Raving NEXT: Tribal executives talk about challenges and issues facing casinos

Wednesday, January 29, 2025 1:42 PM
  • Rege Behe, CDC Gaming

During the Raving Next panel discussion Executive Roundtable: Addressing Top Issues and Innovations, moderator Liz Palar asked how best to address the challenges and issues facing tribal casinos.

Michelle Eddy, the general manager at Bluewater Resort Casino, owned by the Colorado River Indian Tribes in Parker, Arizona, said it starts with the quality of one’s team.

“It goes back to labor,” Eddy said Tuesday during the discussion. “It goes back to team building. It goes back to understanding what kind of leadership you do have, and that you don’t have too. … We have to understand where we’ve been and in order to understand where we are going.”

Among the many challenges tribal executives face is labor. The pandemic caused a shortage of employees, and San Manuel Band of Mission Indians Chief Gaming Officer Peter Arceo said there was a reluctance to apply for jobs because of the cost involved. At the time, gas wasn’t cheap in California, and he estimates the cost of traveling to the tribe’s casino in Highland, California, was as much as $20.

The solution: a recruitment center in Ontario Mills, a local shopping mall.

“We said, forget dressing up,” Arceo said. “Come as you are. If you came for lunch or dinner, or shopping, bring your kids, come and apply for a job, you might get one. And lo and behold, that’s what happened.

“We set up drug testing. We had gaming commission interviews right on the spot. It was a one-stop shop.”

Staying competitive in markets that are saturated also is an issue. Blake Katsnelson, the chief operating officer of Gila River Resorts and Casinos in Arizona, said there are seven other properties within 45 minutes of his four properties.

The challenge, Katsnelson said, is appealing to a wide range of patrons.

“The market specific challenge for us would be staying relevant to that non-gamer, the non-traditional gamer,” Katsnelson said. “Trying to drive those non-gamers into the property with a different event, a pool party or a concert or bad bingo after dark, something to drive those non-gamers, those millennials, those Gen Zers, onto the property and convert them into gamers, or give them something to at least give a try.”

“We are off the beaten path,” Eddy said, noting that the BlueWater Resort Casino, on the border between Arizona and California, is isolated. “We make sure that as long as our customers know where we are, we give them what they want, what they need.”

Innovation, specifically the use of robots and artificial intelligence, has become increasingly present at tribal casinos. Pechanga Resort & Casino General Manager Tjeerd Brink said the Temecula, California property is deploying robots for certain tasks, notably facial recognition. But one of the most significant additions has been an app, MyPechanga.

“It actually integrates into our reservation system and more than 50 percent of our reservations in now done through the app,” Brink said.

Arceo said robots are also deployed at the San Manuel casino and have helped alleviate workplace shortages, as well as do tasks that most humans don’t want to do. A robot used in the facilities department that looks like a dog and is named Spot navigates around the casino’s central plant and checks water and air gauges, “things you can’t see with the human eyes,” Arceo said.

“If you have your equipment not running optimally, it could be a dangerous situation” Arceo added. “This robot is able to see things before they become a danger. And so, it’s risk reduction as well.  These things don’t sleep, they recharge. So, we have a couple of them today, and they’re able to cover more shifts, those shifts that are hard to find labor for.”

Rege Behe is lead contributor to CDC Gaming. He can be reached at rbehe@cdcgaming.com. Please follow @RegeBehe_exPTR on Twitter.