Winner’s Circle | 2013

An entire theater built upon a motorized turntable. The Winner’s Circle spun guests through four storytelling environments to reveal the unexpected potential of online casino gaming.

Client:  International Gaming Technology (IGT)
Audience:  casino operators
Role:  experiential creative lead, art direction, interaction design

Intuiting the counterintuitive

International Game Technology built its legacy in the 1980s bringing digital innovation and pop culture inspiration to slot machines. In 2013, they were once again poised to disrupt the casino industry when they purchased Double Down, the number one online casino game on Facebook. Rather than exciting casino operators, this move set off alarm bells in the industry. We were tasked with showing that online and offline casino gaming were not antithetical to one another, and that the integration of the two would actually create a seamless social gaming experience.

Spinning the story

The Winner’s Circle is a motorized carousel spinning a 360° immersive experience. Once on board, the audience travels through three miniature movie-theater environments. A story unfolds on screen about friends who play casino games together online — and in real life at the casino. Each chair in the theater is equipped with a second screen where the audience sees how the online gaming experience encourages a social community around gaming at casinos.

Coming full circle

Their experience culminates with a rapid-fire slot machine tournament with on-screen reels that correspond to the audiences seat numbers. Colorful lighting illuminates the seat of the winner, timed perfectly with celebratory on-screen fireworks.

Becoming a signal in noise

Casino operators live and breathe in the attention economy, so enticing them to visit the Winner’s Circle amidst a dizzying exhibition floor of hundreds of gaming displays of dozens of gaming companies was no small task. But despite the competition, Winner’s Circle was a resounding success. The ride ran at full capacity for 3 days resulting in 2,160 fully immersive interactions, each lasting a full 16 minutes. Media hits increased 27 percent compared to the previous year and Exhibitor Magazine did a feature story on the experience.

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