Horseshoe Hammond's present as vibrant as its future

Rick Mazer, senior vice president and general manager of Horseshoe Casino Hammond, is a very busy man these days as he coordinates activities leading up to this summer's much anticipated opening of the new $485-million casino complex.

Equally engaged with a multitude of important tasks is Penny Parayo, the property's vice president of slot operations. Her responsibilities include not only planning for the new facility, but keeping the current vessel up-to-date with the newest products.

"One of my personal goals is to make sure we have fresh product all the time," Parayo told me. "In fact, up to the last minute as we transfer into the new facility you will see that we will be very aggressive in bringing in the latest and greatest."

Recent additions to the lower level of the casino include some new themes in WMS Gaming's innovative "G Plus" line of cabinetry and interface, as well as the first two releases in the company's Sensory Immersion line, "The Wizard of Oz" and "Top Gun", plus both releases in the company's Transmissive Reels line, "Monopoly Super Money Grab" and "John Wayne".

"Horseshoe will be one of the first properties in this market to bring in the new Bally Game Maker video poker," Parayo revealed.

Bally is hopeful the new Game Maker platform will compete successfully with IGT's established Game King video poker machines. Six units featuring high definition display on a wide screen, with a choice of playing denominations and as many as 11 game formats, are slated for installation on the lower level in the video poker zone.

The new Horseshoe's slot machine capacity will increase from the current 1,934 units to 3,200. This gives Parayo the opportunity to plan for new video poker products currently unavailable because of a lack of space.

"You will see an increased number of (video poker) offerings," she said. "There will be more progressives with very competitive pay tables in terms of what's out there in this market. We'll be able to offer more low-denomination video poker. Right now we just don't have the space for games like low-denom 50-play and 100-play."

Parayo also told me that there are plans to dismantle a bank of machines on the top level of the casino and replace them with Konami's new "Advantage 5" series, which features five full-size spinning reels, top-box lighting with 3-D visual effects, and back-lit reels which can display up to 256 colors. "Vibrant 7's", the first release in the line, will be in place at Horseshoe later this month or in early May.