What lies beyond the bath curtain? A 'hot' new entry into the hotel sim genre! Features new baths exclusive to the sequel. Furnish your resort with Cauldron Baths, Footbaths, Open-Air Baths, and more. Create and customize your own world-famous hot springs resort. Entertain visitors with tons of facilities, including Ping Pong Tables, Stores, and Oil Drum Baths. Don't forget to provide first. Hit Utopia’s experiences and big cash prizes make casinos unique and gives them a competitive advantage. Managers love the fact that, compared to other products, they have many more ways to adapt the system per table to player demands and influence total casino profits. Hit Utopia’s CEO Dennis Korthouwer and Global Brand Manager Carolina Quintero Builes explain how the company uses innovation to increase market share of casinos. Everyone has felt it at some time or another, that deep-rooted desire to be a pathfinder, to explore and chart new terrain.

THEINTERVIEW
By Ricki Chavez-Munoz

We met long ago on a Caribbean island and although Utopia seemed close by it was really a bit of fantasy land when we talked about gaming and how one could improve the fun, the prizes and, above all, the casino revenue.

Much turquoise water and surf has hit the white sandy beaches since then but in the meantime Dennis Korthouwer, Hit Utopia CEO, has been to South America, married his Colombian sweetheart, had two lively kiddies and designed a casino tables product with feet firmly planted on the ground. Sounds like Utopia? Well, it is. Hit Utopia is his company, delivering gaming success from his native Netherlands. As with all great men, there is someone greater alongside them and Carolina Korthouwer is there as branding officer at Hit Utopia.

For a few years now Hit Utopia has been testing and optimizing its world-wide promotional and side-bet system for table games in over a dozen casinos. Earlier this year the first casino chain in Europe started using the system and from there others have followed.

Dennis Korthouwer explained the reason for his success: “Hit Utopia now has the data proving increased playtime. Proof first came from small unknown casinos. Now it comes from reputable casino chains. Every casino will see the proof with very small promotional prizes in the first month. Hit Utopia’s experiences and big cash prizes make casinos unique and gives them a competitive advantage. Managers love the fact that, compared to other products, they have many more ways to adapt the system per table to player demands and influence total casino profits. And of course, being cheaper than any other system and having no minimum license period helps.”

RCM: What is Hit Utopia?

Dennis Korthouwer: “Hit Utopia is a promotional and side-bet system for table games proven to increase profit by increasing playtime and attracting new players.”

RCM: How is playtime increased exactly?

Dennis Korthouwer: “Through continuous analysis we always know the optimal promotional prizes to offer, on which table, and before what time of the day they should be won. Guaranteeing players that certain prizes will be won before a certain time makes them play until there is a winner. In addition, by offering those additional prizes on the most profitable tables, players move to those tables and total profit increases.”

RCM: What are examples of promotional prizes and isn’t the cost higher than the benefit?

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Dennis Korthouwer: “Typical daily prizes are iPhones, play chips, TVs and unsold tickets to in-house entertainment that enable cross and upselling. The exact type, value and hit frequency varies greatly with the size of the casino and whether they are offered in multiple casinos at the same time. In most cases those prizes are sponsored and where they are not, analysis will tell what works best.”

RCM: How does Hit Utopia attract new players?

Dennis Korthouwer: “This is done in two ways. On the one hand, we attract new players by offering our “Experiences You Can’t Buy.” These prizes make casinos unique and empower them to attract new target groups. As an example we used “Meeting soccer players at the UEFA Champions League Final.” While we arrange those prizes for many casinos, the cost is often similar to a regular VIP trip. On the other hand, while our system can legally scale globally, it attracts new players with lottery-size cash prizes.”

RCM: How do you scale globally where wide-area progressives are limited to one country?

Dennis Korthouwer: “Every all-in-one system is a complete standalone promotional and side-bet system. The prizes can be shared, but don’t have to be where it’s not allowed. We can ‘simply’ manage that different casinos around the world offer one or more of the same prizes at the same times and instantly notify all players when there is a winner in any of the casinos. This way, players regularly see others win and continue to play while anytime soon, as it’s guaranteed, they will be the winner.”

RCM: Why do casinos choose Hit Utopia over other progressives and bonus systems?

Dennis Korthouwer: “Especially in the last couple of months we won several contracts with very reputable casino chains in direct competition with big5 suppliers. Their main reason for choosing us is because they want to be different, want a system which they can actively influence to meet local continuously changing market requirements, and love the fact that there is no installation cost, no maintenance cost, and we don’t have a minimum license period. In short, they see in Hit Utopia a great innovative tool that has more potential to increase table games results than any other system in the market.”

RCM: Are any casino chains already part of this?

Dennis Korthouwer: “After a long test and analysis period, where we received game and financial data from 14 standalone casinos around the world, Casinos Austria International in Hungary went live earlier this year. This smaller casino focuses on increasing retention with hourly prizes and the other one – who is awaiting gaming board approval – will focus on increasing VIP visitation with frequent unique experiences. We also have VIVA Group on Cyprus and Luckia (Egasa) in Croatia who just installed in 3 casinos.”

RCM: You say that they are installing? Don’t you do that?

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Dennis Korthouwer: “The only thing a casino needs to do is screw a plate under the table. No servers. No drilling in the tables. No cutting of layouts. No installation cost. And no maintenance cost while we simply ship a new all-in-one screen in the unlikely event that one doesn’t work anymore.”

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RCM: How to dealers like working with your system?

Dennis Korthouwer: “What dealers love the most is the Global Dealer Incentive program. While we track dealer performance, dealers can simply earn more by doing their job well. Everybody loves to earn more. One dealer even used a US$5,000 prize to pay for his wedding!”

RCM: What’s your idea for the future? Any further developments?

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Dennis Korthouwer: “Now that Hit Utopia is proven on table games both technically and financially and we’re having lots of traction, we will expand our technology into slot machines. It will be the only world-wide promotional and side-bet system on tables and slots that will give to casinos using the technology a huge competitive edge.” (S-09.22.17)