Gaming Studio Information

Gaming Studio primarily designs for neighborhood gaming venues - known as charitable gaming in Minnesota and North Dakota. In both of these states nonprofit organizations licensed by the gaming regulatory authority (Minnesota - Gambling Control Board and North Dakota - Gaming Division of the Attorney General's Office) conduct on-going gaming in bars and taverns using dedicated gaming employees. Essentially, the bars and taverns rent the organizations the space in which the gaming is conducted. In both states, the primary game is "pull tabs," a paper ticket that is folded, banded or has a cover sheet which, when opened, requires a player to match pre-determined winning symbols. Quite similar to scratch tickets except for the mess. Minnesota has our wheel games played with a table as their only table game while North Dakota has "21" and our Pig Wheel® for table games. According to the ND Attorney General's office, 55 Pig Wheels (with tables) were in operation in North Dakota at the end of 2015. By end 2016, we anticipate 60. The games played are very limited and any significant alteration to them requires enabling legislation. While we designed the wheel/table games operated in Minnesota to fit within a vague and convoluted statute in the mid-80s, our design was legislatively tested during three sessions ending in 1991. That was also the year we won authorizing legislation in North Dakota. Since then we have been attempting to gain authorization for electronic editions of the wheel games. These games resolve the spin bias inherent to mechanical wheels. Environmental changes in temperature and humidity in bars, causes wheel, especially large wheels, to lose balance. This requires an organization to carefully scrutinize the wheels every day before play begins and balance them as needed. Operators who spin the mechanical wheels day-in and day-out develop patterns, inadvertently or intentionally, that can be picked up and leveraged by players. Tickets in Minnesota are expensive to acquire, track, audit and they complicate operations that can lead to errors. We can save hundreds of tons of paper each year by moving from the existing one-ticket one-bet system to one-ticket all bets for up to 10 consecutive spins. With electronic wheels and tables, we can provide the social gaming experience with the technological flare that is more interesting to younger and newer players. We can actually provide far more entertaining features with electronics. Features that add value to play without requiring greater bets.