MULTIGAMES – THE ADVANTAGES AND WHAT TO WATCH.

In the current gaming market almost every manufacturer offers a good range of multigame and multi-denomination games that enhance the options we have for our players. In many gaming jurisdictions around the world they aren’t as important because they only have players that come to the venue for a few days each year. Our players come several times each week so having  the opportunity to offer many extra games for variety is an important part of our overall game mix.

This is, in fact, the biggest advantage to multigames. Small venues and particularly hotels are able to overcome the disadvantage of low numbers of machines, by adding multigames that contain 3-6 different games within the one machine. Equally, even in larger clubs, outdoor areas often have limited machine numbers and adding multigames to these areas means a much larger variety of games. Most importantly, the manufacturers don’t just add any old game to these packs, they offer a group of their absolutely best, long-term, performing games and this is a real plus for any venue. There is no “testing” these games: they are an easy, no risk purchase.

The multigames also add to the types of games that suit a wide range of regular players. While there are a few successful single denomination examples, most of these machines include high, mid and low denominations games in the pack. In many cases they can offer each game at two different denomination options.  This means that you have a greater number of high denomination games than you can ordinarily offer your dollar players, but also lots of games that your 1 cent players prefer in the one machine. High denomination players often like to play down to lower denominations every now and then, as a break from a $1 game where the features can be less interesting. They can make higher bets on a low denomination game as a break from their normal play without even moving from the machine.

The aim for most venues is to get players on the machines for the longest time possible time and the multigames fit with this strategy perfectly. During the day when you have your smaller players in the club play on the 1 cent games is constant and as evening hits, when the bigger players arrive, the play lifts again with greater use of the higher denomination games. Even in the early hours of the morning you find that the multigames are the ones being played most consistently. You can check the audit screens on your machines to see which games are being played the most and you often find the lower denomination games are the strongest, so the daytime play, and overall amount of time players are at these machines, is a significant factor in their success. Even among the higher denomination games it’s often the 50 cent or 20 cent version of a dollar game that is preferred. There is also a difference in what our female and male players prefer in a game and the multigames can cover this market effectively as well if you choose the right one.

There are a couple of areas you need to consider when adding these games:

1. The return to player percentages on multigames are calculated as the total sum of the percentage for each game, divided by the number of games in the pack. If you have one or two games that dominate the play, such as a ‘5 Dragons’ and ‘Big Red’ that operate at a much higher return to player percentage than the other games, the manufacturers approved percentage for the game can be significantly different from the actual return you achieve. In most cases, the players aren’t silly and will play these games that give them the best return.
2. If you just buy lots of multigames from the same manufacturer you will essentially get a slightly different mix of exactly the same games. Make sure to add the multigame options in from each of the manufacturers, not just one, to ensure you get the game variety that gives your club the biggest advantage.
3. Make sure you keep on top of trade outs and conversions in the standalone versions of the most popular games in the multigame pack. With updated graphics in the multigame version, you may find that that having a number of the same games in a multipack, that you already have as an older standalone on the floor, will mean you need to remove some of the standalone games as they fall down the rankings. This has happened with the introduction of lots of ‘Players Choice’ games in many venues, where the original standalone versions of ‘Lucky 88’, ‘5 Dragons’ and ‘More Chilli’ in particular have declined. Be careful if you remove too many of these old 89% standalone games and replace them with 92% multigames, as you will affect the expected net for your whole floor.