Now a leader in providing high-speed broadband and network technology to the global gaming and hospitality industries, ReadyLinks might never have been born at all if not for one memorable night in Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota.
They say the universe works in mysterious ways, and for Larry Synstelien it’s a proverb that hits remarkably close to home.
Synstelien, an engineer by trade, was enjoying a few beers with friends on a dock in Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota, one evening in 2003 when – keen to solve the world’s problems as one does in such situations – conversation turned to the disastrous quality of the broadband they endured whenever they stayed in hotels.
“We had this concept of what we thought would be a good idea, and it was the concept of distributing high-speed broadband across the hospitality industry, specifically,” Synstelien recalls.
“We were a bunch of technical guys and our basic notion was, ‘Hey, we travel a lot and every time we go to a hotel our broadband sucks. How come it’s so terrible? Can we design something that will fix that for us? And if we fix it for us, I bet there is somebody out there that would be interested in us fixing it for them too’.
“I wrote it all down on a napkin and it was only because I lived about 90 seconds away from the dock that I went home that night, typed up our solution and emailed it out to two companies. I forgot about it for a week, then one of those companies came back to me to say, ‘Hey, we’re interested’. We spent the next 30 days building that solution for them, went into the meeting, plugged it in and we did a handshake deal on the spot.”
Although Synstelien didn’t know it at the time, that handshake was to be the birth of ReadyLinks, a leading provider of networking technology to the hospitality industry (among others) enabling high-speed internet and data services over existing building wiring without the need for costly rewiring.
Today, ReadyLinks generates significant revenues and from the hospitality, gaming, telecom and cable provider industries.
Its customer list features the likes of MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment, Station Casinos, Treasure Island, Circus Circus, Verizon and Lumen and it maintains strong strategic relationships with gaming providers IGT and Light & Wonder, because it turns out the solutions ReadyLinks provides happen to be perfectly suited to the needs of the global gaming industry.
The company’s foray into gaming was unexpected in its own right – and all thanks to Nevada’s Fertitta family and its Station Casinos empire.
After incorporating the company and formalizing its name, ReadyLinks was in Las Vegas pitching its services to various hospitality groups when it caught the eye of the team running the Station Casinos sportsbooks.
“The displays in their sportsbooks were very depressing to look at, so one of their AV guys had this notion of pushing out IPTV (Internet Protocol Television – a means of watching TV through the internet instead of traditional cable or satellite),” recounts Synstelien, now President of ReadyLinks. “That would provide higher quality visuals with lower noise, but to do so they needed everything networked. We were already doing their guest rooms so they asked us, ‘Can you do that? Can you do racing and sports books?’ We did one in less than a month – no re-cabling and super cost-effective – and ended up winning an award at the Digital Signage Expo. And it lit up the sportsbook like no tomorrow. Same screens, better content, everything operated with an iPad.
“All of the digital signage, the fancy stuff that we take for granted at sportsbooks today, this was the first one done in Vegas – and we did that.”
With guest rooms and sportsbooks now sorted and boasting full High Definition IPTV connectivity, conversations naturally turned to Station’s gaming floors as the company began exploring ways to digitize its slots offering.
“Our response was, ‘Hey, it’s all just a network to us – we can handle that’, because our technology worked no matter what the cable or set-up was in place,” Synstelien continues.
“So, we went from doing the Fertitta family’s racing and sportsbooks to them commissioning us to build a specific solution for their gaming floor because there wasn’t anybody around that could provide what they were looking for.
“We ended up building out that product, that special solution, and we are now deployed across 20,000 slot machines and 10 casinos, including their new one Durango (in Las Vegas). Better still, they had been quoted a price to do the same job over three years; we did it for a tenth of the price in six months, which for them was a miracle.
“Since then, word has spread and we have done everything from MGM Grand, the Bellagio and Caesars Palace to the Rio, Treasure Island and Circus Circus. We basically have our technology everywhere in Vegas.”
And now it’s Asia’s turn.
In 2024, Synstelien – who as a young engineer spent years working in the Philippines, Japan, Singapore and Australia – travelled back across the Pacific to set up a sourcing firm in Taiwan as well as a production line in the Philippines, because, “As our business grew in North America, it became clear that we needed to improve and increase our supply chain capability.”
While in Asia scouting locations, the team took the opportunity to attend G2E Asia in Macau, and naturally the wheels began turning.
“I was looking at all these banks of slot machines and thinking, ‘This is us – this is what we already do. We should be doing the same thing here.’ When we returned to the Philippines, we stayed at Solaire and again I thought, ‘This is just like Las Vegas, it’s time to start talking to these guys.’
“And that’s what we’ve been doing ever since, just getting the word out here in the Philippines and looking at how we can help in the same way that we helped our partners in Las Vegas. Because, at the end of the day, their needs are the same. Sure, there are some subtle, unique needs from the operators here in Asia but ultimately the primary driver for anyone is to make money. The bottom line is, if a machine is down, if it’s taking you longer to get it going, it’s costing you money. End of story.
“And I’ll go further to say – and we have the numbers to prove it – that as an operator if your property is running anything besides ReadyLinks, you’re also losing money, because our uptime is unmatched and we’ve developed an app-based system that anyone can use without the need to call IT.
“You never want your machines down, ever, and if a machine or multiple parts of your floor do go down, you want it back online as fast as possible.
“Our product has fast boot-up time, self-preservation mode, where it can come back online immediately, so it is never the last piece of equipment on the floor to come back online.”
According to Synstelien, this is because the ReadyLinks technology is built around one central promise for casino operators: to deliver a seamless, always-on player experience via a network infrastructure engineered for exceptional reliability, ensuring slot machines and connected systems remain operational with minimal downtime.
Beyond uptime, he points out that the platform supports modern player-facing features such as instant payouts and rapid game resets, helping casinos keep gameplay fluid while minimizing idle machine time.
ReadyLinks also aims to enable operators to make smarter, real-time decisions by capturing deep operational data, allowing them to analyze player movement, identify high-traffic areas and integrate insights into their CRM systems for targeted, real-time marketing. This means operators can respond instantly to player behavior with personalized offers, incentives or rewards to extend on-floor engagement.
Likewise, the system provides flexibility in floor management, enabling the rapid reconfiguration of gaming areas and machine banks without costly infrastructure changes. With extended-distance connectivity far beyond traditional ethernet limits, casinos can quickly deploy new setups such as tournaments or re-themed zones on demand.
These capabilities ultimately transform the network from a back-end utility into a strategic tool for optimizing floor performance, maximizing revenue and elevating the overall customer experience.
“In the end it all comes down to that guest experience, whether they are in their hotel room or on the gaming floor,” says Synstelien, who is now eying expansion into other key Asia-Pacific integrated resort destinations like Vietnam, Korea and Australia. “It matters when a property can run more efficiently from top to bottom.
“That’s why we’re here and that’s where we see opportunities here given the integrated resort style offering in Asia. It’s exciting to be part of the region’s expansion.”
