Most companies, even if unintentionally, do a lot of stupid stuff. All I have to do is say “New Coke” and you’ll immediately know what I mean. And casinos aren’t immune from doing stupid stuff.
I’ve written many times over the years about casino stupid stuff, but I usually don’t write about stupid stuff that can take down a company or affect quarterly earnings. I much prefer to find and highlight the little stupid stuff that can annoy, frustrate, and confuse casino customers and make a casino a little harder and a little less pleasurable to do business with. And if you visit many casinos over the year, as I do, they’re not hard to spot.
Casino marketers and executives often view marketing as the next great initiative, the next great program, or the next great campaign that will blow the doors off. Sometimes, though, the best you can do to positively impact your customers is just stop doing the stupid stuff.
So, start stopping:
- The Crazy Numbering of Some Hotel Rooms – Thankfully, this is not all that common, but where it exists, it is maddening and confusing. I’m referring to casino-hotels where room 239 is “1239” or room 111 is “1111” (as if the room-numbering equipment glitched). I’m not sure how this started, although I did once see a hotel where the rooms in one tower all started with an additional “1” and the second tower with an added ”2,” at least some attempt at clarity. But what happens when you add a 1 in front of a room number is that every front desk clerk has to explain to every guest that room 1239 is NOT on the 12th floor. Stupid.
- Free-Play Table-Game Chips You Can’t Use – Casinos often offer free-play promotional chips to their qualified table-game players to use as “free bets” on the various table games. Except … usually these free bets are restricted to even-money bets only (and God help you if you try to bet “red” and “black” in roulette and “pass” and “don’t pass” in craps at the same time!). The casino apparently doesn’t want a player chucking five bucks on a 35-1 roulette bet or 30-1 crap bet and walking away with a small score. But the stupid part is that the longshot bets in these games HAVE THE HIGHEST HOUSE ADVANTAGE, meaning it’s BETTER for the casino to have the player bet them. Not to mention that when a 30-1 longshot bet hits, it’s one of the most joyful experiences a table-game player can have. I guess we don’t want that!
- Smoking Areas Adjacent to Non-Smoking – While my preference is for non-smoking gaming areas, I’m not a non-smoking zealot. But what I find incredibly stupid is, on an open casino floor, to separate smoking and adjacent non-smoking areas with no more than a sign, as if the smoke will know to waft only in smoking zones. Pretty stupid to offend the sensibilities of your non-smoking players, who are becoming more numerous and vocal.
- Sticky Slot Machine Buttons – I get that slot buttons (and touch screens) take a lot of wear and tear, even abuse. But balky buttons cause players a lot of frustration and, in the case of video poker, missed winnings on occasion. What’s stupid is to allow these misperforming buttons to exist for more than a day, even an hour. (“We fix them right away!” Yeah, right!). Kudos to the first slot operator who finds a way to ensure that every slot button or touch screen is working right every day, every time. Isn’t that lost revenue if they’re not?
- Making Diners Wait to Get Their Checks – I’ve mentioned this one before and some F&B folks don’t agree. “We don’t want the diners to feel rushed.” “They may still spend money on dessert or an extra drink.” BS, I say. Most of your diners want to get the hell out of the restaurant and go play (i.e., lose money) in the casino. Slow check presentation = guest frustration and lost casino revenue. Stupid.
- The New-Employee One-Month Pre-Hiring Investigation – I get that casinos are highly and often appropriately regulated. However, I’ve seen one example of a stupid usually SELF-IMPOSED regulation that makes no sense. New employees often have to undergo a background investigation before they can be hired. Sometimes this can take as long as a month before the casino employee, who has already gotten to the investigation phase, can be actually hired and go to work. And this in tight labor markets, God knows how many good employees are lost to other companies during this too-long regulatory waiting period. Didn’t you know that they might need to go to work to pay their bills?
- The Win-Loss Statement Dance – One of the most annoying chores for gamblers every year is to gather win/loss information from casinos to use in their tax filings. Hardly any of these players keep good records for the IRS and they count on the casinos where they play to bail them out. But it seems every casino has a different procedure and varying requirements to receive this information. Some ask the player to personally visit the players club (Oh yeah? What if I live out of town?). Others want a formal signed request (I had one casino ask that I have the request notarized before submitting it!). Some mail the win/loss document, others email it only. The best of breed casinos here make it easily available on their websites, with a password, a few simple clicks, and a printer. Why aren’t more casinos feeling the IRS pain of their players and doing it this way? Seems stupid to me.
- The Casino-Employee Police-Looking Name Badge – I like casino employee name badges (usually). They personalize transactions, are good icebreakers and let guests know a name if they want to commend great service. The best name badges might have an employee’s preferred nickname, hometown, or occasionally a favorite pastime. But the stupid name badges often have a picture straight out of a police line-up, a name that was only ever used at birth, and an employee number whose font size dwarfs the employee’s name. I guess this is so surveillance can easily finger employees screwing up. How stupid!
- Free Play Redemption at a Slot Machine with No Cash Required To Be Put into the Machine – Here’s a stupid thing where normally you’d expect me to side with the player over the casino. But casinos give out gazillions of dollars in free play to their players (you could question the stupidity of that!) and most don’t require those players to put one cent of their own money in a slot machine to redeem it. I think it’s fair to have players commit to at least showing they might have a few of their own bucks to gamble with as the casino showers them with free play. And it’s stupid not to.
- The Sensory Assault of Slot Players – It’s stupid to put slot machines right next to doors opening and closing, exposing players to surges of heat, cold, and drafts. Stupid to have slots right outside of restrooms and their sometimes-malodorous smells. Stupid to put them in noisy areas (blaring lounge entertainment, screaming casino funmeisters, right-in-your-ear” P.A. announcements, etc.). Stupid to have them under glaring lights where the light bounces off the slot screen and partially blinds a player. Stupid to have them in dirty spots, dark spots, dead spots. Stupid to have uncomfortable slot chairs. Stupid to have slot buttons and handles that strain shoulders, wrists, and backs. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
Be smart. Stop doing the stupid stuff.
Earlier posts by Dennis
Crap dealers: How to save your jobs and become the best tipped employees in the casino
Ten little-known, little-appreciated, and little-used ways for a casino to make more money
Emerald Island: A casino that gets it
Thank you, Richard Schuetz, Again
The all-time top-10 types of casino promotions
Imagining a discussion today with John Romero
A holiday weekend in Las Vegas
It’s okay, they won’t know or care!
How to stop gambling from being banned
What about these Electronic Crap Games?
Service you can trust. Really.
Top 10 things casino players hate
David Kranes: The most unappreciated man in gaming
My Top 10 big-picture casino-industry trends