Originally Posted by Norm
I would opt for more beatable games with high tolerance levels. Down with quantity full speed ahead with quality.
Yes
No
Yes in new states
I think a problem with a saturated environment (several / more casinos) is they lose business to competitors. Sure, they can "get better prices", beef up their marketing department, have the best VP paytables, best BJ rules, etc. but that's only going to lure in a portion of their previous market clientele.
Imagine Southern California with no casinos. The closest gambling destination for those in, say, San Diego, is going to be Las Vegas. If SoCal starts up a bunch of casinos, guess where many of those San Diego residents are going to be playing -- yeah, in SoCal casinos. Sure, some will still enjoy/prefer going to Las Vegas, but a majority of the SD gamblers are going to be heading to nearby casinos, not take a 4 hour drive to LV. LV could have the best games, best rules, best comps, and everything else.....but the most important part for most gamblers is going to be the distance.
"Everyone wants to be rich, but nobody wants to work for it." -Ryan Howard [The Office]
That's how you keep your previous customer base when the new casino opens. The sure way to lose it is to make your games worse in order to have a bigger piece of the players action. The trouble is a bigger piece of a smaller pie is less than a smaller piece of a bigger pie. It is far easier to keep your customers than to try to win them back.
You expect the average gambler to continue driving 5+ hours to the casino, when he can go to a closer casino? Hell, the games in LV are better than they are in SoCal (real roulette, craps, luxurious rooms, shopping, free drinks, etc.).....but the SoCal casinos are still packed.
You no longer have to plan a vacation just to go gamble. You can go out for a fun night of gambling, just like you might go bowling, drinking at the bar, going to the beach, or whatever else people do for fun & hanging out with friends. Hell, you can stop by the casino for 20 minutes on your way home from work!
"Everyone wants to be rich, but nobody wants to work for it." -Ryan Howard [The Office]
Pretty much, yes.
I translated this to mean "people will continue driving 5+ hours to LV instead of 20 minutes down the street to the new casino".
"Everyone wants to be rich, but nobody wants to work for it." -Ryan Howard [The Office]
The more the better! It's better to have more competition, otherwise they have a monopoly and can gouge the heck out of it since they're the only game in town. Look at the comments about Australian casinos, they can make the rules as bad as they want. Where else are you going to go? It's not like there's another casino in the next town over. I like to spread out as thin as I can within a geographical range. If there's 8 casinos with a playable game within a reasonable distance I want to spread my play between all 8 of them.
Well your translation is wrong. I merely stated it is easier to keep customers than win them back and the way to keep customers is to offer better games. Ideally you don't want your customer to ever try another casino. Generalizations don't apply to everyone but none the less are applicable to enough of your customer base to be worthy of doing.
If I follow your logic for "translating posts" you just said all the Vegas customer base drives 5+ hours to get to Vegas. Of course that is not what you said or meant. So I would make myself look like an idiot when it comes to reading comprehension to say such a thing.
You countered my "people will drive a few minutes instead of several hours" argument with "it's easier to keep customers than win new ones". I know exactly what you meant, but you're wrong. The majority of gamblers don't know nor care about blackjack rules.
If the nearest gas station to your house was 30 minutes away, and I put in a new gas station right across the street from you....guess what, chances are you and everyone else in your area aren't gonna be going to the gas station 30 minutes away, even if the closer gas station was more expensive.
Big difference in how AP/professionals view casinos versus regular gamblers. Tarzan spreads his action around. I bet Tarzan doesn't spread around his grocery shopping. He probably goes to the same store every time he goes shopping, or else he goes to whichever one is the most convenient (closest to wherever he currently is). He might be an exception, but I know no one who buys their dairy items at Vons, breakfast foods at Ralph's, steaks and chicken at WalMart, and water/soda/juice at Smith's.
"Everyone wants to be rich, but nobody wants to work for it." -Ryan Howard [The Office]
Not exactly a good choice for analogies since you use a lot of gas driving 1 hour round trip but I know what you mean.
Well my grocery shopping is closest to the latter than the former. Dairy/farm products are way cheaper at the Amish market along with some other things (as much as 50% cheaper) but you must use cash so you don't get 3% back from your CC company for grocery purchases. I get gas when I visit this store because the cheapest gas I see in the state is on the way to or from the Amish store. It is anywhere from 5 to 20 cents cheaper than anywhere else in my area and I do a lot of driving. There are 3 main chain grocery stores I check every week for good deals via their circular. More general grocery shopping is done at the Walmart. For specialty/gourmet items there is another store but I don't need that much. Any given week I probably visit 3 of these grocery stores but there is frequency fluctuation week to week. I figure I save $10 to $30 every time I visit the Amish grocery store depending on how much I buy. If I end up near the bakery their store practically gives away various baked goods which you are never sure what will be discounted to 33 cents per package. It may be raison bread, rye bread, english muffins, wheat bread, bagels, hot dog, hamburger or sub rolls. They supply all the grocery stores for a long ways and buying the same stuff there costs $2-3 a package. The other careful purchasing at grocery stores saves 30-50% off indiscriminate buying. I save a few dollars a week in gas plus the 5% cash back for using my CC to purchase it. So just with that I am saving a few thousand a year in what I use all the time. That along with the other ways I save money to get what I need or pay regular bills pays for a couple decent vacations a year.
I think there are regional differences with this issue and casinos. There are some really low level players that will play anywhere but most that are worth trying to get to come to your casino are picky and tend to stick with the casinos where their money lasts longer. They talk about it while they play. They are not interested in newly opened joints. Some have gone once but they are superstitious and don't want to change things. If they do try something new it better work out good for them or they won't be coming back. But all but the lowest their of gamblers around here are picky creatures of habit that are pretty well educated. You drive them away and they are not likely to come back and neither are their gambling buddies. But as long as you keep them happy they will continue to come back. The worst thing you can do is change something so they have a reason to think about going somewhere else. Some of the smaller casinos have a bunch of totally clueless players that wouldn't notice a rule change because they probably don't know the rules to begin with.
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