Mastering the Slot Game

Typically, game developers and product managers at slot manufacturers are either mathematicians or engineers who came up through the ranks, or former casino slot managers who crossed over to the supplier side.

Mike Trask, chief product officer at Eclipse Gaming Systems, built his slot expertise by working for manufacturers that boasted the best slot professionals in the business.

Neither the slot business nor the casino industry was on Trask’s radar growing up in Buffalo, New York, or while earning a journalism degree at nearby St. Bonaventure University. As fate would have it, after working for the Associated Press and ESPN, he landed a job as a reporter at the Las Vegas Sun and relocated to the gaming capital.

After two years at the Sun and a stint as press secretary for a Southern Nevada politician, Trask landed the job that would allow his development as an executive in the gaming supply sector—and ultimately define his later career. He joined then-Bally Technologies in 2011 as communications manager.

By the time the mergers of Bally, WMS and Shuffle Master created Scientific Games in 2014, Trask was senior manager of corporate communications. Within two years, he was senior manager of gaming division marketing, before moving to what would be his longest-tenured job in slot supply, at Ainsworth Game Technology. He worked his way there from director of product marketing and strategy to vice president of product strategy and marketing beginning in late 2021.

At Scientific Games and Ainsworth, Trask moved from the communications function to marketing, and ultimately slot product strategy, by interacting with legends of the slot supply business—Gavin Isaacs, the Gaming Hall of Famer who became CEO of Scientific Games; highly regarded slot developers like Mike Mitchell at Bally, Loren Nelson at Bally and Ainsworth, and Keith Kruczynski, also at both companies; and the Ainsworth North America CEO who brought him to that company, Mike Dreitzer—now chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board.

Working with the experts made Trask an expert himself in the slot craft, including game development—which led Ainsworth to make him head of its Austin, Texas game studio in 2024. It also prompted Eclipse CEO Tim Minard to tap him last year as the prominent Class II supplier’s new chief product officer.

Trask comments that his journey from the newsroom to the C-Suite would not have been possible without the good fortune of working at the top slot suppliers in the business.

“Bally in that era was really at its peak,” he says. “The role at Bally allowed me to see many different styles of leadership and different ways of doing business in this industry, in a very short amount of time.

“This was a group of people who are now working in high-level jobs across the industry. I can’t think of a better way to learn this thing we call gaming manufacturing, and with the unique seat I had at that company, I had a front-row seat.”

The experience at Ainsworth, where Trask spent nearly 10 years, was no less formative. “Mike Dreitzer, Deron Hunsberger (now Ainsworth president, North America) and David Bolleson (Ainsworth chief product officer) gave me so much room to explore the business, whether on the gaming operations side, or Ainsworth entering Class II and historical horse racing. It allowed me to go from marketing to product management, and by the end of my time at the company, I was making games.”

Trask considers this a natural progression, given the expertise to which he was exposed over the years. In fact, he has already made a big impact at Eclipse, refining that company’s game development process, drilling down into the details of each new game being developed, and bringing in an array of new talent on the development side.

This year will see the culmination of those efforts, as Eclipse produces new game styles and cultivates its partnership with Interblock, which has produced the first electronic table games for Class II.

“I’m responsible for the product but also get to make an impact in gaming operations, marketing and in the QA process,” he says. “But ultimately, this is a product-based business, and my priority above all else at Eclipse is to deliver strong-performing games.”

Personally, Trask still marvels at the blessings gaming has afforded him. “It’s afforded me an incredible life,” he says. “I met my wife in this business. We have a little girl who writes ‘Mommy and Daddy make slot machines’ at school. It’s provided me an incredible life, and I’m very grateful for the people who have helped me make that happen.”