Casino Arizona and Talking Stick Resort, located just outside Scottsdale, Arizona, has become a premier Grand Canyon State destination for dining, shopping and nightlife since opening, respectively, in 1998 and 2010. Each week, thousands of visitors come through both properties to enjoy the amenities, which include a 240,000-square-foot casino—one of the largest in Arizona—Las Vegas-style entertainment and 36 holes of championship-level golf at the Talking Stick Golf Club.
Enhancing the guest experience is paramount for both Casino Arizona and Talking Stick Resort. A few years ago the casino decided it wanted to give the 500-seat poker room at Talking Stick Resort an image, says Bryant Santini, chief information officer for both properties. “It wasn’t enough to just have a high-quality gaming space. We wanted to include something which could be iconic of the room itself.”
For each challenge throughout Casino Arizona and Talking Stick Resort, the designers needed a commercial-grade display solution that could offer full HD resolution, sustainability and be able to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week as needed. Ultra-thin bezels were also a high priority in order to create seamless images in multi-display deployments.
Considering the factors of picture quality, stability, availability and cost, Santini says he and his team chose to go withNEC Display Solutions’ X551UN display. The 55” ultra-narrow, professional-grade, large-screen display is designed for the rigors of 24/7 operation in a variety of applications. It was these features, says Santini, that convinced his team—which included Steve Tolle, manager of infrastructure and the organization’s business partners—to go with NEC.
To address the desire for a distinctive image for the poker room at Talking Stick Resort, a scoreboard concept was implemented.
“The X551UN was set up in a 2x2 tiled design on a four-sided scoreboard similar to those hanging in major sports arenas. Each side of the four displays work together to show a single larger image, similar to a video wall,” says Santini.
Sporting events, advertisements and entertainment information are displayed to enhance guests’ overall experience. To add to the sports feel, a ticker was installed below the displays that provides updates on the latest sporting events in real time. The scoreboard itself became so iconic for the poker room that the space became known nationally as “The Arena at Talking Stick Resort.”