Day three of G2E 2015 went off with a bang, with crowds returning to the Sands Expo in Las Vegas for a second dose of expo hall activity, sessions, networking and other gaming industry related activity. The Wednesday of G2E traditionally features a number of celebrity appearances and promotions and this year was no different.
Today’s ultimate highlight was Mike Tyson’s appearance at the Inspired Gaming booth at which he was available for photographs and autograph signings. Iron Mike was scheduled to arrive at 1pm, but the line began from 12:30pm, with one fan even carrying along an old school Mike Tyson Nintendo Game cartridge to be signed by the star.
Steven Rogers of Inspired Gaming, the leading provider of Virtual Sports games, told CalvinAyre.com about Inspired’s 15 year brand partnership with Tyson in collaboration with Pavilion Worldwide. The Rush Boxing game came as a result of this partnership and the game was unveiled at G2E Vegas this year, hence the boxing star’s live appearance at the show.
With the recent news that Nevada has legalized betting on Virtual Sports, the timing was perfect to make a big splash with Rush Boxing at the event this year.
The Scientific Games powerhouse combination of a booth housed an incredible number of branded slot machines under Bally, WMS, Shuffle Master and Barcrest. Today’s festivities at Sci Games included a Cirque Du Soleil performance, Marge and Homer Simpson and Pitbull surrounded by Playboy Playmates, all in the name of new slot machine branding.
Tonight three gambling industry icons were inducted into the AGA Hall of Fame, Victor Salerno of William Hill US, Lynn Valbuena of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians and Navegante Group founder Larry J. Woolf.
CalvinAyre.com had the opportunity to talk with Salerno, a former dentist and the most famous bookmaker in Las Vegas with over thirty years of experience in the industry.
Salerno spoke of the strict regulatory standards necessary to operate today in Nevada and how he anticipates legalized sports betting to spread within American states in the future, especially seeing as its already happening illegally.
He also added his opinion on the DFS boom and while he agrees there is legitimacy in the industry, he thinks DFS enthusiasts are fundamentally different than traditional sportsbetting gamblers.
A series of sessions took place today along side the expo and today’s “Promotions with Emotions: Tapping into Players’ Personalities” featured Jim Signorelli of Story-Lab who took a few minutes to talk with CalvinAyre.com.
Signorelli emphasized the importance of planning out casino promotions so they have a similar theme, resulting in customers relating to the promotions in a much stronger fashion. He also encouraged casinos to create a strong brand and message and to align their promotions with that message. In his opinion casinos, especially here in Las Vegas, tend to offer similar promos across properties and there is a lot of work to be done in this area.
