Are they squeezing their slot players out the door?

[Evoni]

I thought this article was interesting, especially the part that said "“It’s criminal that we allow penny games to have a 12 percent hold. Nothing can alienate a customer quicker than that. Casinos think that customers won’t know the difference between a six percent and a 12 percent hold and we’ll get them out quickly. They are right; customers do get out and spend their money on cruise ships and other activities.”

Wish the casinos would start listening!

http://www.casinojournal.com/articles/90082-slot-machine-time-on-device-debate-rages-on

[Pjmargde]

Thanks for posting this Diana!


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[Nhcris]

Evoni, that was a great read. Thank you!

[sondor]

Thanks that was a good read....We can hope that they may listen someday

[Moneybags]

Amazing article! What we've been saying for years. It doesn't matter if the casual player can't sense changes in PB. He knows he's played it down to the felt in 30 minutes instead of 2 hours!

[slotbender]

Good article Diana! But what they didn't mention are the casino's targeting demographics. I read an article once that explained this in pretty much detail and I can attest to their facts by my own observations from many years of being in different casino's. I hope this doesn't sound sexist but they had stated that casino's mostly target women between the ages of 34 to 60. The casino's find that within this age bracket of women they can create the most slot gambling addicts, (they allow them to win jackpots more often because they know that they'll get it back plus more) more than with men at any age. And....not to sound racist, but they also stated that the casino's like to target Asian's (both male & female at any age). I just tried to find the article and I can no longer find it to give a link to it here, sorry : (

[kdk]

This is such a great article. I agree with so many things in it, and there were things I thought about that came up in the article.

I love how they talk about the Gary Loveman story- about how he heard a woman complaining about the slots in an elevator so he figured he could tighten up all of them an no one would notice. Also, love how they point out how Barona does so much right- and that's why they are busy all the time!

[clemi]

Thanks for the good read. Wishing more casinos adopt better paybacks for slotters.

Still wonder why the slot manufacturers haven't pressed this idea as well.


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[Evoni]

Glad it was of interest. :)


Thanks for the good read. Wishing more casinos adopt better paybacks for slotters.

Still wonder why the slot manufacturers haven't pressed this idea as well.


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They have tried. I was told by one of the game designers I know at WMS (before they were bought out by Scientific Games) a couple years ago when I ran into him at Cosmopolitan that the company was actually told by the CET group that if they didn't have percentages as low as 85 percent that could be set on the slots that they would remove all WMS slots from their casinos and not buy/lease anymore. I'm sure other slot manufacturer's were told the same thing.

BTW, I'm sure that CET and casinos don't set ALL their slots to the lowest legal percentage and have a certain amount of slots set to return a bit more even among the penny slots.

[kolonialone]

Great article....I'm not sure about anyone else, but I can definitely tell now versus say about 15 years ago. Slots are definitely tighter now and you don't get to play as long. It seems the casinos are either getting desperate for more players or just greedy, either way higher hold percentages keep players from going as often as they would when they're winning. If only OK would publish their hold percentages. I think they're definitely on the higher end of holds because there's no one watching them except themselves.

[zeus]

Since I really did not start playing slots until 9 or 10 years ago I do not get to see the difference of many years past that so many of you do. I have read of how many talk about the good old days, but I never got to experience it. Maybe that makes the pain of losing a little easier for me. Thanks for a great article, Diana.

[TwoArmedBandito]

Thanks for the link to an interesting article. Unfortunately won't change a thing.

[dvandentop]

All true what is posted but sadly and amount of articles won't open these casinos eyes

[Moneybags]

All true what is posted but sadly and amount of articles won't open these casinos eyes

I've said it before, but it bears repeating. Uneducated gangsters ran Vegas better than the MBA types there now. The gangsters didn't know anything about math or marketing. The only thing they knew was that they had a golden goose, and all they had to do was bring people in the door - then everything else would take care of itself. And they were right.

[oldslotguy]

"slot players out the door" .. yuppers. After many years of travel/slotting and at least 100 casinos, we are on the very brink of "we're through with slots". So sad. Used to be a fun getaway.

[dvandentop]

"slot players out the door" .. yuppers. After many years of travel/slotting and at least 100 casinos, we are on the very brink of "we're through with slots". So sad. Used to be a fun getaway.
That is a real shame when even longtime players like you know the conditions are bad and just call it quits.

[oldslotguy]

That is a real shame when even longtime players like you know the conditions are bad and just call it quits.

At one time we did 1000-6000mi trips. Then DW got to a point where that was out of the ?. We still used to do 1-3xs week, and are now down to 1 time last month. Every machine, every denomination is horrible to play. Quit the HLs last Mar., and now to where we're ready to call it quits altogether.