THE CENTERFOLD

Circus Circus' Casino Network Hits The Jackpot

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Ever think networking is a gamble? Computing is no crapshoot for CircusCircus Enterprises Inc. (CCEI), the hotel and casino corporation that runsLuxor, Excalibur and Circus Circus. From the drop of a quarter in any slotmachine to a bet on a blackjack table, every player's activities can beviewed in real time. An ATM backbone connects switched Token-Ring networksin the four local Las Vegas hotel-casinos. Four remote hotel and casinosites in Tunica, Miss., Reno and Laughlin, Nev., are connected to Las Vegasvia frame relay, 56-Kbps and fractional T1 lines. More than 1,000 usersat all properties access the enterprise network.

CCEI approved a $1.5 million ATM backbone network project in late 1995."We've come a long way in a very short amount of time," explainsKamal A. Punjabi, project/network services manager. "Over the pastsix months, we've installed a fully managed network with stat e-of-the-arthubs, switches and mirrored servers. We installed an ATM backbone becauseall AS/400s replicate back to the enterprise IBM AS/400 for redundancy."The result? Punjabi calls network segmentation "a piece of cake"and growth "limitless." Upgrades to the servers have doubled p erformance.But most important for someone who runs a 24x7 operation, Punjabi says,"We have server redundancy, which helps me sleep better at night."

With the sound of the slots clattering late into the night, CCEI must trackthe revenues and operations of their table games and 3,000 slot machinesin real time. Casino Data Systems' Slot Player Tracking System diagramsthe whole casino floor, showing high-traffic playing areas as well as malfunctioningslot machines. Technicians can be dispatched to fix malfunctioning slots;customer service representatives can be dispatched to pamper guests. Theapplication also updates accounting records in real time. Slot Player Trackingis a C and Pascal application, running on a Btrieve engine on NetWare servers,which uses one PC per 3,000 slot machines to collect statistics and reportthem to the server.

Any slot machine enthusiast can become a member of the Slot-Player Club.Members are issued a card and ID number. The next time a member plays, theslot m achine reads the card, and the member receives a personalized digitalgreeting. While playing, casino employees can send messages and offer specialpromotions. The owner of the card accumulates playing points to win prizes.

In the next 12 months, CCEI will evaluate ATM to the desktop. CCEI alsoplans to connect its PBX systems over the ATM backbone. An intranet foremployees and an already-approved Web site will be installed in the nextsix months.

UpdatedMay 31, 1996