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Gaming Guru
The slot manager vs. the slot player1 August 2017
SLOT PLAYER: I have been playing for years at [name of casino], and the comps always seem to be fair. I have played enough to get a room during the week and some buffets. I like to play 9/6 Jacks or Better video poker. About a month ago the casino changed those games to 8/5 Jacks or Better, and now they are bringing in 6/5 Jacks or Better. I asked one of the slot managers about that and he laughed at me. He said, “We bring in the machines that people want to play.” Yeah, right. SLOT MANAGER: Casinos need to maximize profits. If we can have people play lower payback machines and we increase our profits, that is what we want. Video poker does not make us as much money as regular slot machines, because a lot of players know the best strategies. That helps them but it doesn’t help us. With slot machines, there are no real strategies. So we try to bring in video poker games that can come close to them. SLOT PLAYER: I think the casinos are having trouble overall today, and you’d think that they would want to keep their regular customers. I am heading across the bay to play at [name of casino] because they still have 9/6 Jacks or Better. My old casino lost me as a customer because I refuse to play 6/5 machines. I don’t mind gambling, but I don’t want to just throw my money away. I want a decent chance to win. SLOT MANAGER: I don’t think we lose customers if we lower the type of payback we offer on our machines. That would include video poker as well as slots. We don’t make the machines impossible to beat; we just make them hold a little more money. Players don’t notice this. Yes, the casinos are not making what they used to because there are too many casinos in the [United States], so we have to be aware we need to make more money from the customers we do have. That is called business. We have to make smart business decisions. That is the bottom line. SLOT PLAYER: The casino across the bay is offering better video poker, and my husband says their craps games offer better odds. I am not a craps player, but the slot aisles are full of players even mid-week. The table games look to have a lot more players than my former casino. Players have told me they come here because the casino is better and more generous. The video poker players come because the best video poker is here. That’s what did it for me. I would think casinos want loyal customers who come back to play a lot. If you get good games and decent comps, you go to the casino more often. You spend money in their stores and restaurants. I buy a lot of my holiday gifts at the casino stores. My old casino is getting none of that [action]. SLOT MANAGER: I would like to move as many video poker players over to slot machines, but those video poker players, most of them anyway, just love to play their games. So we offer the games they want, but we offer them in payback percentage that helps us more and we also give them about half the comp value we give normal slot players, because the video poker players do not have the kind of losses slot players have. As always, this is a business, and we have to use business models. You mentioned Jacks or Better machines. What is the real difference to the player if the machine is 9/6 or 8/5? It is not really noticeable to them. But it increases our bottom line enough to make it worthwhile to have those machines in our casino. Don’t get me wrong. I know I sound like a cold-hearted individual. We like our customers. We love our customers. I want our customers to have fun when they come here. But if we don’t make money, there will be no “here” for them to come to. That doesn’t help them and it doesn’t help us. They have to have fun, and we have to make enough money to keep our casino going. SLOT PLAYER: I’ll tell you what else I like about this [new] casino. I have a slot host! I am not a big player and my husband is not a high-rolling craps player, but I have a host! We’re not getting the highest comps, but our host gives us a lot of stuff we never got in our old casino. We come here twice as often as we were going to our old casino. Why not? We have good games to play, our own host, and you feel appreciated for your play. They even brought in several more 9/6 Jacks or Better machines. That is a casino that is thinking about its players. Frank Scoblete’s newest books are I Am a Dice Controller: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Craps, I Am a Card Counter: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Blackjack and Confessions of a Wayward Catholic. Frank’s books are available at Amazon.com, Kindle, Barnes and Noble, and bookstores. Visit Frank's website at www.frankscoblete.com. This article is provided by the Frank Scoblete Network. Melissa A. Kaplan is the network's managing editor. If you would like to use this article on your website, please contact Casino City Press, the exclusive web syndication outlet for the Frank Scoblete Network. To contact Frank, please e-mail him at fscobe@optonline.net. Recent Articles
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