Casino Enterprise Management

Robert was new to the area and just couldn’t wait to go to the local casino. Today was the day. Robert was a big fan of casino blackjack, especially hand-dealt games. He enjoyed the thrill of most table games and the social interaction that he couldn’t experience while “plugging” the one-armed bandits.

Robert parked his car and walked through the parking lot and into the casino. Once inside, he looked for the table games but couldn’t see them, only a wall of slot machines. He needed help with directions but no casino employee could be found. He looked for signage but it was minimal—mostly promotional advertisements on top of the slot machines. So onward he traveled into the casino.

First, Robert ventured to his right, through a group of slot machines, and then down a long corridor. After several yards, he located the first piece of signage. The restrooms were this way, the parking garage that way but nothing directing him to the live table game pit. Then Robert spotted an illuminated sign advertising Caribbean Stud Poker sticking over the tops of the slot machines. He headed in that direction.

When Robert arrived at the live gaming pit, he spotted a hand-pitched, double-deck game and immediately sat down. He laid out five $100 bills near his betting circle for chip change. Without saying a word, the dealer pushed the currency back toward Robert and began dealing the next round to the lone blackjack player at the table. Shocked at first, Robert quickly recovered and told the dealer he wanted to change his money for chips with which to wager. Again without saying a word, the dealer pointed to a small sign that sat in a corner of the table. It was hard to read because of the low level of lighting in the casino, so Robert asked the dealer what it said. “It says you can’t play yet because we don’t allow anyone to enter the game until I shuffle the cards,” explained the dealer.

This was strange to Robert, as he was not familiar with the “no mid-game entry” rule, but what could he do? So Robert waited.

After several rounds dealt to the one player at the table, the yellow plastic card appeared and the dealer began his shuffle. When he was finished, he grabbed Robert’s money and called out, “Change $500!”

This grabbed the floor supervisor’s attention, even though he was standing several games away inside the pit area. When the supervisor arrived at the table, he immediately asked Robert for a casino player card. Robert explained he was new to the area and this casino, and had not yet applied for a player’s club card. “Before you buy-in for this amount of money, the casino wants you to have a player’s club card,” the supervisor explained. “That way we can track your play so we know how much cash you’re in.”

When Robert asked him where he could get a player’s club card, the supervisor pointed in the direction of the front door of the casino and said the player’s club booth was “over there.”

Off Robert trudged, cash in hand, in search of the player’s club booth. Once he found it, he noticed that he would have to get in line behind a number of other customers. It appeared that the only player’s club representative was busy inputting new player information from each new applicant, which was a somewhat lengthy process. Finally, after 20 minutes, Robert appeared before the representative. After providing his driver’s license and some information about his lifestyle and hobbies, he finally received his very own player’s club card. This included an informational brochure, which the representative handed Robert when he started asking questions about the player’s club. The representative wasn’t particularly friendly but wasn’t sullen either, just slammed with all the card requests.

Robert headed back to the double-deck game, where he again had to wait several hands until the dealer came to the point of shuffling the cards. Then, Robert’s player’s club card was swiped and his money changed to chips. He placed a $25 bet. Forty minutes after arriving at the casino, Robert finally got to play his first hand of blackjack.

After a couple of hands, Robert increased his wager to $50 and received a blackjack. The dealer smiled for the first time, and congratulated Robert as he paid his winning $50 blackjack $60. Sixty dollars! Robert was stunned that the dealer would make that big of a mistake. But the dealer hadn’t made a mistake. He directed Robert’s attention to another small sign placed near the corner of the table, which indicated, “Blackjacks pay 6-to-5.” That meant Robert’s wager of $50 would be paid only $60, not the $75 Robert received at other casinos. What a rip-off! Robert asked the dealer if every blackjack game in the casino paid 6-to-5 on blackjacks, and the dealer stated that, no, it was only the double-deck, hand-pitched games, not the six-deck games. Robert quickly picked up his chips and headed for one of the less-desirable shoe games.

Once at a six-deck game, Robert took a seat and checked for any “surprise” rule signage. After calming his fears, he slid his player’s club card to the dealer. The dealer promptly picked up Robert’s card and waved it above his head as a signal to the floor supervisor that a player had just walked up to his table. After about 20 seconds of trying to raise a supervisor, the dealer looked left and then right without spotting anyone in the pit with a suit. The dealer dropped his hand and threw Robert’s player club card onto the table behind the discard holder, and proceeded to deal the cards once more.

Robert had already noticed something about the dealers at this casino. Though they weren’t rude, they appeared gloomy, never smiling and rarely taking the time to greet or interact with the customers. Robert pointed out this fact to the dealer and asked why everyone was so down. The dealer said, “Why? Because this place sucks. Management has been laying people off since last spring when the economy started to go bad. Every time we think they have stopped cutting back the schedule and lying off help, they let a few more dealers and supervisors go. Everyone is in constant fear they will be the next to be fired.”

Just then the dealer’s relief appeared at the table and tapped him lightly on the shoulder. Overhearing the conversation, she added, “Not only that, but there’s a rumor going around that management is planning to take a portion of our tips to give to the supervisor to help subsidize payroll costs. But when we asked management about it, they wouldn’t comment. Tips are down as it is, we are working only four days a week, and I can’t make my house payment.”

As the previous dealer clapped his hands and turned away from the table, he said, “You wanted to know why we aren’t friendly—well, that’s one reason not to smile.”

At this point, the supervisor walked over and looked at Robert’s player’s club card lying on the table. He picked up the card and swiped it, then flipped it back to Robert, never asking the dealers how long he had been playing at the table.

Unhappy about the unfriendly atmosphere at the casino, Robert considered calling it an early day. But then he remembered he wanted to try the new poker-style live game he had passed while looking for a shoe game. Robert approached the Texas hold ’em bonus game, sat down at a table with several players, and asked the dealer how to play the game. Without saying a word, the dealer reached into a small brochure holder and handed Robert a guide on the object and rules of the game. Even though the information guide appeared to include a complete list of rules, it was difficult to grasp how to play the game in a short period of time. After watching several hands, Robert decided to try and changed his chips so he could bet in $10 increments.

After basically throwing his money away for a few rounds because he didn’t fully understand the game, Robert started to get the basic concept. Just then, a supervisor approached the game with two new decks of cards. The game was dealt from a machine that shuffled the cards one batch at a time and required the use of two decks, one blue and one red-backed. At the completion of the hand, the dealer removed both of the old decks from the machine and set them on the table for the supervisor. The supervisor took her time thumbing through the new decks, inspecting the faces and the backs of the cards, while the dealer inspected his well-manicured hands.

Once the floor supervisor was finished, she placed the new cards on the layout and picked up the older cards. Then it was the dealer’s turn to inspect the cards. He picked up the first deck, spread it face up in a large arc on the layout, and then looked at each individual card to make sure the deck was complete. Then he flipped them over and inspected their backs. With the lengthy inspection done, the dealer proceeded to mix, or “wash,” the cards on the layout for about 30 seconds, which seemed like several hours to Robert.

Once the dealer finished washing the deck, he picked up the cards and began shuffling. After two riffle shuffles and a strip, the dealer placed the deck into the shuffling machine. Robert wondered why the dealer would go to such extremes shuffling the cards when he had a machine to do it for him. Didn’t the machine shuffle the cards well enough? Then the dealer picked up the second deck and proceeded to do the same process all over again. Robert looked at his watch. He had been sitting at the table for five minutes without playing a hand, and it appeared that he would be waiting longer now, as the dealer was still looking at the backs of the second deck of cards. Robert picked up his chips and headed for the cashier’s cage.

The Customer’s Viewpoint
Is Robert’s bad casino experience uncommon? Not as much as some of us in the gaming industry would think. Poor signage, lengthy and unnecessary game protection procedures and ill-planned employee layoffs during these slow times have created situations that are unfriendly to customers—situations that many casino executives don’t see, or fail to understand from a customer’s perspective. When economic times are tough, executives tend to look at the numbers, which unfortunately indicate lower revenues, rising costs and diminishing bottom-line profits. But when we concentrate on black and white numbers, that’s all we see. We overlook the human element involved in the creation of those numbers.

Did the executive of the casino Robert ventured into know his customer-service skills were lacking? Did he understand that all the game procedure rules, club-card policies and financially necessary staffing realignments would transfer his live gaming operation into a “player’s hell?” Probably not. Even during trying economic times the successful casino executive cannot forget the human element. He needs to take a step back from the numbers and ask himself:  “Will my customers receive the service they expect? Will I provide them with an adequate choice of gambling options, dealt in a manner that accommodates their wants and desires? Have I taken my employees’ concerns into consideration? Are they comfortable with their work environment, or are they living in continual fear that the other shoe will fall, and they will not be able to meet their own financial obligations?

In order to prevent your casino from becoming Robert’s nightmare, please consider the following points:

•    Treat customer service as one of the more important elements for success and profitability.
•    Assign an employee to greet customers at the door and to answer their various questions.
•    Adequately staff the booth and other service areas that are primary points of customer contact.
•    Provide adequate casino floor signage.
•    Consider time and motion issues in regard to your live games—look to eliminate procedures that are time consuming and customer unfriendly (eliminating “no mid-game entry” is a perfect example).
•    Allow live game customers the option to receive player’s club     cards in the pit where they are gambling.
•    Limit the number of table games floor supervisor may supervise—think saving customers as well as saving payroll.
•    Pay attention to employee moral—build confidence in management and employees’ job security, and do not instill fears of immanent termination.
•    Walk the casino floor on a regular basis, observing what really happens, talking to customers, and answering employee questions.
•    Keep all stakeholders informed as to changes in direction or attitude of the gaming operation, including employees, vendors and investors.

Bill Zender is a former Nevada Gaming Control agent, casino operator, professional card counter and present gaming consultant. He has been involved in various areas of gaming and hospitality since 1976.  He can be reached at wzender@lastresortconsulting.com.