Last September Srini Raghavan, Vice-President and Managing Director of Bally Gaming and Systems India lingered on for hours at Harrah’s, Bally’s, Venetian and other casinos in Las Vegas, the gaming capital of the world. He tested his luck at many games, of which he liked the table games most. “The environs of a casino is structured to create a feeling of timelessness. You won’t find a single clock or exit sign. The décor is designed in such a manner, that you won’t realize whether the sun is rising or setting. It is a self-contained world,” he says.

Raghavan’s first contact with casinos was through Bond movies. He did not imagine in his wildest dreams that he would land in an organization that provides technology solutions for customers running 300,000 games deployed at almost 300 locations worldwide! Though he has always been attracted to outdoor games like cricket and tennis, the impact and criticality of technology in casino and video gaming has him completely hooked now. That has more to do with Raghavan, the former Vice President & Managing Director of Manhattan Associates India getting a mandate to set up the Bally India center in Chennai.

Headquartered at Las Vegas, Bally Gaming and Systems designs, develops and integrates games for the global gaming industry, as well as provides highly specialized computer monitoring systems. These technology based solutions provide game operators with networked services for their gaming machines and for their environment. Bally’s sophisticated, stable and flexible solutions takes risk out of the technology equation, and has made Bally the global leader in the gaming industry.

Like any other industry, technology is changing the way games are operated, managed and played. The latest innovations in optics, electronics and digital technology to name a few are making their way into the latest games and the gaming environments. A decade ago, everything was manual in nature at casinos like with the usage of coins rather than bills, pulling the lever instead of pushing the button, and so on. Now video screens have replaced the manual machines. The game runs on the video and the software decides the winner. Raghavan adds, “At present slot games have become so sophisticated that as soon as you press a button the combination gets locked. The movement of reels on screen is just to create an impact.”

Besides, the company develops systems that help its customers retain and reward players, manage and forecast finances, reduce risk, spot trends and increase security. Hence business intelligence is integrated into the system to manage the entire workflow. From tracking individual player characteristics and preferences to recording their performance and rewarding them, Bally Systems’ solutions are leveraging technology like never before.