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Author Sets Off a Debate Over Casino Floor Design

LAS VEGAS, Nevada – Feb. 19, 2001 -- If you're designing a new casino, what should you copy: one of the Strip's billion-dollar behemoths of the 1990s like the MGM Grand, or a "grind joint" like the El Cortez?

Most Strip visitors walking through the newest resorts in awe would think that's a no-brainer. But Bill Friedman believes places like the El Cortez, Binion's Horseshoe and Circus Circus are the ones that have it right -- and the Strip's megaresorts of the 1990s have gotten it wrong.

The megaresorts certainly aren't financial failures, Friedman said. "It's just that they will never reach their potential," he said. "They make good profits, but they'll never reach their potential of people visiting to play."

Friedman, a Las Vegas casino consultant and former general manager of the Silver Slipper and the Castaways on the Las Vegas Strip, laid out these principles in "Designing Casinos to Dominate the Competition," a thick new book outlining more than 20 years of field observations in every casino in Nevada.

The thesis of his book is controversial indeed -- that design determines a casino's fate more than management, marketing and operations combined. And the design that spells success, Friedman said, is a cramped, maze-like casino floor jammed with machines -- the opposite of the vast, open casinos seen in the billion-dollar casinos that now populate the Strip.

Design, he writes, can explain the long-term struggles of many properties, including the Desert Inn, the Las Vegas Hilton and the old Aladdin.

"Where they prefer to gamble is what this book is all about," Friedman said. "It's where players for two-thirds of a century have always selected to play. They (casino operators) have improved in all areas but the casino."

Needless to say, Friedman has touched a nerve among Las Vegas gaming executives.

"By any measure, Binion's is not as successful as the MGM Grand or the Mirage or Caesars Palace," said Alan Feldman, spokesman for MGM MIRAGE. "If that were true, Binion's would be the most successful place in the state. It strikes me as almost inconceivable that Binion's and El Cortez are optimal uses of design."

Still, some believe Friedman may have a point.

"They're going to have a tough time arguing with him unless they can come up with numbers to refute him," said Shannon Bybee, executive director of the International Gaming Institute at UNLV. "Much of the design (in recent years) done by designers and architects was not based on knowledge of casino customers, but on what they (designers) liked and what looked good."

Friedman's conclusions are based on decades of observing players and visitors in casinos, then taking detailed measurements on areas where play tends to be highest.

He bases his principles on a concept called "player-to-visitor ratio" -- simply put, how many people walking through a casino actually stop to play a machine, an element Friedman calls "the best indicator of how closely a casino's results come to achieving potential win and profitability." In his years of experience, Friedman says he has yet to find a casino that was an exception to the rule.

Many of his principles would hardly impress the legions of tourists along the Strip. To which Friedman replies, "So what?"

"Nonplayers and gawkers are of no value to a casino, so what the general public thinks about decor is absolutely meaningless," Friedman wrote. "Their attitudes should be ignored. The only relevant opinions are those of players and visitors who say they like to gamble. Inexplicably, however, casinos have been designed and decorated with nonplayers in mind."

Rather than having huge spacious areas with tall ceilings, Friedman said casinos should be "segmented" into distinct areas with low ceilings, jammed with slots. Friedman also argues against central pathways that guide visitors through a casino, saying that very few people will actually leave such a path to gamble.

These principles are based on the need to create player intimacy, Friedman said. Without a sense of a intimacy and energy, a slot floor can never live up to its potential, he said.

"A gambler is looking for excitement," Friedman said. "When you have a big open area, it seems deserted and dead, no matter how much activity is going on at eye level. All of that empty space above just sucks the energy out of it."

Rather than trying to impress visitors with elaborate decor, Friedman believes the best approach is to leave the impressive spectacles on the outside, and let the slots be the decorations on the inside. Internal decor simply draws attention away from the slots, he said.

These principles make some of the oldest casinos in Las Vegas big winners, Friedman said. On the Strip, he cites Circus Circus, the Stardust, Westward Ho and Harrah's Las Vegas as effectively designed casinos -- casinos that succeed despite less-than-favorable locations in some cases.

On the opposite end are a laundry list of major Strip properties, including Bally's Las Vegas, Treasure Island, the Flamingo, the MGM Grand, the Excalibur, the Luxor, the Tropicana and the New York-New York -- properties that draw tremendous visitor counts but that Friedman says fail to turn enough of them into gamblers.

New York-New York, A Great Mouse Trap

A prime example, Friedman writes, is the New York-New York.

"New York-New York's facade is the greatest mouse trap ever built by the gambling industry, drawing record crowds into the casino, but few mice nibble on the bait," Friedman wrote. "An effective casino remodel costing a few million dollars could increase non-comped play by as much as four times, making this Nevada's most profitable resort."

Many experts believe Friedman is on target with his emphasis on design -- but they disagree that design alone can have so much impact on success or failure.

Andrew Pascal, chief executive of Silicon Gaming, once directed the slot machine marketing efforts of several Mirage Resorts properties, including the Mirage. He argues there's more to success than just design.

"As far as saying design is the most influential (element) to the performance of a property ... I think it's hard to single that out as the most critical element," Pascal said. "Clearly it's very important. (But) you have to make sure it's configured right to get the right amount of traffic flow. You have to get the right game and denomination mix, the right hit frequency. Then you layer on top of that service and response time.

"If the space is too vacuous, if it just lacks a sense of intimacy and energy, I don't think it will be able to achieve its optimal performance."

The Mirage is often cited as a model for modern casino development, but Friedman argues it shouldn't be copied because of its weaknesses, including extensive visible depth, spaciousness, lack of "private playing worlds," excess decor and a prominent walkway through the casino.

But Pascal argues the Mirage creates the necessary intimate effect with such features as thatched roofs overhanging slots and table areas.

"I know Steve Wynn's intention was never to have people enter a space that was vast and open," Pascal said. "It's a much more human scale, much more intimate. If you look at it, there was an effort to create unique and intimate spaces. There's clearly a lot of places (on the Strip) where that does not hold true."

Agree or disagree, Friedman's raised a point that will have to be studied carefully, said Bill Eadington, director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada, Reno. The institute is the publisher of Friedman's book.

"The empirical evidence he's been able to present is certainly persuasive enough to the point that you have to look at it. You can't ignore it," Eadington said. "The jury is still out on the evidence. It's not the kind of scientific analysis a statistician would do ... that's what needs to be done. It's the kind of thing a company with a lot of different facilities with a lot of different designs ... could test for validity.

"It's undoubtedly going to create healthy debate, force them to look back and say, 'What does the evidence suggest and support?' That kind of debate is how every industry improves over time."

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