In the wake of the current coronavirus pandemic, many casinos will temporarily close and will implement social distancing measures within their properties when they are operational. nQube, in collaboration with partners at the University of Manitoba Data Science NEXUS, recognizes that many casinos are looking for strategies to protect their customers, while also minimizing the impact to business. In order to mitigate the spread of the virus, casinos may consider temporarily shutting off some slot machines or rearranging their casino floors to increase the physical distance between players.

Turning off a fraction of your slot machines does not necessarily mean that all revenue from those units is lost, since much of it can be shifted to other machines on the floor. However, implementing social distancing requirements is more complicated than turning off every other machine, or simply turning off the least productive units. The key to protecting revenues is in understanding the entire slot floor as an interconnected system, and being able to predict which slot machines your players would be willing to shift to if some are temporarily unavailable. A careful analysis of the slot floor as a whole will allow you to balance the remaining capacity of the floor with player demand, and minimize the economic impact of a partial closure, while keeping your staff and players safe.

nQube specializes in artificial intelligence-driven optimization of the entire slot floor, in which the company reportedly carefully model the impact of adding or removing slot machines on the performance of every other machine on the floor. In response to this pandemic, it is working with its partners at the Data Science NEXUS to modify its technology to help casinos to make the best possible decisions when temporarily decreasing the number of active slot machines, in order to respect social distancing requirements.