We posed your question to VegasMate developer Hunter Hillegas, who knows a thing or two about applications. I think your Keno question is apt," he writes. "It’s easy to imagine a small touchscreen device (think iPad size) built into a table in the 24-hour cafe with a combination of free games and real-money games, perhaps somehow tied into your slot account (so you don’t have to feed in bills or whatever). This is speculation but it seem inevitable to me."
He adds, "All of the [handheld] devices I’ve seen so far are pretty rudimentary (very first-gen-y) but I have to think that with our addiction to devices and people’s desire to gamble, that we’ll see this stuff in restaurants and other places where people are killing time, sure."
"The growth of mobile gaming à la Cantor [Gaming] is the first step there," adds David G. Schwartz, director of UNLV’s Center for Gaming Research, referring to Vegas’ fastest-growing provider of mobile-gaming devices, available everywhere from M Resort to the Venetian.
Global Gaming Business Editor Frank Legato explains that "any Las Vegas casino with Cantor sports books offers handheld mobile devices allowing [players] to wager anywhere in the casino. I believe some of them have slot games as well [They do.—Ed.] and at some point, Nevada will add mobile capabilities to the online gaming law," which currently only permits Internet poker and race and sports betting within state lines. With New Jersey and Delaware already offering "full-suite" casino gambling on-the-go, how much farther behind can Nevada be?
