Business Commons^™

A Comparison Of Clustered And Isolated Casino Performance In Missouri, Douglas M. Walker, Todd M. Nesbit

UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal

This paper utilizes data on Missouri’s casino industry to examine how clustered casinos, such as those in Kansas City and St. Louis, perform compared to dispersed or isolated casinos, such as those in Boonville, Caruthersville, La Grange, and St. Joseph. Missouri limits the number of casino licenses allowed; however, it does not explicitly mandate casino locations. Missouri provides a unique natural experiment for comparing location model performance. Although there is no published research on which type of casino location model is more effective for generating industry revenues and associated taxes, state legislatures have nevertheless been following an isolated casino location …

Third-Party Responsible Gambling Accreditation Programs Are Related To Short-Term Improvements At Casinos But No Ongoing Gains: Evidence From Rg Check, Kahlil S. Philander

UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal

This study examines how casino operators’ responsible gambling program performance changes after entering a third-party assurance program. Using de-identified responsible gambling accreditation data from the 75 casinos employing the “RG Check” program from 2012 to April 2019, this study finds that casino scores improved in the first reaccreditation period (p < .001, d = 0.92), but failed to improve in the second reaccreditation (p < .78, d = 0.38). Much of the first reaccreditation changes appear to be a result of one-time improvement in the scores of lower performing venues. There also appears to be inconsistent improvements in tactical areas of RG …

Problem Gambling And Cognitive Distortions Among Macao Vip Hosts: A Brief Report, Tiange Xu, Brett Abarbanel, Mehmet Erdem, Bo J. Bernhard, Shane W. Kraus

UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal

This report investigates the understudied group of VIP Hosts in Macao casinos, who cater to high rollers and may be more vulnerable to problem gambling due to their exposure to heavy betting. To comprehensively profile their gambling behaviors and cognitions, we conducted an anonymous online survey using the Chinese Version of South Oaks Gambling Screen (C-SOGS) and the Gambling Fallacies Measure (GFM). Given the difficulty of accessing this population, we employed the snowball sampling technique to recruit eligible participants. Our analysis included data from 41 participants, and the findings revealed high levels of gambling-related cognitive distortions among VIP Hosts. In …

Payments Transaction Data From Online Casino Players And Online Sports Bettors, Kasra Ghaharian, Piyush Puranik, Brett Abarbanel, Kazem Taghva, Shane W. Kraus, Ashok Singh, Alan Feldman, Bo Bernhard

International Gaming Institute Faculty Publications

Raw datasets were sourced from a U.S. based provider of digital gambling payments systems, who has demanded to remain anonymous. The raw datasets cover a time period of 6-years (2015-2021), representing over 300,000 customers and approximately 90 million transaction records. One of these raw datasets is a transaction log file representing customer payment transaction data across a variety of gambling merchants (e.g., online casinos, sportsbooks, and lottery providers). With this article we describe the transaction log file and provide two filtered subsets of the data. The subsets contain 1-year of customer payments transaction records for two gambling merchants: (1) a …

The Critical But Overlooked Player Protection Tool: Self Care For Customer Facing Staff, Stacy Shaw, Jay Robinson

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

BACKGROUND

Like many things, the need for self-care for staff came to light because of the pandemic. Every day, Oregon Lottery staff would go out and deal with angry, frightened, confused, frustrated, and sometimes aggressive players and retailers. People struggling with all kinds of stress, acting out and exhibiting behaviors that might normally suggest the need for an RG conversation. We started to hear that the staff was feeling overwhelmed, burned out, powerless, unheard, unappreciated, unable to connect. We were asking them to promote RG during this difficult time - but we had not given them the tools they needed …

Covid-19 In Casinos: Analysis Of Covid-19 Contamination And Spread With Economic Impact Assessment, Anastasia (Stasi) D. Baran, Jason D. Fiege

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic caused tremendous disruption for casinos, with the virus causing various lengths of shutdowns, capacity restrictions, and social distancing strategies such as machine removals or section closures. Although most of the world has now eased off these measures, it is important to review lessons learned to understand, and better prepare for similar circumstances in the future. We present Monte Carlo slot floor simulation software customized to simulate players spreading COVID-19 on the slot floor. We simulate the amount of touch surface contamination; the number of potential surface contact exposure events per day, and a proximity exposures statistic …

The Las Vegas Loyalty Battle Is Over. What’S Next?, Oliver Lovat

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

The strategic mission by Las Vegas casino operators to capture customer loyalty over the past decade has been a success. In 2021, 57% of visitors were generally loyal to a particular resort, compared to 32% in 2011. Only 7% of visitors were not a member of any rewards program in 2021, compared to 16% in 2011.

This has consequences for new market entrants who face a greater challenge to capture customers in a more mature, consolodated and strategic business environment.

Moreover, the drivers of loyalty remain different within the various customer segments, with the new generation of visitors responding less …

Payments Data In Gambling Research, Kasra Ghaharian, Mana Azizsoltani

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

A considerable body of gambling-related research has leveraged gamblers' behavioral tracking data to address a broad set of research questions. These data have typically comprised of gamblers' betting-related behaviors including, for example, the frequency and volume of betting. The analysis of gamblers' payment-related behavioral data is far less common, but provides a fruitful avenue gambling-related research.

In this presentation we discuss a selection of potential research opportunities that payments transaction data presents. We supplement this discussion with specific analyses that have been performed by our research group. We also discuss knowledge gaps and areas for future research.

The Locals Casino As A Social Network – Can An Interconnected Community Of Players Detect Differences In Hold?, Jason D. Fiege, Anastasia (Stasi) D. Baran

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Abstract

It is difficult for individual players to detect differences in theoretical hold between slot machines without playing an unrealistically large number of games. This difficulty occurs because the fractional loss incurred by a player converges only slowly to the theoretical hold in the presence of volatility designed into slot pay tables. Nevertheless, many operators believe that players can detect changes in hold or differences compared to competition, especially in a locals casino market, and therefore resist increasing holds. Instead of investigating whether individual players can detect differences in hold, we ask whether a population of casino regulars who share …

Analysis Of The Changing Behaviours Of Chinese Genz Towards Casino Tourism: Implications To The Asian Markets, Linqian Huang

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Abstract

While the Chinese GenX spend largely in gambling activities during their visits to the destinations which are famous for their casino tourism industry, the GenY have shown less enthusiasm to be the high rollers. Regarding the Chinese GenZ, their spending behaviours in casino tourism will continue to exhibit changes and differences comparing to the GenX and GenY, especially for the non-gaming expenditure. Considering the potential purchasing power of GenZ, it is important for integrated resorts operators to understand the changing consumption behaviour of this new generation. For this, online questionnaire survey and analysis of narratives are employed to explore …

The House Doesn't Always Win, Jennifer Owen

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

In June 2015, fourteen South Korean casino executives were arrested on charges of soliciting Chinese players to gamble in their casinos. This single event foreshadowed a seismic change in the Australian casino market that few would have anticipated. The events which unfolded led to the two largest casino operators in Australia being found unsuitable to operate their casinos, and unable to hold their licenses. Collectively, these two casino groups reported revenues of $5.0bn in 2019, accounting for 92% of the total Australian casino market.

Both are now operating under various forms of special supervision until it can be demonstrated that …

Regulating A Fantasy For A Billion: Playing On A Smartphone In India, Angshuman Hazarika

UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal

The fantasy gaming industry in India has moved forward at an unprecedented pace with limited oversight primarily based on 'self-regulation'. The absence of a clear regulatory mechanism for this industry has been highlighted in previous work, but no clear determination has been provided on how to deal with this issue. The current contribution seeks to provide a path ahead by suggesting that the government regulate the industry directly instead of an industry-operated self-regulatory framework which has had limited effectiveness till now. This suggestion has been made considering the significant size of the industry and the target demographic of the fantasy …