Making Bets and Winning

Other plus marks that helped win over Stokes are the CT4i's easy paper loading feature, ability to handle Imagineering's 4.25-inch wide tickets and ability to have both serial and parallel ports.

The parallel printer port is standard, but if you order a serial port, you get it as an addition, explains Stokes. "If you have a POS terminal that does parallel and serial, you can use the same printer simultaneously; you don't need to order another option. It's the only desktop I'm aware of that does this," he says.

The CT4i's clear and sharp printing is not only a benefit to the brand-name recognition needs of casinos, hotels and Indian reservation gaming houses, it also ensures highquality barcodes and resulting high first-scan read rates. The barcodes, in UPC-A symbology, are scanned at the POS terminal when the customer says he has a winner. Scanning verifies the winning ticket with the computerized terminal's records and the POS system authorizes payment. Imagineering's auditing system tracks how much is in the keno operator's drawer, how much is played, how much is paid out, all in real time, says Garritson. The result is a complete package.

While small in size, SATO's high-speed CT4i desktop printer is winning the challenges facing Imagineering Systems-both ones put on it by keno players placing bets and those making a percentage from them.

Imagineering Systems, the world's largest computerized keno maker, hit the jackpot on both numbers with a new direct thermal desktop printer, the CT4i from SATO America. “The small barcode printer creates the high-quality graphics Imagineering's customers demand, and prints them in record time”, says Curt Garritson, production manager.