker Club and in Portugal with major operator Estoril Sol.

Both customers are quite unique in their respective requirements and implementations: Dusk Till Dawn is a Nottingham-based Poker Club whose management approached us at ICE after learning about our dedicated NOVOVISION tournament solution. Since it is perfectly embedded in the general CMS functionalities, this module fits like a glove for Dusk Till Dawn. Additionally, it was very synergetic to be working with a customer who is so deeply rooted in the game of Poker and whose experts also brought great new ideas for further development to the table.

Estoril Sol, on the other hand, with its Portuguese casinos is a customer that required a very comprehensive approach, with almost the entire NOVOVISION suite of functionalities plus then some more new customised solutions. The preparatory work was very intense, and we are quite proud of the final speed of implementation on site – a huge thanks to our teams and the excellent collaboration with the Estoril Sol teams.

What differentiates NOVOVISION from traditional casino management systems?

Plainly speaking, the main differentiating factor and our USP is that NOVOVISION has been developed from the ground up as a proprietary casino management system for our Group’s own international gaming operations and based on our own operations’ expertise, priorities and wishes before it turned into the growing success it is now with third party customers.

Our development teams built it on the latest technologies, with a high level of scalability in mind to perfectly suit any size of operation – from small single-site venues to large casino or IR operations – and for any cash system requirement, be it TITO, Cashless or biometrically supported. This aspect was central in the development: since NOVOVISION was of course intended to cater to all our venues, regardless of their size, a modular approach was taken which now also enables an easy customisation for every operator’s individual needs and legal obligations.

The system architecture has been designed to handle high-volume transactions while ensuring maximum security, data integrity and regulatory compliance. And of course, the system capacities grow with every new customer-specific development, which makes the NOVOVISION CMS a living, growing solution that constantly progresses in new environments and regulatory conditions. We also prefer to refer to NOVOVISION as a solution rather than a system, since it is a solution that adapts to the customer rather than the other way round, where the users would have to fit into the system.

Are there any new developments you’ll be showcasing at ICE?

One of our most recent and customer-specific developments will be publicly premiered at ICE in Barcelona: the brand-new NOVOVISION Self-Registration Terminal. Visitors to the systems area of the NOVOMATIC booth will encounter the triple set-up of a highly accessible self-service station with various uses: as a loyalty kiosk, as a promotional service point and as a Self-Registration Terminal.

Especially as a Self-Registration Terminal it turns the customer registration process into an intuitive, fast and secure self-service that helps operators maximise their use of space while optimising their fully compliant registration process. The vast majority of customer registrations will be fully automised via MRTD passports and ID documents, and if specific questions occur, casino staff will be at hand to help. It is one of the few instances of our CMS that are visible for the player on the gaming floor as an active point of contact with the NOVOVISION functionalities. Most of the time, a good CMS does its job in the background – and that is making the operator’s job easier, the player journey more enjoyable and life for both more secure.