As an influencer and content creator, Kelly Koffler visits casinos across the country. Her channels, Casino Kelly and Beyond Blackjack, have more than 100,000 subscribers combined, and her posted videos can draw hundreds of thousands of views.
But Koffer has noticed that some casinos have become stingier for influencers, and everyone else, who are not upper-tier players.
Kelly Koffler
“They are forgetting who their players are,” Koffler, also a CDC contributor, said during a CDC Roundtable discussion on how players are treated by casinos. “We all can’t spend $250 on a spin. And that has been frustrating. It’s crazy, because in Vegas it says they’re hurting. You would think offers would be going up, and they would be doing more to cater to players, especially those of us who go regularly. It feels completely the opposite.”
While influencers such as Koffler have increased in number, others find some casinos are less than helpful. Dan Kustelski, Co-founder and CEO of Chalkline, thinks casinos fail to in the most basic ways, including not being digitally savvy.
“Do they have good websites? Do they have a good mobile app?” Kustelski said. “Because everything that I do as a consumer usually it starts with online and Google or now ChatGPT. … I just don’t know that the casinos are meeting people in that digital space to get them to come to the casino.”
Koffler thinks that when redeeming comps, there are often too many layers a player has to navigate. For instance. when redeeming a food comp, it’s often not good enough to just show a players card at a restaurant.
Daniel Kustelski
“First you have to go to a kiosk and pick the restaurant,” Koffler says. “Then you get there and you can’t even get in, so you have to go stand in line or go back to the player’s club.
“Where are we? This is 2026. Why are we still going through all this?”
Josh Duffy, an influencer who hosts the Slotaholic site on YouTube, says he is generally treated well at most casinos. As a Caesars Rewards member, he is generally pleased with the treatment he receives.
But at other casinos, where things have become more automated, he’s more or less anonymous.
“It’s not that they won’t talk to you, but they never check in with you,” Duffy says. “I used to have a host that did a great job with that, but the automated part of it, I guess it has definitely made it more of a cold experience. You feel undervalued.”
Kustelski thinks that in most cases, communication is lacking. He notes that if he downloads an app, like most people he will more than likely turn off notifications in order not to inundated with messages.
Josh Duffy
“I just don’t think that the casinos are in a great spot,” Kustelski says. “I don’t think they’ve got everybody’s email address. I don’t think they’ve been sending good communications and maybe I should say, impactful communications.
“Do I get a zillion standard emails about what’s the newest slot? Of course, but I’m not going to weed through all those. What I want is to communicate in my way, and that might be on the app, that might be a text, that might be an email, that might be a mailer. How am I (casinos) communicating with (customers)?
“I can have the most amazing property, but if I’m not actually communicating with my patrons, I have issues.”
Duffy recently visited a venue where he had accumulated $500 worth of food comps. He went to a steakhouse to get a glass of wine and was told that comps he’d accumulated were about to expire that night.
He’d received no notification, no messaging.
“Nobody told me,” Duffy says, who wound up ordering food to redeem some of the points. “I’m so glad that I went to that steakhouse because I would have lost out on $500.”
“I think the personal touch, especially with hosts, is no longer there,” Duffy adds. “I’m telling you, there’s well-established players who hit brick wall after brick wall with their hosts. They’re not getting approved for a meal. They’re not getting approved for anything because they’re not meeting that threshold that the corporate is wanting people to meet.”
