Casino City Press Books Packed with Names, Places, Online Sites, Addresses, Numbers

28 October 2004

By Howard Schwartz

Casino City Press has produced three wonderful time-saving reference books that will appeal to those looking for a job; interested in selling a product to a casino or finding which gambling operation is located in what state or country.

The three books are the Gaming Business Directory (716 pages, 8x11 plastic spiralbound, $124.95); the Online Gaming Business Directory (288 pages, 8x11 plastic spiralbound, $89.95) and the Worldwide Casino Guide (472 pages, 8x11 paperbound, $29.95).

In order of reference, first, let's look at the Gaming Business Directory and what unique features it offers:

There are sections listing gaming operations by state, showing you for instance what Arizona offers, each establishment, address, fax, toll-free numbers, total number of and type of gaming machines or tables; number of employees; owner and key management personnel including who's in charge of each department; gift shop manager; human resources (hiring) director and who's in charge of purchasing. Sections even tell you the amount of parking spaces; the square footage for convention and how many rooms exist for guests.

From Alabama to Wyoming, it's all there, and then the book moves to Canada and the Caribbean to Europe (phones, fax numbers, web sites, email addresses, owners, management and publicity and marketing personnel listed when available, along with number of slots, table games, poker tables, restaurants, square footage are listed if they were supplied as requested).

The book moves to coverage of Australia, Africa, Asia, Oceania, Central and South America.

North American tracks (horses, greyhounds, jai alai) and racinos follow, listing web and email addresses with addresses, faxes, locations, and who's in charge of key areas including food and beverage, purchasing, mutuels, marketing, number of poker tables.

For casino cruises and cruise ships, you'll find key contact (phone, Internet, fax) addresses and numbers plus types of games offered, number of cabins, restaurants, passenger capacity, number of crew personnel and country of registry.

Who actual owns the casinos? One special section lists the board of directors, officers, gaming management and ownership percentages (this includes Indian casinos and foreign operations).

There are 500 online gaming sites listed, actually ranked on the basis of "historical web usage of a panel of 10 million users over a period of three months prior to the directory's publication" in 2004.

Here you can isolate the jurisdiction, type of software and web traffic rank, while finding the main phone number, the toll-free number, fax number and email address, if known.

One section is devoted to industry suppliers, another shows suppliers by category; followed by gaming commissions by state (racing, lottery, gaming, etc.); then analysts and attorneys, by state and includes Canada; with trade shows and trade publications also listed.

The Online Gaming Directory ranks nearly 1,000 English language sites according to traffic. They include casinos, poker rooms, sportsbooks, race book, betting exchanges and bingo sites which offer real-money wagering over the Internet. Portal sites and free-play sites are not listed.

You can find toll-free numbers, email and web site addresses and deposit information (what credit card of form of payment is accepted), whether download is required or optional.

One of the more interesting or illuminating section indicates gaming site owners, with names and titles where they were available, with names, email addresses and web sites.

For those interested in gaming software, there are 25 pages of companies and contacts, followed by industry suppliers and regulatory jurisdictions.

The Worldwide Casino Guide contains a listing of more than 3,000 individual gaming properties, including Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Caribbean, Central and South America, Europe, North America, Oceania (including Australia and New Zealand), Cruise Ships in this country and internationally.

For those who want to travel and gamble, it's an excellent resource to tell you where to call or write or email a casino, the hours of operation, games offered, whether they have entertainment or a restaurant.

It also lists by category which gaming entities have racebook, sportsbooks, bingo halls, poker games (some may operate in conjunction with dog or horse tracks); who ranks highest in gaming machines (Foxwoods in Connecticut has 7,374 for the Number One rank); Casino de Genting in Malaysia has a total of 426 table games to top the list internationally; Foxwoods has 9,240 gaming positions to top that specific list.

Gaming industry suppliers are listed by product in alphabetical order, then by product category and who the key personnel are in many instances, along with how to contact them.

One section lists the most popular online gaming sites with ways to reach them by email or fax or phone.

Overall, these are tremendous time-saving references for a person or company with a product who wishes to reach those with decision-making power or for job applications.