Tom Nieman: The gambling industry is in a constant state of flux

Tom Nieman: The gambling industry is in a constant state of flux

In this interview with CalvinAyre.com’s Becky Liggero, Tom Nieman of JCM Global discusses how the gambling industry copes with changing times.

The gambling industry is never set in its ways. It is always looking for new avenues to evolve in order to cope with changing consumer preference.

To trace how the gambling industry has evolved over the past decades, one should look at the nightclubs in most integrated casino resorts in the United States.

Tom Nieman, vice president for marketing of JCM Global, recalled that integrated resorts didn’t have nightclubs until the baby boomers came looking for it. Casino operators, according to Nieman, likewise jumped on other opportunities leading to “hot clubs” opening in many hotels.

“One of the great things about the gaming industry, it’s never set in its way… So, the industry is always looking at trending situations. Demographics: how do we appeal to this group,” Nieman told CalvinAyre.com. “Whether it is gender identification, how do we pull in more girls and women into gaming and [eSports] is more of a youth play. A millennial play. How do we bring them into our world and provide a form of entertainment?. This is what gaming is. It’s entertainment. One of the greatest forms of entertainment there is. Seems like a perfect marriage to us.”

Like the integrated resorts, Nieman said that JCM Global has seen a transition from being an LED solutions provider to being involved in the eSports sector.

He recalled that they were starting to lay out the plans for a certain show when they were suddenly faced with a dilemma on how to best showcase their LED products to the consumers. This led them on the path toward eSports, according to Nieman.

“It turned out to be a wonderful marriage. High definition, incredible color and brilliance, speed, so when we looked up we said, ‘What are we going to put for content?’ The eSports emergence is unbelievable,” the JCM Global exec said. “So, I thought that it would be the perfect content to put in a show like [G2E], get the attention and buzz going, and just demonstrate the quality of the screens that we can provide to the casino operators.”

Nieman believes that eSports will be as big as nightclubs in different integrated resorts in the future. As casino operators grab on to eSports, Nieman’s goal is to show them JCM Global’s cutting-edge LED solutions.

“We want to become the de facto provider of that bigger than life experience. What is eSports? It is a video game that allows you to get in a bigger than life experience,” Nieman said.