The Royal Flushes on old versus new

[The Royal Flushes, Abby and Cindy, are sisters who have been going to casinos regularly for over 35 years – often weekly. They have opinions about the games and the casino environment. See what you think.]

ABBY: The question we ask today is this: Are casinos better now that they are run by big companies, or were the old days of individual ownership better? I’ll let Cindy go first.

CINDY: There is no doubt that today’s casinos are far better than those of the past. Just look at Vegas. It used to be buildings that were more like motels, in fact they were motels, but today these building are often skyscrapers. The rooms are gorgeous in the tourist areas, often being suites for average rollers. You really didn’t get that in the past.

The comping formulas are understandable and written out so that every player knows where she stands. You don’t have to guess about what your play is worth to the house. You know. The slot clubs are far better than the past because slot players are taken seriously as the moneymakers casinos want. In the past the slot players were overlooked; in the 1950s, '60s and early '70s, the slot players were basically considered the girlfriends of the big money craps, roulette and blackjack players. That is not so today. So I’ll take today any day!

ABBY: Cindy is so wrong. In the past the floor men (and very few women, unfortunately) developed personal relationships with players. The comp formulas were elastic. You showed you played, and you got better comps than you get today in the corporate casinos.

You see the people with “the power of the pen” [“pen” means the person who can give out the comps] have to look everything up on the computer to figure out what a player is worth to a casino. That wasn’t really done in the past. Today’s players look at themselves as a formula more than as a person. You can sense that when you see some player ask for a comp and the floor person takes a really long, long time to find out what he can give that player. In the past, you got the comp quickly and that made you really want to keep playing in that casino.

I will admit that today’s casino-hotels make a lot of money, but more and more of it is coming from areas that are not related to gambling such as restaurants, various types of stores, events and the like.

The blackjack games were better in the old days, too.

CINDY: But craps is better today, right?

ABBY: Right. But maybe we should get into the overall status of the games in another issue?

CINDY: OK. I still maintain that today is the glory days of the casino industry.

ABBY: And that’s why so many casino companies are having problems? Expansion has hurt the casinos in many areas of the country.

CINDY: I think you are looking at it the wrong way. Casinos have spread throughout the country. There are more casino players today than ever before and far more people who enjoy going to casinos as their form of entertainment, but yes, yes, some areas weren’t strong enough to support more than one or two casinos. So there you may be right. But that is the capitalistic system, right?

ABBY: I always prefer that personal touch, and that is why I prefer to shop at local stores – mom and pop stores – and not in the big department stores. Give me the casinos of yesterday. They just felt more real, if I can use that as a description. Let's go back to that.

CINDY: That’s not going to happen. Give me today.