How much electricity do slots use ?

[ian]

Do we have any members who have to pay the electricity bills for a large slot operation.
I'm interested to know how much power is required to keep a slot on 24/7 ?

Do any of the manufacturers incorporate what might be termed "green" features - i.e. shutting down or going into a power saving mode when not in play ?


Ian

[CMG]

none of the slots have powersaving modes

they run all the time 24/7

its like running your pc all the time with the tft monitor on constantly

However one of the larger uk co's are now switching their slots off to save money

then the igt slots have issue with their tft screen not booting up correctly and having a 2" black line dowen the left hand side

this requires a tech to reset the screens

they mostly run on a 5amp fuse and most of the power usage is on accepting notes and paying out coins

[redcarded1]

I think if you managed to put power saving on during open hours machine income would decrease rapidly. Slots are all about attracting you through bright flashing lights and sound.

We have recently put our slots onto a timer to switch off after we are closed and come on automatically before we open ( with an optional overide button ). I cant say i have noticed any issues with IGT monitors ?

As for the costs....... it must be almost impossible to isolate the cost of slots. It's a bit like asking you energy company to send you two bills ( one for your downstairs and one for upstairs ) ?

As CMG says the main power goes to the hopper. It needs a lot of energy to churn out constantly all those coins whilst holding a large sum and weight of coin in the hopper.

[Black Jack]

Just find out how many kilowatt hours it takes to run a machine and check against your bill

[CMG]

its the kortek igt tft monitor that have the issues if the slot is powered down

igt release a technical service bulletin to assist but it does not work 100%

[saintpeter]

If main power usage goes on the hopper, that has to be a serious argument in favour of TITO.
As far as determining power usage, there will be a plaque on the box somewhere stating peak wattage, so go from there.

[redcarded1]

Clearly someone has had too much of the Christmas spirit if they think i'm gonna go around every single piece of electronic gaming and try to work out what % of my leccy bill it is !!!

There would be many arguments in favour of TITO but also some good ones against it. People still seem to prefer the noise of coins hitting the tray ?

[Charlie Chester]

This is no pop at you Redcard as I already believe you are already over worked, however, if i happened to be a GM for a large casino corporation that happen to be in the red for 4.5 billion I would measure 1 of each machine model with hopper and/or bill validator working, times that by No of machines operating by No of functioning hours.
Then measure machine powered up but not in use and times by No of hours.
(Personally I have always been against machines powered down at close of business as I incur more malfunctions as the machines are being warmed up and then cooled down daily. Btw I would appreciate any opinions of true slot techs on this).

This will give you a reasonable figure of excess power needed for your slots.

This saving of the extra electricity needed added to the reduced No of hours and manpower needed to make hopper fills, fix coinjams, cleaning inside the machines, coin collection, hard count and the reduced security risk of coin theft makes a good argument to go for TITO.

[CMG]

give me a couple of days and i'll get the figures required for slot electricity usage for IGT.APEX,WMS etc

Charlie Chester

i am a real slot tech :-) and can say you are 100% correct that machines fail when switched off and then back on

when did your last household light bulb fail when it was on

they always blow when switched on

[CMG]

the problem with TITO is the cost of initial instal and with the current conditions it would take a brave head office person or team to make the decision to implement at this moment of time

[bobby]

Australiasian machines (Konami K2v, IGT AU1, Aristocrat Xcite & Extreem) run at about 1.8-2.5 Amps at 240V 50Hz. +/-10% not including power drawn from EMS systems.
Sorry, not 100% sure what this equates to in Watts. I think it is roughly 430-600 Watts. Are there any sparkies out there that can verify my ancient calculations?

[Charlie Chester]

Thanks for the contribution CMG.
Please excuse my ignorance on this subject but can't current machines be converted to TITO? What would the approx cost per unit be for a conversion and for a new machine with TITO?

What are your feelings on server based gaming machines. Personally I love them and would have as many as I could as I love the adaptability of them, the no nonsense maintenance and analysis. Surely the electricity needed for server based games are minimal too.

[redcarded1]

I wasn't taking anything personally CC.

All i was trying to point out though was that by the time you work out every piece of electronic equipments cost ( in electric ) and compare it to your overall electricity bill i think you will find any savings that you can look to squeeze whether you switch off machines or leave on....whether you pay out in coin or go TITO will be so minimal that really it wouldn't be worth the mental torture of working out ?

Saving £30 a month on electric isn't going to sort companies finances out through this difficult period. Hence the mass redundancies that many have suffered of late.

Personally i like server based games as long as the server works ! Telling someone that "sorry but all malfunctions void plays and pays" isn't really what anyone wants to hear / say.

As electronic is now about 35/40 % of our take then it is a vital addition to hard gaming.

[bobby]

I know it is not so important for small Brittish casinos, but take an average size Australian club.
180 machines open 14 hours per day. If the ave. power consumption is 500watts and you are paying about 23c P/KWH. You are saving approx. $75,500 per annum on your power bill. It is definitely worth considering the option of paying the extra in maintenance costs involved.

[ian]

My question wasn't really intended for the British market where there may be 8 machines stood in the corner next to the lone Novamatic carousel.

Connecticut (both venues with 6000+ slots), A.C. Las Vegas, S.A. or Australia are the locations that'll have electricity bills in the $10's possibly $100 thousand's per year. It seems strange that casinos may recently have changed the bulbs in their outside electronic displays, on the gaming floor and offices but the biggest consumer is still there on the floor.

Then again I don't think many punters would be prepared to press a button and wait for a slot to power up before they can play. It would be the equivalent of sitting down at a closed table and waiting for the Pitboss to open it


Ian

[redcarded1]

Originally Posted by ian

Then again I don't think many punters would be prepared to press a button and wait for a slot to power up before they can play. It would be the equivalent of sitting down at a closed table and waiting for the Pitboss to open it
Ian

exactly the point i was making 5 days ago.....it just aint going to happen ESPECIALLY in these super large machine environments.....without the lights the place would look like it was in darkness ?

[ian]

The following info. is from a forum member and received via email...


IGT electric consumption on a Trimline machine. Most common IGT machine in the UK

Formula is KW x hours x Price of KWatt per hour you pay. The average is about 12p per KW per hour.

Casino open from 12pm to 6 am. Machines switched on 1 hour before opening and ½ hour after closing plus count days = 20 hours per day average

0.205KWh x 20 hours x 0.12p = 0.492p per IGT machine per day

0.205KWh x 24 hours x 0.12p = 0.5904p per 24 hour

You save 0.0984p per day per machine therefore 20 machines save you £1.97 day. £718.32 a year.

This is not a saving if just one machine fails due to powering the machines on and off ever day. As the down time in of all your machines added together in a year will be longer then 7 days and an average machine should make you about £700 a week. So I would think that casino looses money in the long run.


Work it out for yourself
http://www.ukpower.co.uk/running-costs-elec.asp

[saintpeter]

Thanks for that, Ian.
We run individual U.P.S. and surge guards on each machine (costs about a monkey each). Anybody else do this, or do you have any other sort of line conditioning to ensure stable clean power supply?

[Sea Monster]

There are many things that the OEM's are doing to make their products somewhat "green". Some are replacing flourescent lighting with LED's as well as Cold Cathode lighting. Both of these use less energy than your standard F15T8 lamp. Aristocrat's new cabinet is called the "Veridian" which has something to do with their trending toward the eco-friendly. Personally I have not made that a big issue wen buying machines, but I like the way the new lighting makes the game look. I may have to get further into this to see if it truly is something all of the suppliers are getting into. I have been made aware of energy corporations giving reduced rates to the casinos which come in @ .05 or.08 per KW hour in contrast to the .12 per kwh.

[ian]

Time to revisit this topic with a press release from Gaming Support today.


It seems that at least one casino operator is taking seriously how much energy their slots are using and is taking possitive steps to reduce their electricity bills at the same time.


24th July, 2009.
Holland Casino Installs SlotTimer from Gaming Support to Save Money on its Slot Operations
http://www.gamingsupport.com/company...t-to-save.html


PRODUCTS - Slot Timer
http://www.gamingsupport.com/index.p...temid=88889044


Ian

[redcarded1]

For some time we are switching off all electronic forms of gaming overnight when we are closed for business. So far we are making significant savings in a medium sized UK casino.

[Charlie Chester]

Hi RC

What do your slot techs feel on this? Are they experiencing more malfunctions from the slots after heating up and cooling down each day?

[redcarded1]

what LUXURY !!

Unfortunately Slots Tech comes under the guise of Manager. When we power them back up we don't have any issues with slots .... but we do have to reboot a few of our electronic roulette machines.

20 slots - no probs
28 electronic roulette - approx 4 a day need a reboot

I don't think there are any more issues with maintenance since we went to power down. Nothing over and above the norm anyway. Also even if we did have a few i think the energy savings would make it worth the while.

[CMG]

quote

"but we do have to reboot a few of our electronic roulette machines"

which electronic roulettes have issues with being powered down so save electricity ?

[redcarded1]

Originally Posted by CMG

quote

"but we do have to reboot a few of our electronic roulette machines"

which electronic roulettes have issues with being powered down so save electricity ?

Can't quite understand the pigeon English ?

But to re-emphasise the point ...... when we switch off our Electronic gaming offer we sometimes have to switch off and on a few terminals to reboot a start up error on the terminal.

This however is a small price to pay when it saves a small fortune on electricity for the sake of an opening shift manager having to hit a few switches when he comes in.