I have noticed over the last couple of decades a tremendous growth in competitions and awards purporting to recognize the best casinos in a given local, regional, or national casino market. These “Best of” campaigns are typically conducted by media companies, conferences, trade organizations, and others that serve the casino industry and typically use them to sell advertising, sponsorships, subscriptions, conference passes, or the like. They’re most common in markets having numerous casinos, where many of them might see a benefit or competitive advantage in being tagged “the Best.”
These annual award programs have mushroomed from the “Best Casino” to recognizing numerous aspects of the casino experience. So now, you’ll see Best Buffet, Best Slots, Best Steakhouse, Best Spa, Best Employees, Best Place to Win, and numerous other categories where casinos can take home some hardware. And there are also typically different levels of award-winning, so you might see Winners, Runners-Up, and Honorable Mentions in most, if not all, of these categories. I guess the award-contest organizers don’t want to see too many of these casinos go home empty-handed.
I’m not exactly sure how the balloting for these Best Casino Awards works, but my understanding is that typically, there’s a defined time frame for the voting and ballots can be found through the awards-program organizer, usually online through a link or website. Voters can often vote multiple times, though they’re sometimes limited to once per day or once per URL or email address. I’ve never seen where a casino COULDN’T mobilize its customers or employees to vote for it as the Best. In fact, the winners of these various competitions are often the ones who are the Best at turning out the votes from wherever they can find them. I’m not suggesting that “voter fraud” is involved in Best Casino contests, but certainly it appears that “tipping the voting scales” is accepted, perhaps even encouraged.
I’ve seen some casinos pay little attention to these “Best of” contests and not participate at all. Others go whole hog trying to grab as many brass rings as possible. Consistent, however, is that winning casinos promptly and comprehensively use these accolades in their advertising, messaging, branding, and communications. They’ll likely continue to participate in the “Best of” campaigns in the future to validate and maintain their “award-winning” reputations.
When I’ve reviewed the casino winners of these competitions in markets where I’m very familiar, I’ve found some awards well deserved and accurate, others debatable, and others head-scratchers. I’m not sure that this outcome is best for the integrity of the awards, the value of the awards for the casinos themselves, or the guidance and recommendations that they may suggest to potential customers. I have a hard time understanding how flawed voting and questionable outcomes advance the noble goal of recognizing the best casinos with the best offerings—even if the process is almost always somewhat subjective.
So I now give you my formula for a new and improved casino awards program.
Best Casino Awards. Really.
1. The Best Casino Awards can be decided in one of two ways (or both ways in some cases). A panel of six casino-industry experts, agreed upon by the participating casinos in a particular market, will experience all aspects of all casinos up for award consideration and cast their votes for the Best. Alternatively (or additionally), each participating casino will select three of their VIP customers to form the Best Casino Awards voting panel, who will then experience all categories under consideration at all participating casinos and then cast their votes for the Best.
2. The categories of Best Slots, Best Table Games, or any other casino category with a clearly defined mathematical comparison available will be selected by quantifiable “value for play provided to players.” Other judges in these categories will evaluate only Service or Friendliness components.
3. Expert or VIP Customer judges will compare nominees in certain voting categories by having similar experiences in nominated areas (common hotel stays for Best Hotel, common dining experiences for Best Dining, common spa experiences for Best Spa, etc.).
4. All judges will receive instruction as to how to conduct their judging duties, to provide consistency of evaluation.
5. Judges will rank numerically each casino nominee in each award category, with the winner being the casino with the highest number of total judges’ points on the numerical scale.
6. Winners will be announced at a media event and all winners will receive a plaque or sign to be posted at the winning venue for one year (Best Casino Awards. Really.).
7. Recognition will also be given to category nominees that didn’t win, but did receive substantial support from the panels of judges.
8. VIP Customer Judges will receive $100 in free play at each casino they evaluated in appreciation of their judging participation.
I admit it’s unlikely that “BEST CASINO AWARDS. REALLY.” will ever happen. There are probably too many vested interests and too much history in how casino awards are currently being bestowed in the casino industry. But I will suggest that savvy judges, whether avid customers or industry experts, will get us closer to honest and worthy recognition of all the truly best things that casinos are giving their customers. Right now.
