Sigma Derby is coming back as a new cabinet, not as a copy of the 1980s machine painted onto a screen. Next Gaming, Highbrow Gaming and VSR Industries told CDC Gaming they have spent years rebuilding the mechanical horse race so it still looks like the original and fails less often.
What the original game actually was
Japanese manufacturer Sigma Game built Sigma Derby as an electro-mechanical race. Five plastic horses ran a circular track under glass, moved by motors and chains. Ten stations around the rail took quarter wagers on which two horses would finish first, in either order. That bet is a quinella, so five horses make ten tickets. Mike Darley, chief executive of Next Gaming, has said one of those ten tickets has to win, and that this is part of why people stay with the game.
Darley says that from the late 1980s into the early 1990s a Derby stood in casino after casino on the Las Vegas Strip. Video slots then took the floor. New cabinets stopped being built. Technicians who could repair the motors became scarce, and replacement parts were close to impossible to find. He said in January 2026 that the other machines had been off the floor for the better part of 30 years.
The last original machine moved downtown
The rebuild is a different object from the last original Sigma Derby in Las Vegas. That coin machine left The D and crossed Fremont Street on 16 June 2026, then reopened at Golden Gate, the sister property, later that week. Golden Gate co-owner Derek Stevens called it a piece of Las Vegas history. Players there still use quarters. The new cabinet does not.
Three companies, one cabinet
On 14 October 2026, CDC Gaming interviewed Darley, Patrick Schmit, founder and chief executive of Highbrow Gaming, and Terrance Nichols, western regional manager at VSR Industries. Highbrow brought Next Gaming in to build the game, the software and the math. Some of the people on that team worked on the original Sigma Derby in the 1980s. VSR, a Las Vegas cabinet maker founded in 1969, is manufacturing the units.
Darley has said earlier copies tried to replace Sigma Derby without copying it. This one is meant to look and play like the legacy game, with ticket-in, ticket-out bill acceptors in place of the coin stations. In January he said development was 80 to 90 percent done and that the game would go to independent labs by summer. Next Gaming later said a version would be available in September. VSR showed the cabinet at G2E in Las Vegas from 29 September to 1 October 2026, at booth 1619.
In January, Darley named Pechanga Resort Casino in Southern California as the launch floor, and a Nevada field trial at either Four Queens or Binion’s. Neither opening has been announced since.
Why the hardware had to change
The October interview is about maintenance, not a new theme. The original motors and chains are expensive to keep running. The partners say the layout a player sees, the pace of the race and the shared betting stay. Electronics, race logic and payout settings sit under the cabinet so the game can pass today’s lab tests. Darley has also said he does not expect a Derby in every casino the way the Strip had them in the early 1990s. He does expect demand from rooms that want a game people watch together.
Sources: CDC Gaming, 14 October 2026; CDC Gaming, 30 January 2026; Las Vegas Review-Journal, 16 June 2026.
Published: 14. October 2026
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