I caught this last night, “New machines make slots a multiplayer game” (Link), and while sleeping on it hasn’t yielded any additional insight, there’s something intriguing about the idea of mashing up casino slot gambling with – of all things – an MMORPG. I can’t find the original article on Reuters, so here are a few excerpts from the C\Net site:

Slot machine makers, keen to find a new selling point for a traditional game, are trying to increase the social aspect of slots by linking up machines so players can share payouts and the thrill of winning.
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The trend began last year with the latest edition of the popular Wheel of Fortune slot game from International Game Technology, which allows up to nine players to sit around a large spinning wheel and share in the winnings.
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“A powerful and developing trend over the next two years will be the movement toward multistation, communal play gaming devices,” Merrill Lynch analyst David Anders said in a note.
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Aristocrat’s Oneile said multiplayer slots could eventually integrate into a network environment, known as server-based gaming, which is heralded as the next big advance in gambling technology and would allow casinos to download the latest games from a central server onto individual machines.

Some things come to mind:

– mass social acceptance of LAN parties
– cosplay coming to America
– the appearance of “gambling guilds”
– roleplaying theme hotels springing up near casinos
– growth in cottage industries supporting these activities

There are probably other potential developments, but like I said, sleeping on it didn’t help. However, I’m tucking this one away for another round later.