Casino management case study: The Young Crowd

[AaronBrown]

I'm curious how players would answer the following question (there's an earlier post with another case that seems just as wrong to me).

• Scenario #2 - The Young Crowd
You are the Poker Director at a downtown Reno casino. Your business has eroded over time, but has stabilized over the past year. Your customers are primarily male and over 50 years old and you would like to tap into a younger market, but not many Gen Xers have been visiting Reno, except for special events like Hot August Nights, a week-long, 50's themed car show. You do have 1,000 rooms (with a 70% occupancy rate), a small lounge, some convention space, and empty poker table 5 days a week in a small satellite pit. You would like to get "out of the box" to attract a younger table game crowd, but you also don't want to alienate your core senior customers. How would you create a table game marketing program that will build new business with a younger demographic?

[acoustix]

A start would be to increase your poker tables and spread decent games. With the boom, wouldn't this bring more players in to play poker, which in turn would bring in more players who play table games (which you would conveniently locate right next to the poker room) while waiting to get on a table?

[chube]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm curious how players would answer the following question (there's an earlier post with another case that seems just as wrong to me).


[/ QUOTE ]

I just curious what you think is wrong with trying to attract more people to your casino without alienating your core customers?

[AaronBrown]

[ QUOTE ]
I just curious what you think is wrong with trying to attract more people to your casino without alienating your core customers?

[/ QUOTE ]
The goal is fine, I didn't like the ideas the consultant provided in answer.

The focus of people here makes sense to me. Make the younger players feel welcome, give them what they want. I don't think that will alienate guys over 50. They hate to see skin on a cocktal waitress? They don't want their place to feel fun and cool?

The consultant wanted to use the convention space and rooms to get some staid younger people (so the over-50's could stay asleep) with the hope of building a family business, tied to nearby ski resorts and spas. Get them in for the Cost Accounting convention, then give them a comp to return with their families for a week in the slow season; hope to get a lifetime customer.

That might be fine for roulette and craps, but I don't think it's going to score with poker players. I don't think it attracts them for a lot of reasons, but the biggest problem is it's not enough to make it attractive for individual poker players, you need to attract a critical mass. Good poker players don't want to go to places that don't have enough players to spread a decent selection of games and limits. You can't build slowly from the ground up, you need to make a big splash.

[sandycove]

In a very general sense, I believe your first chore is to examine yourself and your resources and your talents, and imagine and commit to a vision of what you might become, after an honest assessment whether it’s absolutely necessary, or worth the effort, or appropriate for your gifts and personality.

This “macro” view is something entirely different from a departmental-goal “micro” view, which is equally valid.

But I have NEVER met with a client who, at our initial consultation, could articulate clearly what business he or she was in…

(For better or worse, consider the behavior of Poker Stars vs Party Poker. One operation is in the internet poker business. The other is in the entertainment business.)

People come to see us because they perceive that they are welcome and that they belong. (Younger people also come because you have positioned yourself as the flavour-of-the-day.) They stay because they get good value, real and imagined. They come back because, thanks to you, they had fun.

I believe you must accept that you cannot be all things to all people, all the time. You need to concentrate on a market segment that is either traditionally the most profitable, or is currently under-served, or un-tapped by the competition. Then you must get to know this segment inside and out and communicate to it with a consistent and constant message. And your staff must be well on board and motivated. Once you have begun, there is no turning back; in for a penny, in for a pound.

Most of these revitalization efforts fail not because the marketing vision was poor, but because supervision at the point of sale is uneven and insufficiently vigorous.

I believe it is important in your business to focus on the fact that, at any given time, a prohibitive percentage of your guests are losers. So you need to counter this negative vibe with other perceptions of value. I believe this starts with staff attitude. And I believe that starts with YOUR attitude toward your staff.

At the end of the day, you can tinker with the bells and whistles ad nauseum, but it is the mutually respectful, considerate, professional and light-hearted management of your vision that will make everyone involved in some sense a winner.

[benfranklin]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm curious how players would answer the following question (there's an earlier post with another case that seems just as wrong to me).

• Scenario #2 - The Young Crowd
You are the Poker Director at a downtown Reno casino. Your business has eroded over time, but has stabilized over the past year. Your customers are primarily male and over 50 years old and you would like to tap into a younger market, but not many Gen Xers have been visiting Reno, except for special events like Hot August Nights, a week-long, 50's themed car show. You do have 1,000 rooms (with a 70% occupancy rate), a small lounge, some convention space, and empty poker table 5 days a week in a small satellite pit. You would like to get "out of the box" to attract a younger table game crowd, but you also don't want to alienate your core senior customers. How would you create a table game marketing program that will build new business with a younger demographic?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not that familiar with Reno, but it seems like the potential market for new customers would be northern California and the ski resorts.

For the former, find out what California players want that they are not getting locally.

For the latter, special promos offered through the ski resorts, poker plus skiing vacation packages, etc.

For both cases, it sounds like the convention space would be good for small-medium tournaments, like on big ski weekends, spring break, etc.

[RagnarPirate]

Before reading BenFranklins' post I had the same ski package idea.
When I think of Reno/Lake Tahoe, I think of Godfather II. Make it a Godfather themed satellite pit. Lake tahoe during the day, Reno at night.

[Farfenugen]

Get some smokin drink ladies that keep the booze comin.

In your advertisement feature two young men having a great time playing poker while a hot server is serving them large glasses of jack&coke. She is bent over for the photo. One young man is raking in a huge pot with 72o. The other young man is smiling at the hot server. At the bottom have, "Get lucky at Blahblahblah Casino in Reno."

Do I win anything?

[Reef]

[ QUOTE ]
Get some smokin drink ladies that keep the booze comin.

In your advertisement feature two young men having a great time playing poker while a hot server is serving them large glasses of jack&coke. She is bent over for the photo. One young man is raking in a huge pot with 72o. The other young man is smiling at the hot server. At the bottom have, "Get lucky at Blahblahblah Casino in Reno."

Do I win anything?

[/ QUOTE ]

wow. I want to have your children.

[phish]

Hire Phil Helmouth to promote your room.