I attended the Global Gaming Expo today with a friend. As usual there were a
multitude of new slot machines being shown, including Star Wars with the
Death Star as the bonus wheel, Men In Black, Gilligan's Island, That Girl, Beverly
Hillbilly, Hollywood Squares, You Just might be a Redneck (Jeff Foxworthy),
Drew Carey, Terminator, Sat. Night Live (various including Coneheads, Hans &
Franz, and more), and on and on. Seems like every TV show ever made will soon
have a slot machine.
On the VP front I saw a 10-play PickEm Plus. Unfortunately some people were
in front so I couldn't get a real good look at the machine. Lots of new
variations on Video Poker were shown. Many had bonus features, such as Six Card
Video Poker, where you got an extra card if you had 3 of a kind. Some were
multigame machines that gave you extra bonus hands if you were dealt 2-pair or
higher, and so on.
We could have played any machine we wanted for free, but somehow it just
wasn't any fun if we didn't have the chance to win (or lose) money. Not too many
freebies being given out, but my friend got a couple of t-shirts and I got a
small datebook for 2004 which I really needed.
On the table game front, it looked like a lot of games are being converted to
machines, such as many Roulette games for multiplayers around an automatic
roulette wheel. Three Card Poker is also being converted to a machine for
multiplayers. Several new games were displayed for possible future use in casinos,
including one that was a BJ like table with cards, but they were slot machine
symbols, and you bet on "2 reel, 3 reel, 4 reel, or 5 reel" positions (I
thought that one was confusing and we won't see it show up in casinos).
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