Government Law & Policies

New Kid in Town: Can Vietnam emerge as an international gaming-resort destination?

Posted on January 13, 2015

Despite the recent downturn in gaming revenue in Macau, Asia remains the region of the world with the greatest opportunities for casino development. While Japan and Taiwan remain the most enticing markets, if only enabling legislation were to be passed, other markets are attracting the interest of casino developers. Unfortunately, most of those opportunities are in markets that are loosely regulated, difficult to get to, surrounded by poor infrastructure or require border crossings that can best be described as challenging.

One market that continues to interest investors is Vietnam. With 92 million citizens, a burgeoning middle class, good airport infrastructure and airlift to a number of nearby countries, Vietnam appears poised to emerge as a regional gaming market that is capable of producing a prodigious amount of gaming revenue. Nevertheless, a number of issues must be resolved before the country can live up to its potential.

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Killing the Gaming Experience

Posted on July 16, 2014

Regional U.S. gaming markets continue to see month-over-month declines in gaming revenues. Analysts tend to blame the weather, the economy, market saturation, increased competition in neighboring states, and of course, Obama for this decline.

What has yet to be cited is that the gaming entertainment experience has fundamentally changed over the past few years, and many casinos no longer deliver the experiences that players have been used to historically.

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So, Have You Been to Poipet?

Posted on April 25, 2014

When examining the major casino markets of Asia, Macau and Singapore most often come to mind. Most gaming executives are familiar with these markets, and their prodigious gaming revenue performance continues to attract the interest of the media and financial analysts.

The extraordinary performance of these markets has caused casino developers to look more closely at other regional Asia markets such as South Korea, Vietnam and Japan as they look for that next great opportunity.

What are often overlooked are other regional Asian markets that are already established yet are somewhat removed from major Asian cities. These gaming markets generate prodigious amounts of gaming revenue and serve as convenience-based gaming destinations to regional populations.

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Legislative Dynamite: State failures the exception to the rule

Posted on November 16, 2012

As state budget crises continue to sweep across the nation due to the effects of the Great Recession, more and more states are making foolhardy decisions in an attempt to plug part of a budget deficit that may benefit them in the short term but will ultimately hurt them in the long run. Many investors in the gaming world have historically been gun-shy of investing in many international destinations due to legislative risk, viewing the United States as a stable jurisdiction in which the future is predictable. However, events of recent years have shown this premise of legislative stability in the United States as false.

New Jersey, feeling the pressure to expand gaming outside of Atlantic City to help reduce its deficit, has an opportunity to do it the right way that will benefit all stakeholders. Hopefully, they follow sage advice and set the example to how to responsibly expand gaming while simultaneously benefiting companies that have invested billions in their state.

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Asia: Seven Steps to Success

Posted on July 27, 2012

Call it the Macau/Singapore effect.

The initial success of integrated casino resorts in Singapore, coupled with the unprecedented growth in gaming revenues in Macau, has attracted the interest of government policy-makers in
countries throughout Asia. Several are now considering instituting new policies that will permit the expansion of casino gaming in their countries in the form of what is now being referred to as integrated casino resorts, and with it, both economic and tourism growth.

The success of Asian resorts has helped identify those factors that are critical to the success of any new gaming venue. Here are seven factors that are critical to creating a successful gaming policy that grows tourism, enhances tax revenues and acts as an engine for economic growth.

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Putting Problem Gambling in Perspective

Posted on September 16, 2010

The success of gaming development on Indian lands has allowed many tribes to explore the feasibility of replacing their aging, temporary buildings with new, amenity rich facilities. Despite the recession, tribes are moving forward with plans for future development. These developments, often in more accessible locations closer to population centers, often spark debate among various constituencies in the local community.

Any public debate on the pros and cons of casino development inevitably brings up the topic of problem gambling and its economic and social costs on the host community. Often these debates take place without a reasonable understanding of what problem gambling is, how prevalent it is and how significant the problem is when compared to other pathologies. These debates are frequently led by those who are morally opposed to casino gambling and it is that moral opposition that often clouds reasonable discussion. It is essential to clarify what problem gambling is, explore its prevalence in society, and compare its social and economic costs to other forms of aberrant behavior caused by what many see as more benign industries.

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10 Ways to Make Your Rewards Program More Successful

Posted on August 16, 2007

Casino player reward programs and the tools to identify and reward players have become the most important elements in casino marketing plans. Nevertheless, for most gaming operators, player reward program participation rates remain low relative to some of the most successful reward programs in the industry. Despite the importance of player reward programs, most operators fail to enroll the majority of players into their rewards program and give those players enough incentive to use their players club cards every time they place a wager.

When evaluating the success of player rewards programs, casinos often look at tracked or carded win as a measure of reward program effectiveness. Tracked win refers to gaming revenue that is generated by people using their reward cards while gaming. Tracked win tends to measure the usage pattern of the casino’s heaviest users (those people who visit most frequently and have the highest handle volumes). The tracked win rate refers to the ratio of tracked win to overall gaming win. Even so, most casinos’ tracked win rates are low, often hovering in the 25-35% range. Conversely, the most successful gaming companies, notably Harrah’s Entertainment and Station Casinos, have tracked win rates in excess of 80%. At the very least, a casino with a successful player rewards program should be enjoying tracked win rates in excess of 50%. Anything less indicates problems that may not be readily apparent to the gaming operator.

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Choosing a Competitive Business Strategy

Posted on January 16, 2003

When it comes to identifying an appropriate competitive strategy, casinos are no different than any other business. All businesses compete using one of two basic strategies: they employ a pricing strategy or a differentiation strategy.

Businesses that compete on price strive to offer the lowest possible price. They do so by reducing the costs of production in order to deliver a product or service at a price that is lower
than the competition. This strategy works well for commodities in which the products sold are undifferentiated. Wheat and oil are commodities and producers compete solely on price. Products that are clearly differentiated, through features or other unique elements, can command a higher price.

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The Casino Marketing Plan: Objectives, Strategies and Action Plans

Posted on May 16, 2002

Last month this column focused on the first part of the casino marketing plan: conducting a thorough situation analysis in order to understand current and anticipated market conditions, the competition and the customer. Having performed this analysis, a casino marketing team can now focus on the development of realistic goals and objectives, a strategy that will achieve them and the specific action plans that become the marketing department’s “to do” list.

Too often the marketing team loses sight of the property’s mission. Operating a tribal gaming enterprise is more than about making money. It is about improving the quality of life for tribal members, providing security for future generations, offering employees opportunities for growth, and being a responsible member of the community. The marketing mission statement flows from the tribal mission but is also based on current market conditions. Once the team has prepared its situation analysis it is ready to develop the marketing mission d1at will guide the department’s efforts through the next year.

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Cost-Effectiveness of Substance Abuse Treatment in Casino Hotels

Posted on February 16, 1992

One of today’s business realities is the prevalence of employee substance abuse – a particularly acute problem for the hospitality industry. Merely getting rid of substance-abusing employees is, at best, a cosmetic solution. Faced with labor shortages, growing “wrongful termination” litigation, and legislative mandates that promote a drug-free workplace and prohibit employee discrimination of recovering substance abusers, employers are investing in employee-assistance programs (EAPs) that provide substance-abuse treatment and permit the employer to retain an otherwise productive employee. Like any investment, a cost-benefit analysis such as that described in this article can provide a framework for evaluating the relative advantages of various types of EAPs.

Among the more tangible benefits of treating substance abusing employees is reduced turnover and absenteeism: expensive problems that otherwise might go unchecked. As a way of presenting our cost-benefit analysis, we compare the EAPs at two casino hotels which have quite different substance-abuse programs: the Mirage, in Las Vegas, and Merv Griffin’s Resorts International Hotel-Casino, in Atlantic City. In this article, we focus only on the programs’ effects on absenteeism and turnover, recognizing full well that there are many other benefits, both tangible and intangible, that accrue when employee substance-abuse problems are addressed by managers.

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