Gaming and Casino Operations Management Commons^™

Responsible Gaming Certification Standards, Dietmar Hoscher

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

The European Casino Association (ECA) is representing the licensed European Casino industry in Brussels. It represents some 900 casinos form 24 European countires which employ around 70.000 staff.

In 2013 the ECA launched a project among its members concerning Responsible Gaming. A Working Group headed by Prof. Hoscher a Board Mamber of Casinos Austria AG was formed. The members where Resposnible Gaming Experts fom the different companies and associations within the ECA network.

The working group established a Responsible Gaming Framework that represents a collection of measures to presevent gambling addictions and identify vulonerable persons. The collection of measures are …

Recession Effect On Consumer Spend Allocation And Integrated Resorts' Profits, Toni Repetti, Ashok Singh

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Consumers have many decisions to make when it comes to travel. The first decision is choosing to travel at all, followed by how much to spend. Next based on the consumer’s motivations and preferences, they determine how to allocate their travel spend across a variety of categories. This study evaluates how revenue generation in integrated resorts changed during recessions. This allocation change in revenue also affects profits and profit margins as each department has a different cost structure. This study will also evaluate how profit and profit margins in each department were affected due to the change in revenue allocation …

Integrating Organisational Change Management And Internal And External Customer Relationship Management In A Casino, Charlie C. Mai Dr

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Casinos operate in a global industry, so the development of online gaming and new casinos in the Asia Pacific has challenged casino managers in Australia and elsewhere with pressures about customer engagement. These external pressures have forced some casino managers to consider organizational change management initiatives and/or the implementation of customer relationship management (CRM) initiatives. However, the implementation of these initiatives has often failed. This research aimed to solve the problem: How can casinos manage organizational change programs, and internal and external customer relationship management (CRM) programs? To find a solution, it used two stages of qualitative methods involving 21 …

Elvis Who? Understanding, Attracting And Retaining The Next Generation Of Las Vegas Customers, Oliver Lovat

Occasional Papers

Las Vegas is in the middle of a period of generational transformation. The visitor profile has changed greatly since 2007, however the behavior and attitudes of this new visitor are very different that of previous generations of visitors. By undertaking a survey of this group we identify several key trends that make this group unique. Not only does this new visitor come to Las Vegas more frequently, follow Las Vegas when they are not in the city, they demonstrate planning and spending patterns that are unlike any other group. This paper analyses the next generation of visitor, and suggests methods …

Doubling Down On Goffman: A Commentary On Dmitri Shalin’S ‘Erving Goffman, Fateful Action, And The Las Vegas Gambling Scene’, James Cosgrave

UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal

Erving Goffman “was not a sociologist of any particular area” (Scheff 2006: 20). He was, in fact, a sociologist of many areas: the interaction order, stigma, “total institutions,” gender, “forms of talk,” public behaviour – and gambling certainly belongs to the list. He may be better known for these other topics, but his contributions to the sociological analysis of gambling are canonical. Thus, another sociological hat can be worn. A unique, inventive social scientist, Goffman could pull off the donning of many such hats. Bucking the standard presentation of social scientific research in journal articles, Goffman was the “master of …

The Evolution Of The Concept Of Social Action: Parsons And Goffman, Philip Manning

UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal

Goffman’s analysis of gambling is very important for our overall understanding of his work. This is because Goffman’s sociology is driven by both theoretical and ethnographic impulses, and his gambling project is the third of his three major ethnographic investigations. Goffman’s study of gambling is a key component in his sociology because it (a) develops a conceptual approach to the study of the interaction order, (b) extends Parsons’ and Merton’s analysis of social action and social control, and (c) links the microeconomic analysis of the social world that he associated with Thomas Schelling that has become the mainstay of the …

Can We Scale Up Goffman? From Vegas To The World Stage, Jeffrey J. Sallaz

UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal

It is an all-too-common lament among sociologists that Erving Goffman, though his writings remain widely read and respected today, failed to spawn an ongoing and cohesive research tradition. His idiosyncratic methods of data collection, the uniqueness of his biographical trajectory, and even his prickly personality have all been invoked to explain the lack of a distinctly Goffmanian school of research (Gamson 1985; Scheff, Phillips, and Kincaid 2006; Smith 2006; Shalin 2014). It is also the case that micro-oriented sociologies, such as symbolic interactionism and especially ethnomethodology, have been pushed to the margins of sociology as a consequence of the ascendency …

Goffman, Action, And Risk Society: Aesthetic Reflexivity In Late Modernity, Stephen Lyng

UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal

When I decided to write about edgework over twenty-five years ago, I had no idea that I had put myself on a pathway of sustained engagement with one of the most important sociologists of the twentieth century. As an academic sociologist in the early stages of my career, I felt that I had a good general understanding of Erving Goffman’s most important ideas and a proper appreciation of his unique contributions to my discipline. Although I had a certain affinity for Goffman’s brand of sociology, I deliberately avoided pressure from close friends and colleagues to become a “Goffmaniac,” the kind …

Las Vegas As A Symbol: Goffman And Competing Narratives Of Sin City, Michael Green

UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal

Dmitri Shalin has demonstrated the importance of Erving Goffman to the field of sociology, and in this case to the sociology of Las Vegas as a gambling, resort, and urban center. But Goffman also was part of a trend, or more accurately what became a trend, and he played an important role in it. When Goffman came to Las Vegas in the late 1950s and early 1960s in connection with his field work as a downtown casino dealer, “the city of non-homes,” as he called it, was at a turning point in a variety of ways. When he published his …

Erving Goffman’S Las Vegas: From Jungle To Boardroom, David G. Schwartz

UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal

Sociologist Erving Goffman’s presence in Las Vegas never yielded a definitive publication. Though it informed his work about action and interaction, his time in Las Vegas—both as a blackjack dealer and a player—remains one of the great what-ifs of gambling academia. This is regrettable, not only because the field would have benefited immeasurably from the analysis of a figure of Goffman’s talent and repute, but because Goffman was in Las Vegas exactly as the city’s casino business was undergoing its most significant shift, from small-scale, syndicate-owned ventures with links to former and current illegal enterprises elsewhere to massive, publicly-traded, mainstream-financed …

Erving Goffman, Fateful Action, And The Las Vegas Gambling Scene, Dmitri N. Shalin

UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal

This paper explores Erving Goffman’s research on gambling, the historical context within which he articulated his views on risk taking, and the contribution he made to our understanding of gambling as a stigmatized social activity. Drawing on the large database assembled in the Erving Goffman Archives, the article traces Goffman’s footprint in Las Vegas and shows the personal as well as scholarly dimensions of his interest in betting practices in entertainment venues and risk taking in society at large. The argument is made that the theory of fateful action presented in the seminal study “Where the Action Is” remains a …

Nevada Gaming Revenue: A Comparative Analysis Of Slots And Tables, Scott Boylan

Occasional Papers

Throughout much of its existence, Nevada’s gambling industry has been dominated by table games. Historically, slot machines were of secondary importance because they did not generate much revenue and were costly to maintain and operate. Starting in the late 1970s, a series of technological milestones improved the form and function of slot machines, and fueled replacement cycles on casino floors. Nevada gaming revenue data provides evidence of the economic effects of these improvements. Since 1984, slots generally have produced larger revenue gains than tables, although those gains are distributed neither uniformly over time nor across gaming markets. In addition, slots …

Service, Sale And Marketing Of Alcohol For The Tourism, Hospitality And Retail Industries, James Peter Murphy

Conference papers

The responsible service, sale and marketing of alcohol for the tourism, hospitality and retail industries is crucial those working in the tourism, hospitality, culinary arts and retail industries including those in supervisory and management positions. This presentation explored a wide range of topics associated with sale and service of alcohol in these inter-related industries. Its aim was to provide attendees with a greater awareness of the effects of alcohol, and of their moral and legal obligations to act responsibly when supplying alcohol beverages or when dealing with alcohol misuse in their respective workplace. This presentation was also created to coincide …

Overcoming Fraud & Dishonesty In The Hospitality Industry, James Peter Murphy

Conference papers

The licensed industry is an increasingly competitive market place, many bars have responded by empowering staff and undertaking structural and management reforms in recent years. Undoubtedly, these changes have significantly raised the levels of customer service and enhanced customer satisfaction. Paradoxically these changes, combined with the responsibilities allocated to bar staff and management to supervise and manage bars with autonomous control have created more fertile conditions, scope and opportunity for dishonest actions by staff members.

The way licensed premises approach the issue of staff fraud is changing in response to the increased risk. Many bars have historically been anxious to …

State Lotteries And The New American Dream, Jonathan D. Cohen

Occasional Papers

This paper analyzes state lotteries in the economic and cultural context of the late twentieth century. As access to traditional meritocratic advancement declined, many Americans perceived lotteries as new means of attaining increasingly elusive upward mobility. Their turn to lotteries was facilitated by grassroots coalitions as well as lottery advertisers who claimed lotteries as effective means of making money. The relationship of lotteries and social mobility reveals the full implications of lottery playing in the United States and the reasons this form of gambling has assumed new importance as providing access to the American Dream.

Tales From The Pit: Casino Table Games Managers In Their Own Words, David Schwartz

UNLV Gaming Press Books

Dealing in a casino presents challenges and rewards not seen in many workplaces. With hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake every minute, casinos are high-stress workplaces. Managing a casino workforce brings stresses of its own.

A Brave New World Of Ambient Intelligence In The Casinos Of Macau: Reality Or Fiction?, Hugo Luz Dos Santos Mr.

UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal

The article scrutinizes the brave new world of ambient intelligence in the casinos of the Macau, Special Administrative Region of People´s Republic of China, chiefly in regards to the (candent) issue of privacy of the casino patrons.

Moreover, this scientific article provides an overview about the secondary use of big data of the casino patrons for law enforcement purposes.

Becoming Respectable: A History Of Early Social Responsibility In The Las Vegas Casino Industry, Jessalynn R. Strauss

UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal

Today’s gaming corporations actively engage with their communities by supporting nonprofit organizations and adopting environmentally friendly practices among other socially responsible actions. This research considers precursors to modern corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the gaming industry by examining the philanthropic activities of the casino owners in Las Vegas in the early days of its development. This historical look at early philanthropy in the gaming industry provides a contextual background for considering contemporary corporate social responsibility. While the gaming industry has clearly come a long way from its early ties to organized crime, an understanding of this context helps further discussion …

Municipal Tourism Promotion: Mid-Size Cities In The United States, Peggy O. Shields

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

The competitive environment in the tourism industry requires municipalities interested in attracting tourists’ dollars to strategically manage city resources. Often public and private sector bodies cooperate and combine their efforts and resources to promote visitation to a city emphasizing the desire to maximize the limited resources of each available for tourism promotion. To succeed cities are challenged with finding an identity, or ‘personality’ that has a unique combination of functional and symbolic attributes to differentiate themselves from countless other destination options (Hankinson 2001). A city’s distinctiveness can be built on many different characteristics, such as cultural events and institutions, sporting …

The Perceptions Of Macao Undergraduates Regarding Help Websites For Problem Gambling, Chang Boon Patrick Lee, Heng Tang, Wing Han Brenda Chan

UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal

This study conducted a web-surfing exercise and a questionnaire survey among a group of Macao undergraduate students regarding the websites that offered help with problem gambling. The results of this study found that most help websites in Macao and Hong Kong provided basic information-sharing service. The students indicated that they would choose their preferred help organization based on factors such as trust, familiarity, and the characteristics of the websites. They also gave comments/suggestions related to the publicity, design, contents, and focus of the websites. This study discussed the results and their implications for future research and practice.