Pink bags and Pirates…on the same billl…must be ICE 2013

ICE-2013-think-bigICE Totally Gaming took in its second day earlier today and upon arrival you realized that Clarion wasn’t messing about when it chose to switch venues for this year’s version. Never mind that the event is taking place at an Olympic venue – there’s every possibility anyone that spends the three days networking could easily have covered enough ground to be able to say they’ve done a full marathon. Makes working off all those business lunches a lot easier!

As far as the show goes, the organizers might be best off renaming it ICE-Matic 2014 next year. Novomatic’s stand felt like it was two or three times bigger than it ever was at Earls Court and the size of the area put other land-based firms in their place. What the others lost in size, they more than made up with in…erm…flashing lights and bare flesh though.

International Game Technology (IGT), despite its internal strife, managed to commandeer what felt like the entire female cast of Pirates of Caribbean to promote a number of their different slots. Kajot were again the ones to beat though as their red-clad babes stole the show and all we ask next year is that they have red body paint as opposed to the lycra.

Branded casino content is bigger than anything else for the bevy of land-based firms at this year’s conference and some of the more innovative slots could be found at Aristocrat’s stand. Think of a mix between Zorro, The Mummy and Superman, and you’ve guessed what Aristocrat’s stand was like. Microgaming blasted this effort out of the water as they brought the actual motorized trike used by Batman in the Dark Knight Rises. The wheels even had dirt on them.

Triple chance roulette wheels caught our eye at this year’s show with Russian firm Triple Crown explaining to us the advantages to having a roulette wheel with three sets of number spinning round. The advantage: players like to be able to bet on more things and the house doesn’t have as long odds. Disadvantages: the three lots of wheels spinning round hurt your eyes and walking round with a pink goodie bag all day does nothing for your street-cred.

That’s all for now. You can check out what went on yesterday with the highlight video here and if you’re heading over to ExCeL tomorrow pop by our booth and say hi.