One of the world’s top casino architects has now solidly entered the world of gaming equipment manufacturing and distribution with Thursday’s unanimous approval by the Nevada Gaming Commission of Paul Steelman’s Competition Interactive LLC license for skill-based gaming. The Nevada Gaming Control Board had unanimously voted on Feb. 8 to recommend approval of the license.

Competition Interactive is subsidiary/affiliate of Steelman Partners and is headed up by Steelman himself. The company debuted Running Rich Racing at G2E 2016 in Las Vegas. The company’s website describes their offering thus: “Our casino games are social, multiplayer, competitive, and skill-based… [players] compete against one another as well as the “house”.

The game allows up to eight players to compete in an interactive race environment that is more fantasy than reality and offers several different courses. Drivers compete for cash and spectators and can bet on their favorite driver for the win.

Nevada lawmakers and regulators approved skill-based gaming in an unprecedented move in 2015, sensing a sea change in the gambling industry as numbers were showing that while the younger generation visited Las Vegas more than any before them, they didn’t bother gambling much while there. The so-called millennials don’t seem very interested in pulling a slot handle or watching tumbling dice, spinning roulette wheels, or counting to one in order to reduce the house edge at blackjack.

Mr. Steelman said: “I founded Competition Interactive to create and build new forms of casino entertainment to surprise the youth in all of us with new experiences. Competition Interactive has built a whole new world of casino competitive interactive games.”

According to a report in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the state Gaming Control Board suggested that the company stay ahead of the curve by developing regulatory compliance procedures to avoid any potential problems. Steelman’s larger company works with partners in jurisdictions such as Russia and Vietnam where problems with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act have occurred in the past. With that, the board made clear that they found no issues in Steelman’s background check.