People Places

For years we’ve been covering everything about the gaming industry, both land-based and online. We’ve walked you through gaming expansions in every region of the world. We’ve tried to explain the new technologies that will make our businesses run more efficiently and profitably. We’ve reviewed how online gaming has become not just an addition but a full partner in the success of this industry. But when you finally examine what makes this business tick, it’s the customers.

Another issue we’ve been stressing for years is non-gaming revenue, and the casino resorts do very well with that. On the Las Vegas Strip, the revenue breakdown today is 70 percent non-gaming and 30 percent gaming. Regional and tribal casinos are more slanted toward the gaming revenue, but most of them are adding the non-gaming amenities so they can balance those revenues out.

But truth be told, the bread-and-butter of any casino, online or land-based, is the gamblers. And the way you treat those players can be the difference between success and failure. But when the bean counters get involved, they often miss the most important part of the equation, the relationship between the employees and executives of the casino and the gamblers. That is such a crucial connection that it’s not only overlooked but often ignored. Don’t do that.

Let’s start with the table games. Casinos are starting to turn off the real gamblers by introducing rule changes that favor the casinos. The 6:5 payout on basic blackjack and the triple-zero roulette are probably the most egregious examples, but the bonus side bets are also to blame.

While you often can hide the house edge on those games via those bonus bets, it’s just annoying to players who only want to play blackjack. The new variations of baccarat are also trying to pull that house edge in the casino’s advantage, by including glitzy signage and scoreboards, but the real gambler can see right through that.

When I was the editor of Casino Player magazine back in the late 1980s, we turned around the hold percentage on slot machines that was reported by the casinos to their regulatory authorities and called it the payback percentage. Today it’s known as “return to player” or RTP. When you play a slot game online, you are able to dig around in the description of the game to find the RTP. That’s not the case in a land-based casino. Why not?

But what really annoys players is when there are wholesale changes to the players clubs. When Eldorado bought Caesars, they revamped Caesars Rewards in a way that made it almost unrecognizable to previous Caesars loyal players. Same thing with MGM when they renamed and reorganized Mlife to MGM Rewards. Players tumbled several levels and casino hosts had nothing to tell them that would make them feel better.

Some casinos ramp up their offerings to attract new players but then pull them back as quickly as they raised them. Tier matching is also a dangerous game. If you don’t explain what the player has to do to maintain that tier, it can be confusing and disappointing for the player… and for the casino.

When you get down to the granular level, it’s the relationship your employees have with your customers. Why is it often your privately held casinos that seem to be so successful? In Las Vegas, South Point and Ellis Island have fiercely loyal customers who return again and again.

Across the country, there are examples of privately held casinos that are very successful. In the U.K., look at the Hippodrome in London. Owner Simon Thomas knows that people come first, and if you give them what they want, they’ll remain loyal customers. Is it because their owners don’t have to answer quarterly earnings calls? Is it because they can afford to have a longer-term view?

Wynn Resorts has been amazing in how they’ve kept the quality of their properties and their customer service up, even with the exit of their visionary founder, Steve Wynn. The Wynn board does have that long view and doesn’t focus as much on those quarterly reports.

Of course, then you have a corporate raider like Tilman Fertitta who threatens to bring management down. Just look at Golden Nugget casinos (also a Steve Wynn product) and you’ll see the difference between a Fertitta-run property and the Wynn properties.

Focus on people and you’re going to be successful in the long run. But focus solely on profits and you’re going to be running a company that will not connect with its customer base or its employees and will have ongoing problems.