Industry

Illinois terminal operator

Employees

100+

Revenue

$50M+, growing rapidly

Deployed assets

Nearly 2,000

Active locations

450+ and growing

Partnership since

2016

Executive summary

This paper describes what was built, how it is run, and what a long-term engineering partnership looks like when the customer operates under the oversight of the Illinois Gaming Board.

The business and its constraints

Universal Gaming Group is a terminal operator in Illinois. It places and services gaming terminals in hundreds of establishments, collects and reconciles the money those terminals generate, and reports on all of it. Every part of that process happens under the regulatory oversight of the Illinois Gaming Board, so compliance is not optional and records must be accurate, complete, and traceable.

Growth adds pressure in every direction. Nearly 2,000 deployed assets across more than 450 active locations means more cash to handle, more promotions to coordinate, more purchase orders to approve, and more partners who expect timely numbers. A company at this scale cannot run on spreadsheets and email threads for long, and it cannot afford software that breaks under load or leaves gaps in its audit trail.

The solution: one portal, three audiences

The internal business portal was designed as a single source of truth. Rather than a set of disconnected tools, it gives each group at Universal Gaming, and each of its partners, a view of the same underlying data.

Vault operations

Vault operations are where accuracy matters most. McFallsTech integrated the portal with the vault's equipment, including the latest Cummins currency sorter and MEI SoftCount cash boxes, so that counting, sorting, and recording flow through one connected process instead of being handled in separate steps.

What used to take 20 hours now takes 5, with more accuracy and far fewer errors. I know every minute of every day where all the money is, where it's going, and where it should be.

Bryce Harris, Vice President of Operations, credits the McFallsTech partnership with bringing the vault to a level he describes as top tier in Illinois. The result is a process that feels effortless to the people running it and is fully accountable to the people who audit it.

Marketing operations

Universal Gaming serves a wide range of customers and tracks many hundreds of marketing promotions. The portal follows those promotions and handles the steady daily flow of purchase orders and marketing requests, giving the team one place to submit and follow each item.

Sarah Danet, Marketing Manager, says it is much easier to manage the myriad purchase orders and requests the team receives each day. She is also candid that more improvements are needed. That feedback loop is a strength: the portal is a living system, and marketing's priorities feed directly into the development roadmap.

The partner portal

To make sure customers always have up-to-date information, McFallsTech created a partner portal. Partners sign in to see their own performance without waiting on a phone call or a monthly report. Universal Gaming considers it the best customer portal in the state.

There's no better way to get my numbers and know how well I'm doing in gaming.

Technology and architecture

The platform runs on a purpose-built internal infrastructure designed for speed and security. It uses modern Linux servers in a modern datacenter, with fully encrypted keys and tokens.

Security by design

A regulated cash business has to assume its systems will be examined. The platform treats security as part of every layer rather than a final review step.

• Encryption keys and tokens are fully encrypted, and McFallsTech is responsible for their safety and security.
• CI/CD deployments follow modern techniques for privacy and security integrity, so changes reach production through a consistent, repeatable path.
• Infrastructure is hosted in a datacenter built for both speed and security.

Built for change

Ruby, Python, and Go each serve the backend's automation needs, and the developer-friendly environment McFallsTech maintains keeps new work fast to build and safe to ship. That is how a system started in 2016 continues to absorb new equipment, new promotions, and hundreds of new locations.

A partnership, not a project

Most software projects end at launch. This one did not. Universal Gaming describes McFallsTech as an integral part of the company, and credits that relationship as part of why Universal Gaming has grown into one of the top five operators in the state.

McFallsTech's role covers the full lifecycle:

• Project scoping that turns operational problems into clear technical plans.
• Server spin-up and configuration for new environments and capacity.
• Database management and configuration, including performance and integrity.
• Writing and deploying production code for portal features and integrations.
• A developer-friendly environment that keeps engineering productive.
• Safety and security of encryption keys across systems and tokens.
• Network troubleshooting alongside Universal Gaming's network team.

Because one team understands the business, the code, the servers, and the network, problems get solved in one conversation instead of being handed between vendors.

Results

• Vault processing time cut from 20 hours to 5, with higher accuracy and far fewer errors.
• Continuous visibility into cash: the Vault Manager knows where all money is, where it is going, and where it should be at every moment.
• Vault operations rated top tier in Illinois by the VP of Operations.
• Simpler marketing workflows for hundreds of promotions and a daily stream of purchase orders and requests.
• A partner portal that gives customers on-demand access to their own numbers.
• Growth supported for a decade, to 450+ locations and a place among the top five operators in Illinois.

Lessons for other regulated operators

Integrate the hardware. The largest gains came from connecting equipment directly to the portal so data is captured once, at the source.

Give every audience a view. Operations, marketing, and partners all work from the same data, which removes disputes about whose numbers are right.

Invest in the long term. A platform that is scoped, secured, and maintained by the same team for years accumulates knowledge that a series of short engagements cannot.

Keep improving. Marketing's view that more improvements are needed is a sign of a healthy system. The roadmap stays alive because the people using it keep asking for more.

Quotations are attributed to Universal Gaming Group personnel and partners and reflect their own assessments. Product names, including Cummins and MEI SoftCount, are the property of their respective owners.