May 6, 2016 4 min read

A crowd grew in a circle, mesmerized by the light-and-sound show emanating from the towering new device, as Doreen Latona purposefully punched buttons.

“I love this machine. I played it in Vegas just a couple of weeks ago,” said Latona, a Canonsburg resident and likely the only player on The Meadows Casino floor experienced with The Behemoth, a multistationed slots machine that certainly lives up to its name.

Casino officials unveiled its latest large gaming attraction Friday morning, and it was a jackpot to the senses. The Behemoth is 10 feet tall, 4 ½ feet wide and circular, with three playing consoles featuring 84-inch high-definition video monitors. Each station has a bench that seats two, and if you win, the surround sound makes you tingle – literally.

“If you play ‘Buffalo Stampede,’ you’ll feel like you’re really in a buffalo stampede,” said Michael Jankoviak, director of slot operations at the local casino.

Two monitors featured “Buffalo Stampede,” the other “The Big Bang Theory,” based on the TV megahit.

The Behemoth was making its Pennsylvania debut Friday, as The Meadows beat out the other 11 casinos in the commonwealth to the machine made by Aristocrat Technologies of Australia. Jankoviak was responsible for its presence in North Strabane Township.

“I saw it at a gaming show in Las Vegas, where companies unveil their products,” he said. “Out there, it’s kind of like, ‘Try it before you buy it.’

“We stepped up to the plate. We want to be on the cutting edge and will try anything if it makes sense.”

Winning on the new machine is probably easier than transporting it. Jankoviak said The Behemoth arrived in 16 crates.

“It took most of Wednesday to install,” he said. “It took two technicians from Aristocrat and four of ours.”

Only 15 months earlier, The Meadows debuted a similar slots station called Titan360 – also appropriately named. Konami Gaming of Japan made that gaming gargantuan, which is 10 feet tall, 11 feet wide, weighs 5,800 pounds and has eight single gaming seats.

The Titan360 is gone, essentially displaced by The Behemoth.

“It is a shiny new toy,” Sean Sullivan, vice president and general manager of The Meadows Racetrack & Casino. “People like a shiny new toy.

“I started in this 35 years ago and never imagined a device like this. We’ve gone from a pretty simple world to a pretty sophisticated world.”

Stepping up its slots game is essential at The Meadows Casino, as slots play accounts for an estimated 75 percent of business there. Table games are second.

The Meadows, actually, is experiencing a bigger transition than replacing a Titan with a Behemoth. Gaming and Leisure Properties Inc. of Wyomissing, in eastern Pennsylvania, is a few months from officially owning the entertainment facility. In late March, GLPI completed a $138 million deal to sell The Meadows’ gaming licenses and assets to Pinnacle Entertainment Inc., a Las Vegas casino operator.

The new machine did make an impression Friday, though, as media members were the first to play it, followed by invited guests, then the general public. Media people played courtesy of the casino, with no money exchanged, but their “winnings” translated into real dollars donated by the casino. The Meadows gave $2,000 to the Greater Washington County Food Bank.

The Behemoth came up big on its first day in Washington County, and Doreen Latona was thrilled to be playing it again. “I’m here too much,” she said, laughing but pausing only a nanosecond to look at an interviewer.

What do you like most about this, she was asked.

“Winning money,” Latona responded immediately. “Really, this is fun.”

So it was on the first day.