'They very much view themselves as the primetime casinos, and they want to make sure the product is bulletproof.' 'Vegas has a little bit of a wait-and-see attitude,' Richards said. This year, the companies each plan to release new versions of their RFID systems that are faster and more affordable than today's models.
It takes about seven seconds for an RFID-equipped game table to read 100 chips-far too slow to capture quick table action.īut Progressive Gaming and a competitor called Shuffle Master are developing systems that take closer to two or three seconds per reading-fast enough to capture the outcome of each hand. That's just for the chips and readers, and doesn't include the extra computers and networking equipment. The cost hovers around $8,000 per table, Progressive Gaming's Richards said. Part of the problem is that the technology is expensive. Despite all the promises of RFID, few casinos have yet to put it to use.
