Zombie Apocalypse Heads to Las Vegas Casinos

Posted on: August 21, 2016, 02:00h. 

Last updated on: August 19, 2016, 01:44h.

Casino.org Staff Writer Read More

Expertise: Commercial Gaming.

Zombies are coming to Vegas. But before you run for your underground shelter, stocked with, like, 600 rounds of ammo and maybe a hatchet, rest assured, this is merely part of the casino industry’s new initiative to appeal to the millennial generation.

Mobile zombie-runner game, Into the Dead, which was originally released by PikPok on iOS and Android in 2012, and futuristic racing game, Breakneck, are just two video games currently being “gamblified” by software company Gamblit Gaming.

We’ve all seen zombies mindlessly pushing buttons on slots in Vegas, but soon they will be inside the slots. Gamblit specializes in real-money gambling and skill games hybrids, which casinos in both Vegas and Atlantic City believe could be the answer to attracting the easily-bored millennial.

Channeling Millennials

Reared on console gaming, the younger generation has little interest in the one-dimensional slot machine, devoid, as it is, of strategy and skill. They also have little appetite for the simplistic strategies of the traditional table games so beloved of their Uncle Hanks and Auntie Brendas.

Nope, they like zombies and stuff.

While visitors to Vegas are coming greater in volume than ever before, the haul from actual gaming makes up a far smaller proportion of overall revenue than it used to. That’s why casino executives are eager to examine new ways of channeling the elusive millennial, and in doing so luring humankind back to the casino floor.

Last year both Nevada and New Jersey amended their gaming laws to permit the introduction of variable payouts, and therefore skill-game-slots hybrid in their casinos.

Variable Payouts

Previously, by law, anybody playing a gambling machine had to be offered the same chance of winning as everyone else in order to ensure fairness. But the idea of variable payouts means that players who are particularly adept at, say, repelling zombies during a video bonus round, will have higher odds of winning.

“It’s important because we get access to games that customers already know and love and then bring it into a new venue,” Darion Lowenstein, chief marketing officer at Gamblit Gaming, whose company is working closely with PikPok to adapt its titles for casinos.

“It brings a new revenue stream to an independent developer. Consumers get to play a title that they already know how to play,” he added. “We see this as a way for casinos to capture a younger audience.”

Gamblit hopes that its new breed of hybrid machines will hit the casino floors in 2017.