Gaming at a Crossroads: Meeting Customer Expectations of the Past in the Casino of the Future
By Jerry Roed
I have often wondered what happened to all the casinos in Las Vegas. Take one look at the Strip, with all its modern mega resorts, then try to remember how it looked just a few decades ago. I have been in the casino business in this town for many years, and the differences that I see are vast—everything has changed. Not only are the new resorts bigger than ever, but they’re now controlled by even bigger corporations and computer systems that are bigger yet. And much of the personal attention given to the players in these modern casinos is left to those computer systems—as is player tracking and analysis, among other jobs. The emphasis on the casino worker is long gone. Now it’s up to us all to figure out what to do about it—without sacrificing customer service.
In the not-so-distant past, floor people, change people, booth cashiers, carousel attendants and floor managers had direct contact with the players every hour of every day. Now, casinos have greatly reduced the number of attendants in every aspect of the business, letting kiosks and other automated systems like TITO take over their job functions. While there is nothing wrong with this per se—these systems are extremely necessary (and now mandatory in Nevada) to track players—I think it’s an oversight to allow machines and computers to completely take the place of one-on-one human interaction on the casino floor. While most operators insist that the personal attention is still there, just automated, and that it isn’t necessary for managers and attendants to interact as much with players (in fact, one casino company even rotated its management from casino to casino just to make them familiar with the overall picture), in my experience, the players aren’t buying it. They want the casino to staff to know them and their needs. And like any transition, good or bad, is in the eye of the gambler, even if the transition is behind the scenes.
Just a few years ago, managers all had to do all their own analytical work—I remember one gentleman whose desk was piled high with dozens and dozens of legal pads filled with numbers and game statistics. I also knew another manager who never left his office to check the floor unless he had a scientific calculator, pad and pencil with him. Now most organizations rely heavily on analysts and the data collected in their computer systems more than they rely on their slot managers. While, again, these computer systems are capable of spectacular things, this trend once again undermines the value the casino places on its workers. Today, a slot manager, director or vice president is making half the salary that an individual who held the same job at the same establishment was making 20 years ago. And 20 years ago, money went a lot further. The modern casino is also more likely to hire someone right out of college over a person with experience, so you can see what corporate planning has done to some of the positions in this town. Again, there’s nothing wrong with this practice per se, as long as there is an analyst in place to back up the new manager—a classic Catch 22 that once again results in not enough workers on the casino floor interacting with guests on a day-to-day basis, not enough workers knowing how the games are supposed to operate or how to answer players’ questions in detail.
So, now what? Casinos, of course, do at least try to maintain a good level of customer service in this new automated environment, adding staff to the players club and casino hosts to make up the difference (though, ironically, any labor costs saved from the transition to TITO has probably just been reinvested into club promotions and casino hosts). And those hosts are doing a good job of taking care of the personal needs of its players in the high-limit areas. Can’t we use those super-accurate computer systems to personally—as in in person—recognize the lower-volume players for the business they bring in, too?
What Next?
If we could look into the casino of the future, we would probably see server-based gaming. While server-based gaming will not decrease labor as much as the implementation of TITO, casinos will go through yet another transition, this one regarding the structure and presentation of the slot product. Some attendants will be needed to do the same basic jobs, like fixing ticket jams and bill acceptor problems and paying out taxable jackpots, but because slot machines on the casino floor will operate more like a large office network, IT experts will be needed to maintain this network of machines and manage the database containing all the games for the floor. The slot technicians and the IT department will have the work closely together, or they may eventually become one unit. The model is totally different than current casino operations, and it’s unclear how long it will take for players and workers alike to accept the new status quo.
Like video poker, credit holding, bill acceptors, progressive jackpots, video reel slots, player tracking systems and TITO before it, server-based gaming is just the next in a long line of transitions and transformations in the casino industry. I’d like to ask where will it all end? But I know the answer already: It will not end. Given how far casinos have come in the last few decades, the sky really is the limit and casinos will continue to evolve into something that we can only speculate about now. What will today’s young video game player be looking for in the casino of the future? Who knows? But we must never forget where we came from, always learning from history and continuing to improve.
Jerry Roed is the Managing Director of Precedent Gaming. He has been working in the slot operations field for more than 20 years and can be reached at JerryRoed@cox.net or (702) 232-0311.