We saved this question for nearly a year in order to be in a position to answer it — with a book!
That’s right. We’re about a week away from getting the shipment of our latest title, The Essentials of Casino Game Design—From the Cocktail Napkin to the Casino Floor. It’s written by Dan Lubin, inventor of EZ Pai Gow (the commission-free version of Pai Gow Poker), as well as more than a dozen other new table games and side bets. Dan also worked for DEQ as a consultant and Galaxy Gaming as table games manager. The Essentials of Casino Game Design is the first-ever comprehensive book on this fascinating subject and it discusses all the metaphoric tubes and wires that need to be connected to get a casino game complete.
So the complete answer to your question fills a 320-page book. But for now, here’s the very short version of presenting your game to the casinos.
First, we’ll assume you’re correct that enough people might like to play your game for it to interest the bosses. This is a leap of some faith, because the best new games are actually variations of the familiar game types, with what Dan calls a "humdinger," which is a significant and often spectacular improvement in the game as it affects the experience for the players.
Let’s take EZ Pai Gow as an example. Dan was a Pai Gow Poker dealer who believed that he could improve it by eliminating the commission. If he could pull it off, it would speed up the game, making it more fun for the player and more profitable for the casino; it would also make it easier to deal and eliminate the possibility of mistakes in calculating the commission. All he had to do was make up for the lost 5% commission by tweaking the rules and he’d be in business. As Dan points out in the book, new isn’t the main criterion in game development; better is.
Anyway, assuming yours is a better mousetrap, you now have to prove that it’s attractive to a casino. You do this in two ways.
First, you make sure that the game is easy to grasp and play well, it’s simple to deal and not prone to mistakes, and it’s not vulnerable to advantage players looking to get an edge playing it, which hurts the casino (your sponsor).
Second, you manage the house advantage, which means working out the rules so that the house edge isn’t too high (making it a bust for the players) or too low (making it unprofitable for the casino). It’s helpful and cost-effective if you can do some preliminary math yourself. Otherwise you’ll have to start spending money right at the outset to hire one of several mathematicians who specialize in game-development consultation. In almost all cases, you’ll have to hire the independent mathematician at some point, but the more you can do yourself, the less it will cost you in this preliminary stage. However you handle it, though, you have to be confident that the math pencils out for both the players and the casinos.
For example, if your game has a 12% house edge or a 1% player edge, it won’t fly. The sweet spot is a 0.5% to 3% casino advantage, and you have to tweak the rules until to get at least close to that range. It’s also important that you work out and define your game specs. Here, too, the more work you can do on your own, the less work the math pro will have to do and the less expensive it will be for you.
Once the math is solid, the next step is to hire an attorney to do a patent search. Are you infringing on an existing patent? (Gambling games comprise a very small patent universe.) If not, is the game patentable? (The parameters might be too broad.) If the news from the lawyer is good, you shell out more money for a provisional patent (which expires after one year).
You now need an independent math lab (such as BMM or GLI) to verify your math guy’s numbers. You can’t skip the gaming mathematician step and jump right to the lab, which only certifies the game’s math; they don’t help you tweak the game the way an independent mathematician can. This lab is familiar with the submission process to the gaming jurisdictions and it authenticates that your game’s math is right and true and will be acceptable to the authorities. Expect to pay a hefty fee for the lab report (in the range of $3,000 to $8,000).
Next you must attend to the core pieces of your "game kit": rules of play, dealing procedures, finalized layout, and How To Play card. Unless you’re an artist, you’ll have to hire a graphics professional to do the layout and a printer to make your kit presentable.
Finally, with game kit, provisional patent letter (never show the actual patent to anyone until after you’ve signed on the dotted line of a contract; the proof of a provisional patent is good enough up till that point), and math reports in hand, you start knocking on doors.
Your first challenge is to acquire a "letter of intent" from a casino table-games manager. This is a promise to try out the game once it’s approved by the gaming authorities in the casino’s jurisdiction. Getting a commitment mostly consists of cold-calling the casinos and asking the proper person about giving your game a try. You can also present your game at the annual Cutting Edge Table Games Conference in Las Vegas, attended by the casino managers who are openly interested in installing new games.
With a single letter of intent, you can submit your game to the Gaming Commission (or whatever the enforcement body in a given jurisdiction is called) for approval. Once that happens, your game is set up (by you, essentially, when you supply the layout, rules, and procedures, then teach the dealers how to deal it) on the casino floor for maybe a six-week trial run.
If it’s successful, you can go it alone by setting up your own distribution company. You take the game around to the casinos yourself and try to get "installs"—negotiating terms, signing contracts, etc. If you get even a few installs, you’ll be in a much better position to interest table-game distributors—companies that are in the business of contracting new games with the casinos.
These distributors include DEQ, Galaxy Gaming, Scientific Games (a division of ShuffleMaster) and AGS (American Gaming Systems). (Note that DEQ is in the process of being acquired by Scientific Games.) If one or more is interested in handling your game, now you really need Dan’s book to avoid all the possible pitfalls and potholes that might, and often do, show up in this part of the process.
How much will you spend in total to get to this point? Dan’s round number is $20,000.
How much can you hope to make with a successful new table game and a standard contract from a distributor? The potential is high, but you’ll have to read the book to catch a glimpse of the pot of gold at the end of the casino-table-game-development rainbow.
Editors Note: The Essentials of Game Design is a book with a specialized audience; hence, it carries a bigger price tag of $39.95. You’re at the source here, so we’re offering a true pre-pub discount of a full 50%, but only until the book comes back from the printer next week.
