Fortune Favors the Bold
Ten years after the launch of Jeopardy! in 1964, legendary television producer Merv Griffin had another puzzle-solving game idea. As the nation first saw on January 6, 1975, it consisted of three simple words that have embedded themselves into American lore: Wheel! Of! Fortune!
In the subsequent half-century, the show has become a seminal piece of pop culture, a comforting mainstay that has transcended multiple generations. Each of the 8,000-plus episodes has elicited a range of emotions for viewers across the country, including the thrill of correct puzzle guesses, the silliness of off-the-wall flubs and anguish over every “Bankrupt” spin.
By the late ’80s and early ’90s, the success of the show and the growth of the U.S. casino industry began to make the two sides increasingly attractive to each other. As the story goes, the collaboration was set in motion when former IGT Chairman Charles Mathewson struck up a conversation with an executive from Sony Pictures Television at an awards dinner. The partnership was not an easy sell, as there had never been a licensed commercial slot theme at that point. Gaming itself also carried much more of a negative stigma than it does today.
But ultimately, the vision came together, and by 1996, the first IGT-Wheel crossover game—a simple video slot—was launched, albeit without a wheel. That key piece had already been patented by Anchor Gaming, and at first IGT opted to lease the technology before ultimately acquiring Anchor outright in 2001 for $1.36 billion. From there, the Wheel of Fortune slot brand took off at full speed, and has become cemented as the most iconic game series the industry has seen.
IGT has produced more than 250 iterations of Wheel games, and the series has paid out over $3.5 billion in jackpots, including 1,100 jackpots of at least $1 million. Last June, IGT extended its licensing rights deal with Sony for another 10 years, providing players with more Wheel games through at least 2034.
Moving forward, the next chapter of the Wheel franchise will include new simultaneous launches in video poker, video lottery terminals (VLTs) and electronic table games (ETGs). This is the first time the company has ventured to migrate a theme across all three verticals at once, but what better way to start than with the golden goose?
New Show, New Games
The decision to launch the Wheel brand into three new segments was made with timing in mind. The Global Gaming Expo, the ultimate stage for new game releases, is right around the corner; the show itself is also set to enter a new age following the retirement of longtime host Pat Sajak earlier this year.
“When we were thinking about Wheel of Fortune, we thought that this would be a great time to bring this brand into other gaming verticals,” says Nick Khin, IGT’s president of global gaming. “Wheel of Fortune as a program on television has undergone some big changes itself, with Ryan Seacrest iow hosting. We thought this is just the right time for us to really launch brand new Wheel of Fortune content into the market, and at G2E this year, a huge section of our booth will be dedicated to it.”
In terms of launching Wheel of Fortune games into new segments, Khin says the video poker launch will come first. Players can expect those games to hit casino floors early next year, with the ETG and VLT versions coming in the third quarter.
IGT has long had a leading position in the video poker sector—according to July’s Eilers-Fantini Game Performance Report, the company holds all of the top 24 spots in the Top Indexing Games for the video poker and keno category. The Cabinet Performance Report from the same period also shows IGT holding the three highest-indexing video poker cabinets. The infusion of the Wheel brand represents an opportunity for the supplier to marry strength on strength.
Khin says his team is “very proud of our poker business and product lineup,” including the rollouts of multiple new cabinets and the PeakBarTop unit in the last five years. When it came time to approach a potential Wheel-poker collaboration, it was essential to “stay true” to both the brand and the formula that has made the company’s poker division so successful for so long.
“We wanted to make sure that players could still find their popular poker games, but we wanted to also add Wheel of Fortune to it, and with the game that we’re coming out with, I think we’ve managed to do that and bring the excitement of the Wheel spin and bring the excitement of solving a puzzle to our traditional poker games,” he explains.
“In our game design process, we focus on creating new experiences that are meaningful to players,” adds Tifani Chowdhry, IGT’s vice president, global VLT and poker content. “Adding proven Wheel of Fortune mechanics to IGT video poker is a perfect example of how we can combine two properties to generate something new that can really differentiate our customers’ gaming floors and enhance the player experience.
“Introducing the Wheel of Fortune brand to IGT’s video poker and VLT content portfolios is an exciting opportunity given the widespread popularity of the brand and IGT’s leadership in both segments.”
Overall, the previous success of both its product lines and the Wheel series do not guarantee future success, or at least, that’s what the company has embraced in its development process for this latest expansion.
“Regardless of whether it’s going into ETG, or whether it’s a video poker game or a VLT game or a core casino game or a premium casino game, we have to make sure we live up to players’ expectations in terms of the gaming experience that they expect with the Wheel of Fortune brand,” Khin asserts.
Turning the (Electronic) Tables
Whereas video poker is IGT’s signature staple, ETGs are a new avenue in which the company is investing heavily. Its GameAce solution and Mesa 4K hardware have expanded greatly, and officials say there are currently more than 100 units in play across the country after installations first began in June.
Luigi Cacciapuoti, IGT’s vice president of specialty product and ETG, says the company has emphasized research and development as it continues to grow its presence in the sector.
“We wanted to give a clear differentiation versus the past because this is a completely new offering,” Cacciapuoti says. “We rewrote everything. Every line of code, everything is new and we really want to offer something that at the same time would be exciting for the players and valuable for our customers. So we made sure that we are answering the needs of both.”
He notes that serviceability was a huge priority for the product line, with the goal of ensuring that “all of the elements are easy to inspect and work on” while also “giving the players something compelling, fun and exciting” to play.
With regard to the Wheel ETG integration, the company will attempt to recreate the experience of the show in a different way than the slot games can offer. The first crossover product will be a standalone offering, and of course, the wheel will be a prominent feature.
“We are combining very familiar mechanics of the big 6 wheel with the most iconic and recognizable elements of the show and of Wheel of Fortune slot games,” Cacciapuoti says. “So the first release is a standalone product dedicated to Wheel of Fortune. I can’t disclose too much yet, but be ready for a ‘big’ presence on the casino floor.”
Over time, he explains, the company expects to “progressively integrate more elements” into future games. Given that ETGs occupy a big footprint on the casino floor, the new offering could very well be “one of the most recognizable casino products” in the near future.
The contingent of slot players who love Wheel games also trumps the number of those who are hardcore ETG players, so the company hopes to foster some migration between the two sides with the integration. Table game play is much harder to learn than the average slot, and the familiarity of the Wheel theme paired with the ease and accessibility of ETGs should do well to lessen the learning curve.
“The ETG takes a lot of stress out of the table game experience, and some people really like the pace because traditional table game play can be a little daunting for new players,” Cacciapuoti says. “We really believe that these have a lot of attraction power on the floor. And connecting it to a proven and known game mechanic, we wanted to make sure that in the end there are no entrance barriers for the player.”
“The VLT version of Wheel of Fortune is designed to stand out in any gaming space,” says Chowdhry. “We’ve incorporated many of the iconic Wheel of Fortune elements that have propelled the slot family for so many years, and presented them in a way that aligns with VLT standards and player expectations.”
Worldwide, Omnichannel Appeal
Perhaps the biggest indication of the success of the Wheel of Fortune franchise is its growth in international markets. In addition to the U.S. expansions, IGT is looking to grow its Wheel offerings elsewhere around the world, most notably through VLTs and iGaming. The VLT additions will fall along the same timeline as ETGs, but the online component is already well on its way.
IGT and BetMGM teamed up this August to launch the first-ever international Wheel of Fortune online casino in Ontario, Canada, which has shown itself to be an extremely successful online market, on par with the biggest U.S. states. The two sides previously collaborated to launch a Wheel-branded online casino in New Jersey last year.
In a statement, IGT PlayDigital President Gil Rotem called Ontario “a dynamic iGaming market that readily embraces omnichannel IGT PlayDigital games such as Wheel of Fortune slots.” Suzanne Prete, president of game shows for Sony Pictures Television, added that “BetMGM’s Wheel of Fortune Casino creates an inviting space for players to enjoy all of their favorite IGT Wheel of Fortune games in one place and in a way that resonates with slot players and game show fans alike.”
On the land-based side, North America has a big VLT market that will benefit from the Wheel integration. David Flinn, IGT’s senior vice president of sales for Canada and Latin America, explains that Canadian lotteries embrase new products that can broaden the player base without overly impacting any single demographic.
“I think Wheel of Fortune has a tremendous amount of opportunity in that space for many reasons,” he says. “Wheel of Fortune is a recognizable brand that may bring new or lapsed players into the VLT space.”
This idea also translates to other VLT markets both in the U.S. and across the world, such as Italy, Greece, Sweden, Finland, Norway and more. As Finn says, the brand “definitely has global reach” from a popularity perspective.
Migrating content is nothing new for IGT, and the sales experience gleaned from previous launches will help as it expands the Wheel series to three new segments at the same time. Finn notes that the company “started deploying slot games online in Canada 10 years ago” and has become adept at crisscrossing channels for popular titles.
“The content that does the best, at least on the North American side of the market, is always the slot content,” he explains. “It’s always those traditional titles that people know and love inside the land-based environment; they transfer very well to the digital space.”
As the Wheel brand continues to evolve, so too does IGT—the company will merge with fellow supplier Everi Holdings and the combined entity will be taken private under Apollo Global Management.
The $6.3 billion deal was announced July 26, and although it provides plenty of questions yet to be answered, one thing remains clear: Wheel of Fortune will be a central piece of the equation moving forward, and the parties involved will continue to prioritize gaming’s most valuable brand.
“There’s a high expectation among our customers and our players; they expect a great gaming experience on the floor when it comes to Wheel of Fortune,” Khin says. “We spend a lot of time thinking about how we can make sure that we can get the best product, the best Wheel of Fortune game out there regardless of the vertical that it is going into.”
