IGT brings server-based gaming solution to California resort

Last month, IGT announced its first sbX Tier One installation at Ameristar Casino in St. Charles. Now, in partnership with Barona, IGT continues to validate the order and installation process, and also gain valuable customer feedback on the industry's first Game-to-System (G2S) game management solution.

"We look to this evolution of the server-based gaming solution as another step in our continued testing partnership with IGT," said Chuck Hickey, vice president of slot operations at Barona.

"We hope that the operational and regulatory input we have shared with IGT is as valuable to them as the chance to be on the forefront of this long-awaited next phase of the gaming floor of the future has been to us," Hickey added.

As part of the Tier One Package, sbX Floor Manager is live on 49 machines at Barona, including 29 AVP TrimLine machines, 10 G MLD machines and 10 S MLD machines, featuring IGT's patented Multi-Layer Display technology on REELdepth games. MLD technology allows the player to switch from 3 to 4 to 5-reel games, to video slots to poker, all on the same machine. REELdepth brings an exclusive 3-D visual experience to slots. Barona has more than 100 game themes to choose from in the IGT Game Library, which is included in the Tier One Package.

"Everyone involved with these installations is excited to be at the leading edge with this technology," said Javier Saenz, vice president of network systems product management and marketing. "And with the recent submittal of our integrated property-wide solution to the Nevada Gaming Control Board, we are demonstrating our leadership and progress in bringing server-based gaming to market. No other manufacturer has reached this level of success with server-based initiatives."

The sbX Tier One Package combines sbX Floor Manager with the power and flexibility of IGT's new AVP machine models and access to the industry's largest G2S game library. This powerful combination revolutionizes the game theme conversion process by allowing operators to change and configure games in real time with no machine downtime - driving customer loyalty and decreasing associated operational costs.