This is the latest in Kevin Williams' series of reports from the leading cities around the world, revealing the true state of the gaming and amusement market and the new trends that are shaping it.

This feature continues the review of the UK portion of the market with a look at the gleaming Scottish capital, Edinburgh. It is a vibrant market that offers not only seaside fun, but casinos, slots and the emergence of the new edutainment experience.

The city of Edinburgh covers a 30 square mile urban area with a population of over 440,000. It is a beautiful city with over 4,000 listed buildings. It is famous for its festivals and military tattoo and attracts over a million visitors a year, second only in this respect to London.

The unusual demographics of the city include the historic city as well as the Portobello beach and seaside area that offers a broad range of entertainment opportunities.

The area includes entertainment such as the Edinburgh Dungeon and Edinburgh Zoo, but also includes more conventional entertainment. Compared with the last Scottish city covered in this series, Glasgow, Edinburgh offers a totally different amusement experience.

For one thing there is video amusement in this city, plus the emergence of new interactive attractions. The amusement scene is split between the seafront facilities and the inner city, each respectively catering for tourists and work-a-day gamers.

Family entertainment centres

One of the largest of the entertainment facilities in the seaside area, Fun Park Amusements offers a conventional mix of redemption, gaming and video amusement. The venue is a family hot spot, especially given the changeable weather of the area. The site has a strong following of local players and makes an effort to support those locals.

It is one of the few Bemani machine operators and the player forums have been buzzing about the Dancing Stage Super Nova machine from Konami, with players battling for the highest score.

Owned by Noble Leisure, Nobles Amusements is the largest of the seaside facilities in the area and offers an eclectic mix of family entertainment centre, party rooms, fast food and deli. The site is split over two floors, the first floor having the majority of the video amusement titles, including dedicated drivers, prize bingo and AWP/SWP gaming machines. This is supported by a deli and a climbing and trampoline environment for children next to the family party room.

The second floor of the facility comprises of a laser tag arena adjacent to a bowling alley. A Motown Bar offers adult entertainment, supported by American pool tables and big screen sports in a hospitality area. The site is a spectacular late-night environment with live music and private parties.

The venue is rightly proud of its mix of fun and food. The all-cash prize machines area extremely popular with the tourist influx throughout the season. The venue has an extensive selection of video amusement games, including some large systems such as a RealSports motion tracking simulator.

Slot machines and gaming

The impressive Quicksilver on the main street is a gaming hall that features the more traditional reel and slot machines, but also has incorporated some of the latest video gaming terminals to offer variety. The site has extensive themeing inside the historic building, with a cafeteria. The venue has over 40 machines from the oldest to the latest and builds on a strong inner city following.

The city centre has a varied smattering of the more traditional gaming venues - sites such as the Johnny’s Amusements, housing over 20 fruit machines and serving refreshments. This is supported by Nicolson Street’s amusements facility offering more of the same.

Another example is Lothian Amusements, an over-18s venue that houses pinball and arcade games, the closest that the city has to a traditional arcade. Slot Amusement Casino is another traditional slot machine venue; the site offers a glimpse of the old style, with dark décor and a good spread of cash prize gaming machines and absolutely no new technology. No new video SWPs or machines younger than a few years old.

As seen across the UK, the traditional slot machine parlour is under stiff attack from the licensed betting office sector and their fixed odds betting terminals. Of the estimated 9,000 LBOs in the UK, a good slice reside in Scotland, offering a pull to the gaming pound in the population’s pocket. However, these sites don’t have it all their own way.

Another aspect of the Edinburgh gaming scenery is casinos. Not visited on this trip were the Gala Maybury Casino Edinburgh, the Maxims Casino Edinburgh, and the Circus Casino Edinburgh (previously Stanley Casino Edinburgh), newly refurbished and well appointed venues, using the latest hardware, including electronic roulette and slot lounges.

Bingo and cinema

Along with the traditional style of slot machine and gaming site, there is the traditional bingo empire. This is best illustrated by the New Empire Bingo, also on Nicolson Street. This is the older style of venue and the hall’s name doesn’t reflect the reality of the traditional prize bingo environment.

A dying breed in the rest of the UK, this venue offers a service for the community with a well lit and clean meeting and gaming environment that also serves lunch and traditional meals.

But the future of bingo is not all washed up. Mecca Bingo represents the modern face of bingo as represented in the Fountainpark Dundee shopping complex in the city centre that also includes the Circus Casino mentioned previously.

The new face of bingo mixes the traditional with a sleek and well presented experience. An example of the post smoking ban operation the, the Mecca club has conventional tables, supported by 28 slot machines along with AW’s and cash prize machines. This environment is supported by an extensive hospitality (bar and café) area.

The Edinburgh Cineworld cinema is an example of the new multiplex style of movie theatre, located in the same sleek new complex in the city as the Mecca. The 3,000 seat, 13-screen theatre represents the modern face of the movie experience.

The venue includes an extensive retail component and amusements, with three dedicated video games that sit alongside the concession stalls. Though a small placement, it still shows that amusement offers valuable revenue. Other cinemas in the city reflect the more pedestrian layout without any amusement.

Interactive attraction

Though there are lots of tourist attractions in this tourist capital, they represent the old style of ‘passive’ single visitation site. However, Edinburgh includes a next-generation attraction. Dynamic Earth was developed as part of the urban regeneration plan funded by Millennium Commission, in a building cost of £39m, finally opened in 1999 in what has to be called a striking building.

Comprising both an educational experience, with galleries and special interactive attractions, the site is comprised of five galleries including The Future Dome, The Tropical Rainforest, Time Machine, Polar Extremes and Oceans exhibits. These areas show the changing face of the landscape of Scotland and surrounding area, along with information on the possibilities of climate change and urban renewal.

The unique element of this venue is the interactive component. The Future Dome is a world’s first, with projection on a 360-degree dome, rotating platforms and genuine visitor interaction. It offers 96 possible different outcomes, so every visit presents a new possible future. This is a repeat attraction that looks at local audiences as well as tourists as its target.

Hospitality sector

The amusement dimension is not excluded only to the slot machine emporiums, bingo and family entertainment centres. Edinburgh, like most of the UK, has seen a growing penetration of SWP machines into the bar and club market.

The Scottish capital is littered with a growing selection of upmarket watering holes that have now added next door to their cigarette machines the new revenue earner of prize amusement.
A number of facilities have replaced their more traditional AWPs with the smoother lines and bigger returns of SWPs.

The latest venues have dedicated areas to house two or three machines rather than a single installation. As the cigarette ban starts to hit home, a need to make up the shortfall is seeing gaming as a natural successor.

What this could all mean

Edinburgh proved a real eye-opener with regard to the penetration of interactive entertainment in a major city. Where Glasgow had been a desert, Edinburgh was a vibrant garden, both for gaming, but also for video entertainment, fuelled by a mix of tourism and a highly sophisticated gambling mentality among the populous.

The question has to be: is Edinburgh an example of the way that the UK will migrate towards a gaming environment, or is this the beginning of a gradual evolution away from traditional amusement and slot halls as the core audience changes, replaced by high intensity FOBT and refurbished gaming venues?