Auckland-based gambling and entertainment company, SkyCity Entertainment Group (SKC.NZ), has partnered with Quick Custom Intelligence (QCI), and after a year-long “evaluation process” has installed the QCI slots platform across its New Zealand casinos, including its flagship Auckland complex, Hamilton and Queenstown brick-and-mortars, and Adelaide in Australia where its license currently runs until 2085.

The slot floor optimization platform delivers data-driven intelligence to help operators generate more revenue and optimize their gaming products by providing a deeper understanding of player interaction, which machines are the best performers and which can be removed without negatively impacting revenue. It allows operators to identify customer trends and data, such as machine manufacturer, day of the week, time of day, denomination, high-traffic areas and more.

The Right Solution

“SkyCity has been searching for gaming analytics products – and with QCI we have found the right solution,” read a statement from Judd Hallas, Group Manager Product Performance & Analysis for SkyCity.

“The product being delivered by QCI allows us to have better access and utilise our gaming data, unified for all of our properties which are distributed across two countries.”

QCI has installed its innovative, highly configured software in more than 85 casino resorts across North America and 4,000-plus sites worldwide, and sees its partnership with SkyCity as a “natural step” from its many deployments at properties in the U.S.

The New Zealand operator follows similar deals with the likes of The Mill Casino in Oregon, WinnaVegas Casino Resort in Iowa and Chinook Winds Casino Resort in Oregon, and with Score Gaming and Gaming Dynamics. These operators, according to QCI, manage in excess of $20 billion in annual gross gaming revenue (GGR).

True Enterprise Deployment

Also commenting on the new alliance, Andrew Cardno, Chief Technology Officer for QCI, said…

“After a twelve-month evaluation process we are proud to now be deploying into SkyCity. SkyCity is a true enterprise deployment that spans two currencies and merges seven different systems together into a single consolidated view.

“Furthermore, we see this business partnership with Sky City, a premier operator in the Asia Pacific market, as a natural step from our many large multi property deployments in the USA.”

New Zealand Online Gaming

In other New Zealand gaming news, the owners of Christchurch Casino, which SkyCity held a 41 percent stake in before agreeing to sell to Queenstown-headquartered Skyline Enterprises for $80 million in December 2012, revealed in September plans to circumvent current restrictions in the island country by launching an online gambling platform out of Malta.

Bruce Robertson, Christchurch Casino Ltd chairman reportedly said the new offshore subsidiary, Christchurchcasino.com Limited, would partner with a licensed international gaming company, and that the move was a defensive initiative in response to the increase in online casinos and subsequent detriment to land-based casinos.

Currently, the Gambling Act of 2003 prohibits remote interactive gambling in New Zealand, while exempt from the general rule are Lotto NZ and the TAB. However, it does not prohibit gambling conducted overseas, which means someone in the country could legally participate in gambling over the Internet if that website is based overseas.

Back in 2019, SkyCity became the first casino operator in New Zealand to launch an online casino, which it did via the Gaming Innovation Group Inc. (GiG), with its long-term Tier 1 partner SkyCity Malta (a subsidiary of New Zealand based SkyCity Entertainment Group Limited).

At the time, the offshore online gambling market in New Zealand was estimated at approximately NZ$160m (€96m) with the total gambling market in the island country estimated at NZ$2.7bn (€1.6bn) 2019e, according to British betting and gaming consultancy H2 Gambling Capital.