What do you think the average video game player would most like to do when he or she comes into your casino?

  1. Launch a heat-seeking missile up the tailpipe of an enemy spaceship?
  2. Beat her friends’ racecars to the finish line, and maybe run them off the road in the process?
  3. Cast a fireball spell at an approaching ogre?
  4. Watch reels with images of cherries and sevens spin around in circles?

If you picked #4 and you think spinning-reel slot games represent the ultimate pinnacle of electronic wagering game evolution, you should stop reading now. Otherwise, this page is for you.

Almost all video games are based on physical skill, but many major gaming jurisdictions won’t allow a player’s physical skill or dexterity to affect the outcome of a wagering game. This makes sense, since a poorly-skilled player may play at a theoretical payback less than the legally-allowed minimum.

It has long been known that the video game generation would grow up and begin wagering, and many have tried to bridge the gap between skill based video games and unskilled wagering games to appeal to this demographic.  Unfortunately, most of these attempts involve neutering the gameplay of a video game by preventing player skill from affecting the results. This approach effectively reduces a skill based video game to a predetermined outcome masked by an interactive display. For example, Silicon Gaming once produced a game with a bowling-themed bonus round. Though the player could alter the stance of the bowler and initial trajectory of the ball using a trackball, the result of each roll was nonetheless predetermined so physical skill did not affect the outcome.

Olympian Gaming has successfully bridged the gap between video games and slot machines. With our patent-pending technology, it is now possible to offer a wagering game where physical skill affects the player’s outcomes but not the theoretical return. This works by making player skill a factor in choosing which of several equal-payback propositions a player will experience. In this way, the player’s skill can affect the wager’s outcome distribution (i.e. the volatility or variance) but not its theoretical return (i.e. the payback percentage or expected value).

Here’s an example. Consider a skill based bonus round for a slot machine that depicts a skeet-shooting game played with a joystick. When the clay pigeon is released, the player must move on-screen crosshairs using the joystick and depress a trigger, firing their shotgun. Players who skillfully hit the target will always be rewarded one of several randomly determined awards. Players who miss the target will usually, but not always, receive a zero reward. Suppose a player who hits the target wins these awards with the associated probabilities: 25 coins (50%), 50 coins (25%), 100 coins (25%). The weighted average of these awards is 50 coins. Now suppose that the player who misses the target wins zero coins 95% of the time, but the other 5% of the time they happen to hit a passing UFO that drops a prize worth 1000 coins. The weighted average of these awards is also 50 coins. Thus, the expected return of this bonus game is always 50 coins, regardless of player skill, but player skill can have a dramatic impact on the individual outcome of each game as well as the probability of winning an award.

It doesn’t take long to realize that this technique can be applied not only to bonus rounds for slot machine games but to virtually any interactive video game. Examples of other genres of video games adapted for wagering include:

  • In "first-person shooter" games like Quake, Halo or Half-Life, each attack on an enemy can be a wager, and each wager can be resolved based on the accuracy and nature of the attack and the nature of the enemy
  • In arcade racing games like Daytona USA or San Francisco Rush, passing check points or picking up "power-ups" can be wagers, and each wager can be resolved based on the displayed skill of the driver.
  • In fantasy-themed role-playing games, each action taken by the player can be a wager — shooting an arrow, swinging a sword, or casting a magical spell — which wins or loses based on the skill of the player.

All these examples can be played in an interactive, multiplayer setting as well, opening up the possibility of adapting highly successful games like Everquest or Worlds of Warcraft to multiplayer wagering games.

Yesterday’s kids spent hours playing networked multiplayer video games with each other, from competitive racing games to cooperative role-playing games. Now that they’re grown up, you can give them the ability to play the same games while winning money doing it.