Gaming
Author: Chuck Kapelke
April 2007
Features
After reeling in the last bets of the night during a recent trip to Las Vegas, I began to pay attention to some of the organizational dynamics playing out across the casino.
Lo and behold, amid all the weird digi-jangle of slot machines, all the cries for “cocktails,” and all the shouting and whooping about hot rolls and jackpots, the games on the casino floor started to feel like one big team-building exercis-a-ganza.I looked upon a craps table and watched as a group of five men all placed the same bet, one after the other, on each roll of the dice. Turns out that four of the guys were following the actions of the one among them who knew what he was doing. While the casino’s surveillance cameras might have mistaken their play for a five-armed man, or perhaps a well-honed crew stroke, the reality was that they were working as a highly efficient team. As luck would have it, they were winning, and as they won, they won together.
It was a lesson in the importance of leadership, of trust, of teamwork and of the joy of shared success—carrying the kind of messages that one would otherwise only find, well, on some manager’s Power Point presentation in the banquet room next door.
At another table nearby, I watched two groups of total strangers bond instantly. They shrieked and shared high-fives, just moments after laying eyes upon each other for the first time. Why? Because they had all just won together in the course of battle against a common enemy: the “house.” Sure, one or two (or all) of them probably lost a little cash by the end of the night, but that’s the chance one has to take to make the big bucks.
Indeed, casino gambling (or gaming, as it is more politely called these days) offers players a chance to encounter countless invaluable business lessons—about money management, self-discipline, risk-taking and cost-benefit analysis—while enjoying all the free cocktails and pumped-in oxygen they can drink.
“There’s risk in any business, an element of the unknown,” says David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. “Gambling in a casino is really just compressing that into a shorter time. Instead of playing that risk out over a quarter or year, you see it played out right there before your very eyes.”
It’s a funny thing about gambling: people love to do it. “Humans didn’t evolve to sit in air-conditioned offices,” Schwartz adds. “They evolved to sit out in the savannah and the rainforest, looking for food and trying to outwit predators. Chance is a part of life, and so is hunger for chance. Going into a casino and betting 50 dollars is a way to contain that.”
Beyond the anthropological aspect, though, there are more pragmatic reasons to hold a business meeting at a gaming property. First and foremost, hotels with casinos tend to offer price value. While that is changing in many places—including the Vegas Strip, the Emerald City of the gaming universe—most properties with casinos still charge lower-than-usual rates for rooms on the assumption that they’ll get it back from guests in spades...or clubs, hearts or diamonds.
Inexpensive rates abound. During the same trip to Vegas, I stayed at the Golden Nugget on a weekend, in a huge Rainman-esque king spa suite with a sweeping circular staircase and a two-story window overlooking downtown Las Vegas. The price? $329 per night—less than a standard room rate at many luxury properties, and a sure treat for a corporate bigwig.
Starting to sound good? You’re in luck. Casino properties are more widely available than ever before, thanks to the breakthrough of casino-style gambling in locations outside of Vegas and Reno, such as tribal casinos, riverboats and other areas where gaming has been legalized.
“Regardless of where you live, you’re generally within a tank of gas of a casino,” says Jim Thomason, general manager for the Agua Caliente Spa Resort Casino, in Palm Springs. “People have a good understanding of the product, and that’s a good selling point. And for people who aren’t interested, there are usually other amenities.”
Ah, the amenities: that brings us to the next main reason for gaming properties’ new appeal: decadent frills galore. With the rise of casinos everywhere, gaming properties have de-emphasized the importance of casinos in their overall operations, shining their lights (and financial resources) instead on a vast buffet of adjunct amenities, like hip hotels, restaurants, spas, golf courses, and retail stores.
After all, why go to Las Vegas, when they’ve got a riverboat nearby? Because riverboat casinos don’t have the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building and an Egyptian pyramid—not to mention Elton John, Prince, Cirque du Soleil, and Blue Man Group, oh, and unlimited license to indulge in “what stays in Vegas”—all in the space of a few square miles.
Whereas in the old days, hotels were built around the casinos, these days, the casinos are put forward as just another form of fun (though behind the scenes, they are still by far casinos’ most lucrative operational area).
“When I first came to Las Vegas, planners worried that they would lose attendees to gaming,” says Don Ross, vice president of meeting operations for Harrahs Entertainment, Inc. “There was a time when the IBM’s and Sony’s would not book Las Vegas because of the stigma around gaming, but now we’re much more corporate America, not the good old boys from Chicago. There’s more of an understanding that it’s a legitimate business. Gaming’s just another source of entertainment, of excitement.”
The larger these operations get, the more their owners must make sure that they keep spinning 24/7—and the more attention they are wont to lavish on the meetings business. It’s a match made in heaven. The more casinos turn into sophisticated, genuinely luxurious all-in-one destinations with all sorts of built-in incentive prizes, group
activities, special event sites, and oh, yeah, massive meeting spaces, the more planners reap the benefits.
The logistics of planning an event at a meeting property tend to be pretty darn easy because for some inexplicable reason, gaming properties tend to be put in places that are easy to get to. “Casinos tend to be very accessible, located near main arteries or interstates,” says Thomason. “And there’s usually a lot of built-in name recognition. Plus, gaming properties are staffed 24 hours a day. If there’s a need for a group, there are people who can help around the clock.”
The sales teams at gaming properties are more than happy to reach out with clever ideas about tying gaming in to your meeting. “We’ll send to the planner or incentive buyer various decks of cards,” says Steve Lowe, director of sales for Harrah’s/Harvey’s, in Lake Tahoe. “Then they send out one card with each of five mailings. Then the attendees bring their cards to the event, and the person with the best poker hand wins something. Or maybe the worst hands. It’s just a fun teaser to encourage attendance or get people thinking.”
Once on the ground, you can use gaming as a theme for a welcome reception. Most properties can supply a dealer and a table to give lessons or offer an “Introduction to Gaming” to the group. Harrah’s/Harvey’s, in South Lake Tahoe, offers a pre-designed “Party Blackjack” event: guests get $250 worth of chips to try their luck at tables with “Celebrity Dealers” and wacky MC’s calling the bets. Add-ons include themed table arrangements, fireworks and laser effects with logo simulation.
Should you choose to go there, a gaming theme offers up all sorts of easy tie-ins for a business meeting. “I saw a group of motorcycle dealers from across the country, and it was their sales meeting, where they got their bonuses,” says Schwartz. “They had a big presentation, and they brought out showgirls carrying their bonuses in the form of brief cases filled with casino chips. It made it more fun, more interesting.”
“A lot of the motivational speakers we bring here reference gaming,” says Ross. “Some speakers will use the gaming, the jackpots, the wheels as a theme. We’ve also done meetings where you can bring in a former World Series of Poker champion and have him as a moderator.”
The casinos offer a place for an activity before or after meetings, or as a spousal activity. “We do a spouse program where we take them on to the casino floor and teach them craps,” says Ross. “It’s a bit of education and sure, it benefits the casino, but if I brought my wife to a hockey game, she’d want me to tell her how the game works so she could understand it.”
Another option from many gaming properties: take your group outside of the casino and into the natural outdoors. “We’re located in a beautiful recreation area. Gaming is just an enhancement to that recreation, to the overall entertainment,” says Lowe of Harrah’s/Harvey’s. “You don’t have to have as many planned activities.”
Regardless of who you talk to, one key point about planning a meeting at a gaming property comes up again and again: do not over plan. “The only challenges I’ve encountered are when the group tries to keep their attendees occupied every night,” says Brian Gay, director of convention sales at Mandalay Bay Convention Center. “You don’t want to keep people occupied all four nights. Leave time to enjoy what Vegas has to offer.”
Harrah’s Ross agrees. “The only thing I keep telling meeting planners is, you’re not coming to Dallas, you don’t have to keep people occupied in a bar or banquet hall all night. If you want to have a welcome reception, do it until 8:30, don’t do it until 11, so people can go out and check out the city. If you can’t afford a big-night entertainer, you can still have a great dinner or party, then get the people over to a show.”
So what are the downsides of having a meeting at a gaming property? One common concern for some clients is that the casinos will lure people away from the business at hand, though those who watch group after group come through don’t see it that way. “If a person comes to go to a meeting, they’ll go to a meeting,” Ross says. “If they didn’t skip a meeting to go gaming, they might have had a 10 o’clock meeting with the right pillow, or had a 9:30 tee time. We don’t lose any more people to our meetings than they do in Dallas and Cleveland—and we probably lose less than they do in Hawaii.”
Perhaps the biggest disadvantage to a gaming property are some of the spoils of casinos’ success: the crowds, particularly in places like Las Vegas, where about 100,000 new visitors arrive each day, on average. And of course, the casinos still have their detractors, if not for the “sin” factor (though there will always be those for whom business and that much pleasure shall never mix), but for the perception that from a player’s perspective, gaming, well, doesn’t make much business sense, in the long-term anyway.
Short-term versus long-term payoffs? Add it to the business lesson. “In business, if you’re experiencing adversity, you can put more money or marketing into it. But in gambling, if you’re 500 in the hole, gambling another 500 won’t take you out of the hole,” says Schwartz.
But who needs to think too much about that whole “losing” business? It can’t be good for luck. Just remember, before you build a whole itinerary around gambling, you should make sure your client is on board. And make sure there are enough non-casino activities to keep a client happy.
“The casino aspect of it does not affect the meetings,” says Gay. “It’s an entertainment, it’s somewhere for them to go in the evening.
But with all the shows and restaurants, there’s a lot more to do. And there’s a real focus on the meetings industry; it’s the driving force in the industry right now.”
