BRIAN MONTANO
COO
Certus Gaming USA
Montano joined Certus Gaming USA in 2019, bringing with him over 25 years of gaming industry experience.
He has held progressive leadership roles at renowned organizations like BMM Testlabs, DiTronics Financial Services, JCM, IGT and Acres Gaming. Montano launched his career in casino operations and understands the dynamic challenges casino operators face internally and externally with the evolving gaming technology landscape.
Brooke Fiumara
Co-Founder & Co-CEO
OPTX
Prior to Co-Founding OPTX, Fiumara served as the CMO for Warner Gaming, overseeing all marketing and business intelligence operations for Warner Gaming’s properties, from Four-Diamond destinations to local gaming and tribal properties.
Fiumara is an alumna of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and uses her vast knowledge and expertise in casino operations, marketing and technology to drive day-to-day operations for OPTX.
JEFF BALDI
SVP, Commercial Strategy
CasinoTrac
Baldi has worked in the casino industry since 1995, starting out as a Slot Floorperson at Par-A-Dice Hotel & Casino before working his way up the ranks and becoming Director of National Accounts at Aristocrat in 2010.
Baldi then continued to work in executive roles within the gambling industry before becoming SVP, Commercial Strategy at CasinoTrac.
What differentiates your casino management systems from your competition?
BRIAN MONTANO: Unlike our competitors, Certus' agile methodologies allow us to tailor our solutions to our partners' unique market requirements for maximum performance.
Our cloud-based architecture and in-depth marketing capabilities allow operators to quickly obtain real-time, granular-level data paired with intuitive analyses for effective, real-time campaign management and actionable reporting.
Our connected casino suite of solutions helps operators optimize their gaming floor by better understanding and engaging with their patrons in real-time to drive revenue and create impactful, personalized guest experiences.
BROOKE FIUMARA: At OPTX, we offer an easy-to-use platform via web and native mobile application that allows various operational departments to access all available data seamlessly. This approach eliminates barriers between departments and enables quicker, more precise and more flexible decision making.
The OPTX product includes AI features that make recommendations, present insights and anomalies and allow users to take action on them. The system tracks, measures and reports on all actions taken against a business-as-usual baseline.
Overall, OPTX stands out from its competition by offering a unique combination of tools on web and mobile to handle day-to-day operations, as well as advanced AI modeling across multiple departments including slots, slot dispatch, marketing and campaigns and player development.
JEFF BALDI: There are many unique benefits to selecting CasinoTrac as your casino management system. CasinoTrac is a full-featured, fully unified CMS stack; all our support is US-based and distributed strategically near customer sites.
Our unique licensing models eliminate expensive third-party costs, upgrades are free forever and finally, the biggest differentiator is that we are a technology company only – we are not a box fabricator or game designer that also sells systems. Systems, as a business, is all we do. As employees, what makes CasinoTrac special is less literal; it's more of a feeling.
We always do what’s right. We are focused on doing business with integrity, treating everyone with dignity and respect. These are fundamental, core beliefs in our day-to-day business.
How often do you update your casino management system and why?
BROOKE FIUMARA: OPTX is a software that can quickly respond to client requests for feature enhancements and usability improvements. This is why we work in partnership with our clients to enhance the OPTX product every four to six weeks.
BRIAN MONTANO: We constantly evolve and enhance our engineering techniques and product offerings to provide our partners with cutting-edge technology, new tools and features for a competitive advantage.
Certus is committed to providing a robust suite of solutions that optimize and streamline the operator and guest experience. We offer cloud-based updates regularly to ensure our partners always have access to the latest and greatest technology that we offer.
We can instantly add value by upgrading our suite of products and solutions, while modernizing our offerings across all gaming operations in a more simplified and efficient manner.
JEFF BALDI: All the time! Seriously, though, we have ongoing parallel, yet synchronized development efforts.
For example, it's commonplace for Chad Hoehne’s (President and CEO) development groups to design and implement customer requests from both Colombia & Oklahoma, all while working on system-wide updates and enhancements for v5 – which is our major ‘re-vamp’ project to update the UI and system in general.
We are planning on v5 being in submission by October – just in time for Global Gaming Expo ’23.
Why is it important for operators to use an advanced casino management system?
BRIAN MONTANO: Selecting a more agile and advanced casino management system, like Certus' Connected Casino, can offer some unique advantages over the legacy architectures of some of our competitors.
Our proprietary suite of solutions allows operators access data on both carded and anonymous player sessions. We provide a complete, holistic view of all their guests' activity throughout their property, allowing them to personalize their guest experience and drive incremental revenue by leveling up their player engagement.
BROOKE FIUMARA: The OPTX platform provides our clients with a user-friendly interface that displays their data operationally, with the added benefit of artificial intelligence to increase efficiency, reduce costs and boost revenue in different departments.
OPTX is crucial in enabling future-proof operation as new data sets emerge around players and machines, amid increasing competition for patrons' entertainment budget.
JEFF BALDI: Great question. It's important to use a casino management system that provides what the operator needs. While CasinoTrac has all the bells and whistles of every other CMS, we focus more on system utilization.
It’s commonplace for the average casino to use 10-20% of the functionality provided by their CMS; this is due in part by the CMS provider who ‘oversells’ features, doesn’t provide adequate training and never returns to the property once the install is complete. CasinoTrac takes a different approach here.
We introduce features in phases allowing the operator to fully adopt the system in smaller pieces; this drives acceptance and more power users who grow into much more appropriate, higher utilization rates.
Advanced systems need to be flexible and elastic, allowing the operators’ needs to dictate the implementation of ideas and help enforce policy and procedure – like CasinoTrac does.
Have you ever faced any technological difficulties/emergencies and how has your system overcome those problems?
BRIAN MONTANO: Our decades of industry-specific experience and knowledgebase give us a leg up on our competition, allowing us to prepare and anticipate the evolving needs of our partners, especially when difficulties or challenges arise.
Our advanced product suite, combined with our stellar service, allows our partners to stay ahead of industry trends and challenges to ensure our partners continue to capitalize on new opportunities for increased engagement and offer more immersive, personalized guest experiences.
When issues arise, we handle them effectively and efficiently. We're known for our exceptional customer service worldwide and remain committed to providing responsive customer-centric service to all of our partners.
BROOKE FIUMARA: At OPTX, our biggest challenge is to gather data from various sources on a site. It takes a lot of time and effort to properly set up a customer's data and align it with our operations.
However, our top priority is to make sure that the data is accurate and relevant to the customer's business. This is why we are constantly improving our processes to ensure that our data is thoroughly tested before every launch, both internally and with our partners.
JEFF BALDI: Almost 30 years ago, Chad Hoehne, our CEO, designed and built a Linux ecosystem using COBOL platforms designed for business, government and finance.
Today, CasinoTrac remains unhacked, even when ‘racked’ next to systems that have been penetrated and pillaged. Fortunately, elegant and diligent design has kept us and our customers from the worst of emergencies: data breach and loss. Of course, good security is more than system design.
CasinoTrac employs a three-layer proprietary program for system and data security. A blend of physical security, infrastructure design and specific, segregated interface models along with custom-designed, proactive monitoring and detection solutions are deployed with all our installations. It’s pretty cool - we haven’t lost one yet!
The most common ‘emergencies’ we deal with are power and data outages. Fortunately, and thanks to Chad’s original design, our servers start immediately and pick up right where they left off…just like a refrigerator.
