Those attending the recent East Coast Gaming Congress in Atlantic City were told how casinos of the future may hope to appeal to a younger clientele by making their premises less smoky and more active places with identities that routinely change.

According to a report from The Press Of Atlantic City newspaper, Blaine Graboyes, CEO for games developer GameCo, stated that younger players are far more likely to want smoke-free casinos. “Seventy to 80% of the people [told a company survey] that they’d prefer to be non-smoking,” Graboyes stated during The Casino Floor Of Tomorrow session held at Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City.

For his part, Matthew Brown from Iverson Gaming Systems told the assembly that the future may see more virtual reality games showing up in casinos. “I feel the line is going to blur between the player and the game,” said Brown. “People are going to want to go to casinos because they can’t get that experience anywhere else.”

Supporting this opinion, Omar Satter from Sightline Payments described how a casino in Nevada is already regularly hosting electronic gaming tournaments. “Friday to Monday, it becomes essentially an e-gaming facility,” said Satter. “Then it goes back to regular on Monday.”

Adding some perspective, Frank Pracukowski from Foxwood Interactive reminded attendees that some of what has already happened in local casinos may have sounded radical in the past. “Fifteen years ago, if you had talked about skill-based gaming, you would’ve been laughed out of the room,” said Pracukowski.