Andrew Klebanow

Rethinking the Premium Players Lounge

Posted on June 16, 2019

Premium player lounges have become a fixture in many casinos in North America. These lounges provide higher worth players with a place to take a break from the gaming floor, catch up on text messages, and sit in a relaxed, non-gaming environment. They also offer hosts a place to connect with their customers. At some properties, the lounge may provide players with some form of food offering, yet rarely, if ever have they been considered part of a casino’s food & beverage strategy. In fact, in most player lounges food is treated as an afterthought, usually comprised of packaged snack foods or some items from the central kitchen that, after sitting out for a couple of hours, have lost their gastronomic appeal.

What is rarely recognized is that the premium players’ lounge, properly designed and maintained, can help the casino property provide its best customers with precisely the kinds of dining that they prefer for their everyday gaming experiences while reducing comp expense and the time gamblers spend off the gaming floor.

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Rethinking Food & Beverage

Posted on May 16, 2019

Of all the issues facing casino leadership, there is no greater quandary than solving the food & beverage equation. Restaurants in particular, present a host of issues. They are notoriously expensive to operate, consuming copious amounts of labor and product costs. Rarely do individual outlets post a profit and departmental profit is often dependent on beverage sales. High levels of customer satisfaction can be difficult to achieve, given that many players visit the same restaurant outlets on each visit, and in turn get bored with the menu selection. Perhaps the hardest aspect is balancing the needs of very frequent players while using food & beverage as a tool to attract new customers. Given all this, it may be time for casino operators to rethink their food & beverage programs.

Both commercial casinos in regional markets and Indian casino operators have historically adopted the same basic restaurant strategies, offering a buffet, three-meal room, quick-serve outlet and perhaps a more upscale steakhouse/ special occasion restaurant. Before undertaking a wholesale redesign of food & beverage outlets, it is important to understand how this basic suite of restaurant products came to be and then ask if those products meet the needs of the business and the preferences of today’s customers.

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Crystal Ball Gazing

Posted on May 16, 2019

Predicting the future of any industry has always been an inexact science. It requires an examination of historical trends, possible changes in public policy, the application of a variety of macro-economic theories, the unlikely entry of a disruption industry that could emerge as a worthy competitor, and a substantial amount of guesswork.

The problem is, when it comes to Macau, more often than not the soothsayers have been unable to predict the future.

When predictions are made, word spreads quickly. The number of media outlets devoted to the casino industry has increased and amplified the distribution of news. Casinos are now part of
the 24-hour news cycle; the industry has its own forums, dedicated writers and avid readership.

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The Road to Sports Betting

Posted on February 17, 2019

When the Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) last May, casino operators across the United States were euphoric, envisioning crowds of enthusiastic bettors flocking to newly constructed sports betting lounges, holding exciting events during major games, and attracting a younger clientele to
their properties. Several states moved quickly to permit sports betting in some form. While casinos in some states were able to quickly build betting counters and initiate sports betting
activities, most others, particularly in Indian gaming, have come to realize that they must first navigate through a maze of obstacles before taking their first bet.

Sports betting is currently available in some form in eight states: Nevada, Delaware, New Jersey, Mississippi, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and New Mexico. Each of these states offers some form of sports wagering, but the products offered and where bets can be made vary by state.

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Lessons from the Casino Industry

Posted on January 16, 2019

The casino gaming industry has long been perceived as a competitor to state lotteries. While it can be argued that the country’s adult population has a limited budget for all kinds of wagering, lotteries and casinos have, in fact, long operated in harmony. Casino expansion across the United States has not impeded growth of lotteries and lotteries did not affect the growth of casino gaming. The reality is that lotteries and casinos do not so much compete as share gamers. People buy scratch cards and draw tickets from budgets that are exclusive of casino gaming budgets. This is most evident during periodic events of lottery frenzy, when mega-jackpots attract widespread consumer and media interest. In those states that offer both casino gaming and lotteries, casino gambling does not decline during mega-jackpot events.

Both industries have grown but for different reasons. State and provincial lotteries continue to introduce new games and improve merchandising at the point of purchase. Lotteries also continue to expand their channels of distribution, signing up new retailers, and increasing the number of vending machine locations. Casino operators also continue to introduce new games, primarily electronic, and enhance their gaming environments. They also employ a variety of marketing strategies that are mostly unavailable to, or have never been considered by, state lotteries. Nonetheless, there are valuable lessons that lottery operators can learn from the casino gaming industry – in particular, customer engagement and customer relationship management.

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New York State of Mind: What happened to the state’s casinos?

Posted on October 25, 2018

For decades, casino operators viewed the potential for casinos in the Catskills region of New York as the mother lode of gaming development.

The region’s proximity to the New York City metropolitan area and its history as a vacation destination made it a near ideal location for casino development. State legislators also saw casinos in upstate New York, a region that has had difficulty recovering from the loss of a host of manufacturing industries, not only as a tool for economic development, but tax revenue.

In 2013, the New York state legislature passed the Upstate New York Economic Development Act, which provided the legal framework for commercial casinos in the state. The act went into effect on January 1, 2014. When signing the bill, Governor Andrew Cuomo stated, “This new law will bring the state one step closer to establishing world-class destination gaming resorts that will attract tourists to upstate New York and support thousands of good-paying jobs as well as new revenue for local businesses. For too many years, gaming revenue has left New York for our neighboring states.”

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Vietnam’s Strip: The central coast of Vietnam is likely to become the next region with multiple destination casinos and integrated resorts

Posted on September 17, 2018

The Strip” has long been a popular term in the casino industry. Originally used to describe Las Vegas Boulevard from Sahara Avenue south to Russell Road, the term was adopted to describe clusters of casinos and hotels in other jurisdictions including the Cotai Strip in Macau and, most recently, for a proposed multi-property development called the Osaka Strip in Osaka, Japan.

While the latter development remains a possibility, a new strip of hotels, resorts and casinos is quickly emerging on the central coast of Vietnam, in and around Da Nang: the Central Coast Strip, stretching from Hoi An to Hue.

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Cambodia Rising

Posted on September 16, 2018

Major casino operators have long perceived Cambodia as a tertiary gaming market – a collective mix of border casinos that catered to residents of adjacent countries seeking a convenient place to gamble. The absence of robust gaming regulations further discouraged larger operators from considering acquisitions or developments in the Kingdom. That perception is changing.

Anticipated changes in the regulatory environment coupled with dramatic growth in casino markets throughout the country has caused casino developers to take a closer look at Cambodia.

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An Introduction to Sports Betting Operations

Posted on July 1, 2018

With the repeal of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), Indian casinos, commercial casinos, state governments, lotteries, and racetracks are all examining the feasibility of offering sports betting in their jurisdictions and creating legislative paths to bring sports betting to fruition. Sports leagues are also taking an active role, lobbying state legislators and even trying to get Congress to pass legislation that would federally mandate that they receive a cut of total wagering handle.

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