April - June 2020Media & Entertainment6IN MY OPINIONLeading a Gaming Revolution love innovation. And as a Walt Disney enthusiast (both subscriber to his business and leadership philosophies and just a kid at heart...), I love innovation for the sake of a blow-away guest experience. The greatest story I have heard on this topic and one that I think about with just about everything I do at work ­ from walking the casino floor to planning our fiscal strategy ­ involves Bill Evans, the genius behind most of the beautiful gardens at the Disney Parks. In short, one day Bill approached Walt because he was angry that guests kept cutting through one of his gardens and trampling the flowers. So Bill suggested that they build a fence around the garden to keep everyone out. Walt shook his head and told Bill there was no way they would build a fence. Instead, they should learn from their guests and build a pathway through the garden. Walt saw that his guests wanted to go in a direction the he and his designers had not planned, so he changed the plans to meet what his guests were telling him and ultimately made it easier to get to where they were going.We have taken this same approach with a lot of the technology and innovation that we have implemented at our Mohegan properties and what follows are some examples.WIFIIn our Arena, we have recently revamped our wireless infrastructure. Some folks may argue that it's a costly feature to have in a space where people should otherwise be occupied, but our guests' patterns were telling us a different story. They want to tweet updates of the concert that night, invite a friend to join them at the casino after the show or just check up on email in between acts. So we partnered with Ruckus Wireless to provide a solution that ensures that every inch of the arena is covered. We also increased our bandwidth to make sure they have a great experience once connected. Guest feedback and satisfaction since installation has been fantastic. Based on that success, we are in the process of replacing our IFred Brown, CIO & SVP, IT, Mohegan Tribal Gaming AuthorityByentire campus wireless infrastructure with this same architecture since we know that our guests have that same need for WIFI wherever they go. At the same time, we are designing a WIFI analytics solution to allow us to proactively capture guest information as they connect and track their movement throughout their trip. This will allow us to truly understand our guests' patterns so we can continue to enhance their personal experience.Cashless TechnologyCashless technology is everywhere. We use it to buy our coffees, we use it to buy our music...we even use it at Disney Parks for just about anything we need. But for some reason it hasn't really made its way into gaming. Some have blamed regulatory agencies and others have blamed a slow technology Fred Brown
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