Game Developers Face Long Odds In Quest For Jackpot

The competition to create the next great slot game is intense. Acres Gaming Inc. of Corvallis, Ore., for instance, has marketed a system linking traditional machines in an exotic atmosphere. At the Hurricane Zone in the Edgewater Casino in Laughlin, Nev., bonus jackpots are signaled with special-effects thunder and lightning and a crescendo of dramatic music. As the music builds and the lightning crashes louder, players pump in the coins faster and faster, building profits for the house, company founder John Acres said.

Another company, Las Vegas-based Anchor Gaming Inc., married a couple of time-worn ideas into a new, albeit low-tech, product called Wheel of Gold. It consists of an ordinary reel machine linked to what looks like a miniature roulette wheel on the wall above. When you win a jackpot, you hit a button to spin the little roulette wheel and determine the amount you win.

It sounds simple, but the idea has caught on big. At one point recently Anchor had sold 300 of the machines and had orders for 700 more. The company stock has skyrocketed this year from 22 points per share to 71.

Randy Adams, Anchor’s head of design and an old friend of Casino Data Systems Inc. Chairman Steven A. Weiss, said gaming customers will shy away from too much computerized technology. “People don’t want to play Donkey Kong; they don’t want to play Star Wars,” he said.

Beyond Wheel of Gold, beyond Star Wars, beyond the casino itself: What’s next? How about the virtual casino, existing only in cyberspace?

Don’t worry, somebody has already thought of that: International Sports Book, a World Wide Web site operated out of St. John’s, Antigua, offers sports betting to players willing (and trusting) to open an account.