Wynn positions RAK casino for tech-driven high rollers

• Wynn expects guests with AI wealth
• Wide use of ‘smart’ tables in casino
• Seeking approval for crypto

Growing wealth within Wynn Resorts’ key markets is expected to help bring in new high-rollers to its hotels, its chief executive has said. 

Gains within tech and artificial intelligence are leading to “substantial business formation and wealth creation centered in the US, China, and portions of the Middle East,” said CEO Craig Billings, and the casino operators’ Ras Al Khaimah venture in is particular poised to benefit. 

“We already have customers that are spending time with us that have had wealth created through everything that is going on with AI,” Billings told investors during a quarterly earnings call on Thursday. “I anticipate that it will be [the case] in Wynn on Marjan Island, where you have the UAE being extremely aggressive in terms of AI infrastructure and AI model development.” 

The UAE, especially its capital Abu Dhabi, is a heavy investor in AI. Wynn has said in the past that it expects a large portion of its visitors to be people living in other emirates.

In September, executives revealed that Wynn Al Marjan will become the first casino in the world to roll out ‘smart’ gaming table technology, meaning chips and bets can be digitally tracked, across almost all of its gambling tables. This allows stats to be shared with the players but also for the house to detect fraudulent behaviour, among other things.

“We’re going to be the first casino I believe to roll out smart tables across virtually all of the games that we’re going to be offering – at least 80 to 85 percent,” David Patent, executive vice president of gaming operations, said at a conference in Lisbon that month, as reported by IAG, a gaming news publication for the Asian market.

Patent said Wynn Al Marjan Island is seeking approval to accept digital currencies, subject to regulations set by the General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority. 

The GCGRA is the UAE’s own gaming commission and watchdog, in charge of issuing licences and laying out regulations for the country’s nascent gambling industry. So far, licences have been awarded to Wynn, to online betting and to a national lottery company, but no law legalising gaming has been published. 

Under technical standards published by the GCGRA, electronic and dealer-assisted table games are permitted to use networked systems that digitally track wagers, outcomes and player activity, provided they meet strict requirements on cybersecurity, auditability and system integrity.

The standards mandate encrypted communications, real-time event logging, tamper-proof data storage and comprehensive audit trails, allowing regulators to independently verify game fairness, payouts and revenue reporting. 

• UAE lottery operator launches online casino and betting brands
• Wynn advertises jobs for UAE casino workers
• RAK Airport sets ambitious passenger number goal

The rules also explicitly allow for advanced monitoring and remote diagnostics, enabling operators to deploy sophisticated analytics and automation across gaming floors, while barring any use of technology that could influence game outcomes or compromise randomness.

During the earnings call, chief financial officer Julie Cameron-Doe forecast how big a role gaming will have in the property’s revenues. “Vegas, where the vast majority of our revenue is non-gaming; Macau, where the vast majority of our revenue is gaming; I would not expect it [Wynn al Marjan] to be at either of those poles.”

In December, Wynn told investors it expects to achieve gross gaming revenues of up to $1.66 billion a year from RAK. 

The upcoming resort will have 224,000 square feet of gaming floor area, or 4 percent of the total space in the hotel. This is around 10,000 sq ft larger than Wynn Las Vegas’ gaming floor.